Sleep Satisfaction Blog

By Posted on Posted in Help Sleeping

In through your nose, out through your mouth. Out like a light. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if falling asleep easily was just as simple as breathing? Maybe it can be. You’ve likely noticed that you can change the way you feel almost instantly with a few breaths. You can rev up and energize with a few quick, powerful breaths. You’re able to focus your attention or calm down anger by taking several deep, steady breaths. You can relax and seemingly slow your world down by keeping your inhales and exhales slow and smooth. It’s even thought that certain breathing techniques …

Moon Breathing for Better Sleep? Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Sleep Hygiene

When your alarm clock goes off in the morning, do you a. immediately turn it off and bounce right out of bed? b. hit “snooze” and get a few more minutes of sleep? c. hit “snooze” repeatedly until the last possible moment? d. throw your alarm clock or cell phone across the room and sleep another hour and a half? According to surveys conducted in the past several years, over half of us in the U.S. regularly hit the snooze button at least once. One survey done in 2014 even notes that we spend an average of 3.5 months of …

Your Snooze Alarm: Bane or Blessing? Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Lifestyle

Intermittent fasting has been creating quite a buzz lately. It’s all the rage. Celebrity and entertainment magazines and websites tell us it’s what all the “cool kids” are doing. Just Google it and 62.5 million results show up. And that’s just for the term “intermittent fasting”. There are so many other ways of referring to this concept, and so many different strategies. It can feel completely overwhelming. And if acronyms and numbers drive you up the wall, well then, say hello to your ceiling. For example: IF is obvious, right? That’s plain old intermittent fasting. But here’s just a small …

Fast Asleep: Intermittent Fasting, That Is Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Seasons

I love the clear, sunny days of early summer. Everything bursts with color. Trees and lawns grow lush and green. Everywhere you look, flowers blossom in all the vibrant colors Mother Nature has to offer. Bees buzz and butterflies flutter around all that blooms. Birds sing their beautiful songs from the treetops. And there’s nothing like the feeling of warm sunshine on bare skin. Summer progresses, and it gets hot. Here in the southwest it gets really, really hot. Triple digits all summer, and over 110° is an all too common occurrence. I won’t even try to describe what 120° …

Sleeping Cooler in Hot Summer Months Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Holidays

Independence Day. Fourth of July. Whichever you prefer to call this quintessentially American holiday, it’s a day that means picnics, ball games, and pool parties. It’s all about hamburgers, hotdogs and ice cream. Sunglasses, shorts and sunburn. It’s often a much-needed day off work, and for lots of us, a couple of extra hours to sleep late. It can also mean fireworks being set off right in your neighborhood. Late into the night. In the yard next door or right behind you. Just yards away from your bedroom! I’m a fan of fireworks on the Fourth of July, and not …

Happy Independence Day! Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Sleep Aids

Late last month, the US Food and Drug Administration strengthened its warning label requirements on several brands of prescription sleep aids for side effects involving “rare but serious” cases of complex sleep behaviors. Complex sleep behaviors occur when someone who has taken a prescription sleep aid experiences sleepwalking or engages in some other activity like cooking, eating, or driving a car while in a sleep-like state. The subject usually has little or no memory of what they were doing once they wake up. The FDA has identified a handful of incidents in which these behaviors resulted in accidents causing serious …

New FDA Warning on Prescription Sleep Aids Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Seasons

I was wondering why May is “Better Sleep Month” and not February, July or October. Is there something special about May that means we should focus more on better sleep? Does it have something to do with our struggles to adjust to Daylight Saving Time? Or that the days are getting longer and it’s light earlier in the morning and later in the evening? Or is it that the weather is getting warmer, making it more of a challenge to keep our bedrooms cool and comfortable? None of the above. May is “Better Sleep Month” because the International Sleep Products Association …

May is Better Sleep Month Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Sleep Science

Sleep science is pretty new. Compared with other medical specialties, it’s just a baby. Prior to the 1950s, studies about human sleep were rarely being pursued. Isn’t that amazing? We’ve learned quite a lot about the biological mechanisms of sleep since the mid-20th century. REM sleep has been studied and documented. The circadian rhythm, first observed and studied almost 300 years ago, has been explored in-depth. Doctors identified obstructive sleep apnea and other sleep disorders, and they began investigating effective treatments to help their patients. But the questions, “What is sleep?” and “Why do we sleep?” have remained somewhat of …

A Glimpse at the Glymphatic System Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Seasons

Here we are again, the morning after setting our clocks forward an hour. Last night, when you made the change before going to bed at 11:00 pm – which yesterday would have been 10:00 pm and still feels like 10:00 pm – you knew you just lost an hour. But the time when most of us really feel the loss of that hour is the next morning when the alarm goes off. At 6:00 am. Which yesterday would have been 5:00 am. And still feels like it. Groan. If you’re… (a) smart (b) chronically organized (c) able to easily fall …

Spring Forward With One Less Hour of Sleep Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Sleep Hygiene

It’s February already? Hard to believe we’re a month into the new year. This is about the time when many New Year’s resolutions start going out the window. It’s a sad fact, but we make it tough on ourselves when we decide that January 1st is going to be the day we change our lives for the better. Eat better, lose weight, exercise more, make more money, drink less, read more, watch less TV, spend more time with the family, be more organized…the list goes on and on! But somehow, we keep doing it year after year. Decade after decade. …

The Power of a Regular Routine Read more »

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