It’s well known that insomnia is a troubling problem. Not being able to sleep can cause a host of other health problems, such as depression, anxiety, accidents due to fatigue, inability to fight off infections, and even a decrease in ability to regain health if already ill. Therefore, studying what may cause insomnia in different patient groups is quite important.

Researchers from the University of Rochester Medical Center studied 823 people who had cancer, looking at their sleeping patterns and how well they were able to sleep. What they found was that there was three times the difficulty sleeping among those with cancer than among people who don’t have cancer. Thirty seven percent of the patients reported having symptoms of insomnia, while 43% had insomnia syndrome.

Age played a role as well; younger people with cancer had a harder time than older ones. In addition, those with lung and breast cancers had the worst time sleeping. Their findings were published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

The data was gathered by assessing questionnaires that were completed by the patients. They were completed after the first two sessions of chemotherapy.

It’s not surprising to learn that people with cancer may have trouble sleeping. What needs to be done now is to find ways to help them, because someone battling a serious disease needs all the resources he or she can gather, and you need sleep for that.

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Post from: Blisstree

Insomnia Common with Chemotherapy

If you’re unable to sleep, your heart may not be getting the rest it needs. A new study found that people with insomnia have a heightened nighttime blood pressure. The blood pressure increase may lead to cardiac problems.

“Over many years, chronic insomnia can have negative effects on the hearts of otherwise healthy individuals,” says lead author Paola A. Lanfranchi of the Université de Montréal.

Lanfranchi notes that a decrease in blood pressure at night gives the hearts of sleepers time to rest. However, insomniacs don’t get that benefit. Their higher blood pressure during the night can cause long-term cardiovascular risks and possibly a damaged heart. Researchers note that people with overt cardiac disease are especially at risk for progression of their diseases due to insomnia.

The study, published in the journal SLEEP, focused on the 24-hour blood pressure of 13 insomniacs versus 13 sound sleepers. The study participants spent 40 hours in a sleep lab, including an adaptation period of two nights before monitoring began.

To avoid insomnia, most experts recommend using the bedroom for sleeping and sex only. No TV or working in bed. Also, it’s wise to avoid naps and late afternoon caffeine.

(Image via flickr/curt)

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Insomnia Makes Heart Work Harder

Murray gave a statement that confirmed he had been giving Jackson medication to help with insomnia for as long as six weeks prior to the singer’s death. He said “each night he gave Jackson 50 mg of propofol, also known as Diprivan, diluted with the anesthetic lidocaine via an intravenous drip.”

He was concerned that Jackson was becoming addicted to the drug, and tried to wean him off of it by combining the drug with different types of medicine. When the attempt at weaning didn’t work, he went back to giving him propofol, but said he was still monitoring him closely. On the night Jackson died, he said he only left his side for a few minutes to go to the bathroom, and when he came back he noticed Jackson was no longer breathing.

Image: Zuma Press

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Michael Jackson: Homicide from Propofol

People that had insomnia for a year or longer and slept less than five hours a night were “five times as likely to have high blood pressure.” This confirms that the power is sleep is important. If you are having trouble that you think might be insomnia, seek medical attention.

Image: sxc.hu.

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Insomnia’s Harmful Effects

1. Lose weight. Yoga is exercise, pure and simple. You will be mystified by how much you sweat considering there is absolutely no jumping around. There is nothing aerobic about yoga. Yet, you will be dripping in sweat. You build muscle in yoga and muscle eats fat.

2. Mental Rest. Perhaps you can relate to me and my mental habits. If I allow it, my mind will run round and round things that should have happened or things that I don’t think should have happened. Sometimes I’ll rehearse things I should say or do in my relationships. I’ll resolved to do or say something different in the future and will rehearse it over and over in my head. Frankly, this is exhausting. But, pre-yoga I felt like I just couldn’t turn my brain off. I would lay awake for hours at night with this mental tally running around in my head. I could never get any real rest.

3. Mental Focus. Even if I’m not focusing on past or future fictions in my brain, I’m usually trying hard to remember appointments and check things off my responsibility list. If you’re a woman, especially a mom, you know that I have a lot on my mind every second of the day. It’s easy to become overwhelmed. But, it’s hard to focus on what I am actually doing and stay in the moment with the responsibility circus performing tricks in my head all day long. I’ll be working with my daughter on her numbers and be thinking about balancing the household budget. Thisnasty mental habit is not allowing me to enjoy working with my daughter and it’s not getting the budget done any faster. Yoga has really taught me how to tame the circus freaks running around and helped me learn to focus on my present experience.

4. Positive Attitude. One of the things I try to do during my hour-and-a-half yoga classes is speak kindly to myself. You’re supposed to think of nothing. But, I have yet to master this skill. So, instead I have a rule that I am only allowing empowering things about myself to go on in my head during yoga. No self-flagellation or doubt or loathing allowed. Pure forgiveness of me, pure acceptance of me. Pure compliments to my body. It’s really quite nice and this practice has helped improve my self image and self esteem tremendously. I also do a lot of praying and forgiving of others during this quiet time.

5. Insomnia. Do to the fact that my mind is at a gallop most of the time it is difficult for me to turn it off. Especially if I am mad about something or ticked off at someone. So I used to lay awake for hours until I took sleeping pills. Or I would wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to go back to sleep. Which made me frustrated and irritable the next day. Since starting yoga I go to sleep easily and sleep all the way through the night. In turn, I feel better in the mornings and throughout the day.

6. Challenging. I used to want to avoid challenging myself physically. Frankly, I have never, ever exercised in my life. I was simply too lazy and wanted to relax. With yoga classes though I can see improvement and it makes me feel accomplished and empowered about my physical body. Moves that I could barely do for a second – like plank, basically a push-up – left me pathetically exhausted. But, I feel so proud of myself now that I can hang out in plank for a few minutes and can see the improvement I’ve made in my core strength.

7. Strength. Can I just say I have a 25 pound baby? It takes a lot of physical labor to haul that kid around 24 hours a day. Yoga has built my muscles more than I thought possible. My whole body – muscles I never would have worked on in a weight room – is stronger. Turns out I really love being strong. I love feeling capable. I love being able to see definition in my arms and calves. I feel sexier when I look at my muscles than I thought I would.

8. Flexibility and Limberness. I’m only in my 30s and already I’m noticing that I have aches and pains that weren’t there when I was younger. Like my akelis heals are tight and hurt a little unless Istretch them out in the mornings. Downward Facing Dog has really helped this problem. 

9. Back health. For many years I have had chronic back pain. MDs just wanted to prescribe medication that makes me drowsy and loopy all the time. Finally, I found a chiropractor and started spending some money on ergonomic work chairs and mattresses and that helped a lot. Still, I would have a bit of pain and be afraid to do anything to hurt my back. Since yoga I can not tell you how nice it is to have ZERO back pain. Really, I don’t ever think about my back anymore. Because it is strong and I have great support in my core to hold my back up properly.

10. Rest. When I grew up Sunday was the Day of Rest. Rather than take a nap on Sunday afternoons I take an extremely challenging yoga class. No kidding, it is more restful than sleep. It is so peaceful and calm with the lights low and slow flowing movements that I feel like rested jello when I am finished.

Yoga is the single kindest thing I do for myself. I encourage you to try it, you deserve to be kind to yourself.

Post from: Blisstree

10 reasons to try Yoga