Insomnia

INSOMNIAMaclean’s cover story Insomnia: The truth about a modern epidemicIf you spent last night tossing and turning during a familiar bout with insomnia, you’re not alone; about one in seven Canadian adults has regular trouble sleeping. So it’s no surprise we’re obsessed with all things nocturnal – from sleeping pills to Posturepedic mattresses to proper Feng Shui, we’ll do anything to get a good night’s rest.Macleans.ca talked to Elliott Marchant, a sleep researcher and psychology professor at Malaspina University-College in B.C., about what goes on when we sleep, why some people are insomniacs, and how to train yourself to be a good sleeper.Macleans.ca: Is there a certain type of person, either because of their biology or their lifestyle, who is more prone to insomnia?
Elliott Marchant: That’s a pretty big question, but I’ll try to give you a simple answer: I believe the answer is yes. I believe there’s a large percentage of people out there who have very fast brains, and those people have a hard time stopping their thoughts. Those people tend to have a problem with insomnia. I also believe there’s a large group of people out there, like myself, who have very sleepy brains. I’m always drinking coffee, and I’m always on the verge of falling asleep. So I’m always trying to give myself stimulation.But everybody has busy and slow times in our lives, and when we get busy and have lots on our plate, we tend to think about those things when we get into bed. So even somebody like me, who almost never has problems sleeping, will have problems sleeping when I’m particularly busy and have to keep track of
lots of details. I can get into bed and start thinking about those details and next thing you know, it’s three o’clock in the morning and I’m getting up trying to make a list so I can actually get to sleep. So I believe insomnia is basically caused by an inability to shut down our thoughts. Looking at things that stimulate that, one is your genetic makeup, and one is your environment – what you’ve got going on in your life.M: What is good sleep hygiene?
EM: It’s sort of like having good physical hygiene. It means going to bed at the same time every night and having a routine; not using the bedroom for anything other than sleep, and of course sex – but not working in bed or eating in bed or watching TV in bed. Our bodies love being on a schedule – it’s so much healthier for us. Practicing good sleep hygiene, I think, would solve about seven out of 10 insomnia cases. [The problem is] people say they don’t want to do those things but they want good sleep.Do you think too many people take sleeping pills, or take them too often?
EM: Yes. Sleeping isn’t a gift; it’s a skill, and you have to work at it. You can’t just expect good sleep. You almost have to train, like you would if you wanted to be a good squash player or a good runner. And the way that you train is you practice good sleep hygiene, you go to bed at the same time every night. I don’t like anybody having any dependence on any substance, whether it’s an over-the-counter medication or a prescribed medication or an alternative [health supplement]. Then your body doesn’t work at getting to sleep, you don’t understand your own sleep patterns and the next thing you know, you’re hooped if you want to sleep normally.M: What about people who can fall asleep, but can’t stay asleep?
EM: That’s a completely different sleep problem. We all wake up five times a night. Most people are fortunate enough not to remember them. We wake up, we check the environment – during those times, if someone whispered your name or the cat rolled over or there was a tap at the door, you would hear it and fully wake up. But most of the time we roll over, we sense our environment and, if everything’s hunky-dory, we go right back to sleep. We’re designed to forget the fact that we woke up a bunch of times. The problem becomes when people wake up and they can’t get back to sleep, and those people tend to think a lot. They wake up, they go to the bathroom, they come back and lie in bed and the next thing you know, they’re thinking about the next day at work or what they forgot to do or whatever. The only thing that’s ever been shown to help those people is aerobic exercise. Exercise also helps with another type of insomnia, called early morning insomnia, where people wake up at four or five o’clock in
the morning and don’t get back to sleep at all.M: Most of the advice out there tends to recommend exercising three or four hours before bed. Do you agree with that?
EM: Yes, but everyone’s clock is a little bit different. I might be a really good morning exerciser; you might be a good afternoon exerciser and someone else might be a good early evening exerciser. The only way you’re going to figure that out is by having a rhythm analysis over the course of two weeks, or by just keeping a journal and keeping track of when you’ve exercised and when you’ve slept well. The reason people don’t recommend you exercise right before sleep is because your system gets going. But as long as you stop an hour or two before you go to bed, you’re usually okay.From Maclean’s MagazineThis next article is written by Glen RhodesOk, I’ve been talking to people for a long time about the fact that you can get by on 6 or even 4.5 hours of sleep per day without question. The secret is NOT the amount of sleep, but rather the number itself; a multiple of 90 minutes will change your life.
1.5 hours

3 hours

4.5 hours

6 hours

7.5 hours
Those are the sleep quantities that you should aim to get, and those are what your body will naturally take, removing the alarm clock. Guaranteed. Go to sleep without an alarm clock, and watch what times you naturally wake up at. It will be a multiple of 90 minutes from when you first went to bed. This 90 minutes is known as a sleep cycle, and it’s how I live my life.
Typically, I sleep 3 hours a night, and nap for 90 minutes in the evening. That’s a total of 4.5 hours, and I am always alert, always awake and always feel rested and refreshed. Read on for more details…“A group of Harvard scientists trained volunteers to perform a visual task that required them to learn how to recognize certain patterns as they flashed quickly on the computer screen. When the subjects were tested 10 hours later, those who had taken a 90-minute nap did much better than those who didn’t nap. In fact, they did as well as people who got a full night’s sleep in a previous study” -
http://www.sleepfoundation.org/Alert/030730.cfmHere’s something from the Center for Applied Cognitive Studies (http://centacs.com)“Studies show that the length of sleep is not what causes us to be refreshed upon waking. The key factor is the number of complete sleep cycles we enjoy. Each sleep cycle contains five distinct phases, which exhibit different brain- wave patterns. For our purposes, it suffices to say that one sleep cycle lasts an average of 90 minutes: 65 minutes of normal, or non-REM (rapid eye movement), sleep; 20 minutes of REM sleep (in which we dream); and a final 5 minutes of non-REM sleep. The REM sleep phases are
shorter during earlier cycles (less than 20 minutes) and longer during later ones (more than 20 minutes).
If we were to sleep completely naturally, with no alarm clocks or other sleep disturbances, we would wake up, on the average, after a multiple of 90 minutes–for example, after 4 1/2 hours, 6 hours, 7 1/2 hours, or 9 hours, but not after 7 or 8 hours, which are not multiples of 90 minutes. In the period between cycles we are not actually sleeping: it is a sort of twilight zone from which, if we are not disturbed (by light, cold, a full bladder, noise), we move into another 90-minute cycle. A person who sleeps only four cycles (6 hours) will feel more rested than someone who has slept for 8 to 10 hours but who has not been allowed to complete any one cycle because of being awakened before it was completed….It explains why, when I get 8 hours of sleep I feel tired and groggy, or when I get 4 hour of sleep, I can barely wake up. As human beings, we should know about this fact, as everyone always says “get your 8 hours”. Yet some people fare better than others. Why is that? Probably because the more rested people are actually getting closer to 7.5, or 9 hours, while the 8 hour folk feel constantly unrested.
It is said that many of the most productive people in history have understood and practiced this. Leonardo Da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Buckminster Fuller used this *exact* technique. Other great minds likewise used naps to their advantage including Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Napoleon, and Winston Churchhill. Naps are the key to direct Theta brainwave access. Theta brainwaves are the brainwaves of hyper awareness. The more theta you have during your waking hours, the more creatively intelligent you are–it’s really that simple.
As far as longevity, Fuller lived to 87. DaVinci into his late 60’s. –Both lived over DOUBLE the average life expectancy of the men of their time.
It explains why, when I get 8 hours of sleep I feel tired and groggy, or when I get 4 hour of sleep, I can barely wake up. As human beings, we should know about this fact, as everyone always says “get your 8 hours”. Yet some people fare better than others. Why is that? Probably because the more rested people are actually getting closer to 7.5, or 9 hours, while the 8 hour folk feel constantly unrested. It is said that many of the most productive people in history have understood and practiced this. Leonardo Da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Buckminster Fuller used this *exact* technique. Other great minds likewise used naps to their advantage including Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Napoleon, and Winston Churchhill. Naps are the key to direct Theta brainwave access. Theta brainwaves are the brainwaves of hyper awareness. The more theta you have during your waking hours, the more creatively intelligent you are–it’s really that simple. As far as longevity, Fuller lived to 87. DaVinci into his late 60’s. –Both lived over DOUBLE the average life expectancy of the men of their time.It explains why, when I get 8 hours of sleep I feel tired and groggy, or when I get 4 hour of sleep, I can barely wake up. As human beings, we should know about this fact, as everyone always says “get your 8 hours”. Yet some people fare better than others. Why is that? Probably because the more rested people
are actually getting closer to 7.5, or 9 hours, while the 8 hour folk feel constantly unrested.
It is said that many of the most productive people in history have understood and practiced this. Leonardo Da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Buckminster Fuller used this *exact* technique. Other great minds likewise used naps to their advantage including Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Napoleon, and Winston Churchhill. Naps are the key to direct Theta brainwave access. Theta brainwaves are the brainwaves of hyper awareness. The more theta you have during your waking hours, the more creatively intelligent you are–it’s really that simple.
As far as longevity, Fuller lived to 87. DaVinci into his late 60’s. –Both lived over DOUBLE the average life epectancy of the men of their time.
Monophasic sleep is the “norm” for North American culture. We sleep at night, and work during the day. Polyphasic sleep consists of multiple sleep/ wake incidents scattered throughout the day. A sleep schedule with an afternoon nap is an example of polyphasic sleep. There is evidence to suggest that humans were originally suited to a polyphasic sleeping routine, rather than the arbitrary monophasic one that we are used to. For starters, almost all animals in nature conform to polyphasic behavior. In addition, polyphasic behavior is the predominant mode of sleeping for human infants, and even in the later years, children have to slowly be weaned from the afternoon nap. Furthermore, when people are isolated from the external environment - so that they cannot determine the actual time of the day from natural cues such as sunlight, or artificial cues such as clocks or television programs - they tend to exhibit more napping behavior instead of retaining the single monophasic sleep period during the “night.”
Finally, it appears that naps - relatively brief sessions of sleep - are more effective in refreshing the mind, than longer periods of sleep. In a sense, we were taught to “unlearn” this natural way of sleeping, when we had to adjust to the arbitrary 9-to-5 schedule.Measure the length of your sleep cycle. 90 minutes is a good average, but for some people it is different.
Mine has actually changed in the last few years from 90 to about 75. Now, if I hit the pillow at 7:00, I wake up for the first time at 8:15. Never, ever using an alarm clock. Because of the change in sleep cycle length, I now get 4 cycles per day. Usually three late at night, and one in the evening.The key thing is, it MUST be divided up into two distinct sleep sessions per day. It’s not enough to just get 4.5 hours and say “that’s my sleep done for today”. You’ll have a hell of a time staying awake for the remaining 19+ hours. You’ve got to divide it into two (or more) sleep sessions. The REM sleep you achieve has to be spaced throughout the day for it to have the proper “flushing” effect.For anyone interested, here’s a picture I found that shows what sleep cycles “look like” on an EEG:
http://img31.exs.cx/img31/9306/sp.jpgDisclaimer: I’m not a doctor, I’m not a therapist, or anything of the sort. I’m just a guy who discovered this by accident, experienced it, then looked it up to see if there was any research into stuff like this. It started because I was getting less sleep at night, and was tired, so I started having naps after work (at first, accidentally on the couch), but found unexpectedly that it suddenly rejuvinated me the next day, and made everything else easily doable. The rest was history.

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