Sleepless in the White House

How long do you think you would last if your alarm rang at 4 am every morning and you often didn't stop working until very late at night? Your days last 18 hours, 7 days a week, but you're expected to be on-call for 24 hours. And you're not a physician who can take several weeks of vacation a year. OK, the vacation part is a joke!

The Washington Post published an article this week detailing the grueling lifestyles of the people working in the West Wing. It's bad. It's worse than anything depicted on the TV drama. Highlights of some of the descriptions of people's days sound unbearable:

• To fit a workout in, staffers hit the gym around 5 am.
• Email with the day's bulletin land in Blackberries by 7, demanding attention.
• Meetings begin by 7:30.
• Staffers grab dinner around 8 pm and then head back to the office.
• Conference calls consume the weekends.
• Travel can entail an 8-day trip across 10 time zones. On such a trip, you manage to catch a few hours a night and then return home to get back to work before sunrise again.

And here's a detail that really stood out: The night before Obama announced the administration's housing plan earlier this year, one staff member e-mailed the final documents at 3 a.m. and asked for comments. Five people responded immediately!

The adrenaline rush that comes with winning the election and working for a president can only go so far. By now, as the article conveys, the fatigue and exhaustion is showing. White House staff  have been seen nodding off in meetings (a good thing: those microsleeps can actually help them), and I can only imagine the toll this takes on their families.

I would bet that every administration has grappled with this "ironman" syndrome, which is what my old friend Martin Moore-Ede, a former Harvard University professor, calls it. He adds that the American political workplace is one of the few that still resists a means for ensuring people get rest.

It doesn't help that there are so many issues on the agenda today: a new health care system, financial recovery plans, auto bailouts, Middle East peace, nuclear nonproliferation, two wars, and education reform. It also doesn't help that the expectations are so high.

Can there be a solution? Long days come with the territory in this field. Teaching sleep hygiene will fall on deaf ears. The only thing I can think of that would be realistic at the moment would be to install napping rooms in the White House where staffers can go get some legitimate shut-eye and try to recapture some of the hours left behind...on tarmacs...in meetings...and on the ongoing struggle to see us through the current agenda.

And how much does all this sleeplessness impact their overall health and longevity? Now that's a story for another day. If any of those staffers, or the President himself reads my blog, I'll dedicate or rather donate some of my time to teach them some solid sleep strategy!

Sweet Dreams,
Michael J. Breus, PhD, DABSM
The Sleep Doctor

This article about sleep in the White House can also be found on Dr. Breus's official blog, The Insomnia Blog.

Sleep Paralysis Gets Screentime – But Not as a Horror Flick

Ever wake up and it feels like your mind woke up but your body didn’t? Now that’s a nightmare in real time, and it can happen to anyone. And one that a team of film producers has made the subject of their documentary.

The phenomena is called sleep paralysis, which is characterized by a waking from REM sleep but the body remains paralyzed (it is supposed to be paralyzed in REM-so you do not act out your dreams!).

People who’ve experienced this, as chronicled in the film, report seeing or hearing a shadowy presence entering their room and approaching their bed. Feelings of dread descend but they are unable to cry for help. Some experience choking or chest squeezing to the point they think they are going to die. Not good.

Examinations into how and why this happens have turned up some interesting findings. People who experience sleep paralysis share a few things:

• They are often under the age of 25.
• They are usually sleep deprived.
• There appears to be a connection between sleep paralysis and post-traumatic stress.
• Improving sleep hygiene can help alleviate reoccurring sleep paralysis. So can talking about their experiences. Prayer and positive thinking also seems to help.
• It happens to almost everyone!!!

What do I think? I think this is an area that deserves more attention and study. It’s a shame that some doctors whose patients are brave enough to report their sleep paralysis can brand them as having a schizophrenic or psychotic episode.

Maybe this film will offer some observations for researchers to use. Good thing it wasn’t spun into a horror flick, though that probably could have made more money.

Sweet Dreams,
Michael J. Breus, PhD, DABSM
The Sleep Doctor

This article on sleep paralysis is also available at Dr. Breus's official blog, The Insomnia Blog.

Adolescents Are Losing Sleep Over "It"

"It" just keeps getting worse. And "it" is robbing our adolescents of the sleep they need to learn, be healthy, and probably feel good about themselves. What is "it"? A combination of things:

• Obesity
• Technology abuse
• Caffeine abuse
• Sleeplessness

Now that's a combination for poor health. Any one of these items can be addressed successfully, but together they blend to create a terribly difficult mountain to climb.

This week the big news networks reported on how much fatter we are all getting, from boomers to children. Not a single state shows signs of slimming down, and obesity rates among adults rose in 23 states over the past year.

Obesity rates among kids have skyrocketed. Now add to that another study that emerged this week indicating that obesity among teens is associated with less sleep. Two notable culprits: technology and sleep issues.

This is not a surprise when you think about it. The heavier you are, the higher your risk for sleep disorders like apnea and disruptive episodes of snoring – whether you're a teenager or fully-fledged adult. The more you stay plugged into technology tools late at night, the harder it can be to settle down and go to sleep.

I've talked about this vicious cycle before. Being overweight has its own host of health challenges and poor sleep over time then adds more layers of risks and further health challenges that are like nails in a coffin.

So if it's all a big Molotov cocktail, what is the solution?

Make it simple. I say, pick one. Start with what you think is the easiest task of all and work your way down:

1. Set a boundary for consuming caffeine. I like to recommend people limit caffeine significantly after 2 pm. Switch to green tea. Watch out for sodas and medications that also contain caffeine. I can see no reason why an adolescent should be ingesting caffeine, so for them it should be ZERO!
2. Go low-tech after a specific hour at night, or within two hours of bedtime. Shut down email, stop Internet surfing, turn off the cell phone.
3. Establish good sleep hygiene. If you think you suffer from sleep apnea, speak with your doctor. Sleep is not a luxury, and it shouldn't be that difficult to achieve on a regular basis.

If we don't see the trends in our waistlines change soon, we won't see changes in how well we sleep and feel day in and day out. Doesn't a world where everyone gets restful, rejuvenating sleep sound downright dreamy?

We'd have a happier, healthier planet.

Sweet Dreams,
Michael J. Breus, PhD, DABSM
The Sleep Doctor

This article on sleep is also available at Dr. Breus's official blog, The Insomnia Blog.

Better Marriage, Better Sleep

Does that really surprise anyone? A new study out of the University of Pittsburgh says that women who have stable marriages sleep better than women who are unmarried or who have lost a partner. The study also pointed out the fact women who start dating a new partner also sleep better as compared to their single – partner-less – counterparts.

Surely you and I can list several factors contributing to this result. (And I'd bet that if a study were performed on men, they'd find similar results.)

Let's be honest: a good relationship, married or not, often leads to:

• Lower stress
• Greater sense of well-being
• Perceived security
• Stronger financial stability (or at least a perceived sense of this)

All of these play into the quality of one's sleep. We can't also forget the fact studies have also proven that those in committed relationships tend to live longer than those who are not. A 2004 study, for example, indicated that married people are healthier than other adults.

So how can a person not in a relationship reap the health benefits of actually being in one? Can a single person really sleep as well as a married person? Absolutely. You just have to:

• Pay attention to sleep hygiene.
• Seek solutions to lower your stress.
• Plan well for your financial future so money issues don't keep you up at night. Financial woes seem to be the prime suspect in stress-related insomnia these days – whether you're single or not.
• Establish a really good circle of solid friends. You'd be amazed at what having a trusty group of friends can do to your emotional – and physical – health. Another recent study out of Australia has shown that having friends around may do more for your longevity than having family members around!

And what if your partner snores, keeping you up at night? After all, a marriage can be "stable" but snore-full. That, my friends, is another topic for another day. It would surely put a kink in the better-marriage hypothesis, but luckily most snoring issues can be dealt with – more easily than finding a soulmate.

This article on sleep is also available at Dr. Breus's official blog, The Insomnia Blog.