First large-scale UK investigation of its kind discovers social deprivation and ethnicity both affect sleep
People living in deprived areas of the UK have poorer sleep quality than those in affluent areas, the first large-scale study of sleep across the population has found.
Black people reported the worst sleep overall, with the research finding both social deprivation and ethnicity affect sleep quality, irrespective of age, sex, personal wealth, employment and education.
Continue reading...Lords committee calls for creation of advisory groups to tackle the pollutants, which may increase risk of heart disease and premature death
Light and noise are “neglected pollutants” that are causing significant harm to human health and can cause premature deaths, a group of peers have said.
The science and technology committee of the House of Lords has called on ministers to do more to tackle these pollutants, which it claims are “poorly understood and poorly regulated”.
Continue reading...Marine mammals typically sleep in 10-minute bursts during deep, 30-minute dives to avoid predators, scientists believe
Seals dozing on the beach may appear to be enjoying the ultimate life of leisure. However, groundbreaking research has revealed that for most of their lives elephant seals sleep just two hours daily in a series of short naps while performing deep dives.
The findings, revealed in the first study to record brain activity in a free-ranging, wild marine mammal, show that during the months they spend at sea, elephant seals rival the record for the least sleep among all mammals, currently held by African elephants. The seals were found to typically sleep in 10-minute bursts during deep, 30-minute dives, often spiralling downwards while dreaming, and occasionally lying down for a nap on the seafloor.
Continue reading...British anaesthetist pleads for doctors and nurses to be allowed naps and limited night shifts, as in other critical workplaces
About half of all hospital doctors and nurses have had accidents or experienced near misses while driving home after a night shift.
The risks they pose to themselves and other road users have been calculated as the same as those posed by drivers who are over the legal alcohol limit, delegates at a European medical conference were told last week.
Continue reading...From the scary to the truly weird, our nights were full of apt visions in the early days of the pandemic, a study at University College London found
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Trapped inside a house, stuck inside a vehicle that wouldn’t move, unable to complete seemingly simple tasks: this was the stuff that dreams were made on during lockdown, according to new research from University College London.
Analysis of more than 850 dreams and nightmares submitted online to the Lockdown Dreams Project between March 2020 and March 2021 shows people often dreamed about having frustrating and restrictive experiences in mundane, everyday settings, like the home, at the height of the pandemic.
Continue reading...Exposure to artificial light at night worsens glucose and cardiovascular regulation, research suggests
Sleeping with the light on might scare away monsters under the bed, but it could be linked to an increased risk of heart disease and diabetes, research suggests.
Light is an important signal by which the body’s internal clock, which governs a host of biological processes from temperature to hormone release, is synchronised to the external cycle of day and night.
Continue reading...A new study suggests interrupted hypnagogia, a technique beloved of Salvador Dalí and Thomas Edison, can boost creativity
Name: The semi-lucid dream trick.
Age: At least 90 years old.
Continue reading...I couldn’t handle stimulation or confusion and I spent a week mostly sleeping
Borders are open! Lockdowns are over! We can reunite with our families!
But after almost six months apart, my parents looked aghast, not delighted when they saw me.
Continue reading...From obesity to heart disease, there are many harmful effects of a lack of sleep. Now scientists are adding an unexpected one to the list: a wobbly gait
Name: Sleep deprivation.
Age: Dates to somewhere around the early 19th century. Before that, nobody knew how much sleep they were supposed to get, so they didn’t feel deprived.
Continue reading...How I overcome my chronic insomnia with science
Everything about our day impacts our sleep. How many minutes we spend outside, what and when we eat, what’s happening with our hormones, our habits, emotions, stress and thoughts – all this feeds into the sleep we end up with at night. All of which I was completely oblivious to when battling chronic insomnia for years on end.
Sleep anxiety can create a very real and vicious circle. I would spend hours lying in bed, increasingly wired, anxious and exhausted as time ticked by, with prescription sleeping pills within reach for those 3am nights when I had to be up first thing. The problem is that the more we worry about sleep, the higher our stress hormones go – and too much of the stress hormone cortisol, whatever the trigger, disturbs our sleep. We’re left in a state of fight or flight, when we need to be in the opposite state of rest and digest. When my insomnia was at its worst, I’d start my day exhausted, running on empty, and have recurring burn-out days, where an overwhelming fatigue would stop me in my tracks, forcing me to lie down and recharge.
Continue reading...An extra hour on Saturday and Sunday may be no substitute for a regular good night’s sleep – but according to new research it may help stave off depression
Name: The weekend lie-in.
Age: As old as the weekend.
Continue reading...After lockdown some businesses understand better how flexible working hours enhance productivity
A three-hour break in the middle of the working day for a languorous lunch, followed by a restorative nap sounds like the Mediterranean dream, but employers in Spain are increasingly moving away from this rigid schedule, which for many workers feels more like a nightmare.
The merits of introducing the siesta in the UK have been hotly debated this week after the National Trust unveiled plans to move towards “Mediterranean working hours” at some sites in the south-east, to help cope with rising annual temperatures.
Continue reading...The time you wake up every morning is baked into your DNA – and it could have an impact on your mood and wellbeing
Name: The lark advantage.
Age: Suspected for years, but recently ratified.
Continue reading...Growing numbers of frazzled parents are paying a fortune to people who claim they can help them get a good night’s rest. Are they being taken for a ride? Plus a doctor’s top tips for children of all ages
By the time her baby was four months old, Zara, a psychologist and executive coach from Surrey, was able to open a bottle of wine and have “a bit of an evening”. He was sleeping in four-hour stints, waking twice in the night. Then, at four and half months, his sleep pattern changed: “It was five wakes, then six, then eight,” Zara says. She was so exhausted she ended up Googling “can you die from sleep deprivation?”.
“I was broken, emotional, confused, sleep-deprived and catastrophising,” she says. “He wouldn’t be down for longer than 20 minutes, and I was losing my mind. Using a sleep consultant was the best money I’ve ever spent; £250 to give me the confidence to trust my child to get himself to sleep without me.”
Continue reading...Dogs can carry bacteria and parasites, while cats smuggle in gory ‘presents’. So is it best to lock them out of the bedroom?
Vomiting on the bed. Snoring. The shedding of hair. The stealing of sheets. The passing of wind. Night-time face-licking. A higher-than-average chance of catching sarcoptic mange …
If I could sit my dog down and quietly explain the risks associated with him sharing the bed with us, this is the list I would read to him. But I know he wouldn’t listen. Oz, our young lurcher, would only warmly reimagine that scene he recently saw. When, on my birthday, the family let him come upstairs and on to the bed to wake me up. When he saw, for the first time, Upstairs Land. And then widdled with joy.
Continue reading...UCL data of 10,000 volunteers shows cases 30% higher among those who slept poorly in their 50s, 60s and 70s
People who regularly sleep for six hours or less each night in middle age are more likely to develop dementia than those who routinely manage seven hours, according to a major study into the disease.
Researchers found a 30% greater risk of dementia in those who during their 50s, 60s and 70s consistently had a short night’s sleep, regardless of other risk factors such as heart and metabolic conditions and poor mental health.
Continue reading...An insomniac student is haunted by a demonic figure in this flamboyant and stylised waking dream of a film
There is something visionary about this near-nonsensical, kitsch but atmospheric techno-thriller from Canadian director Anthony Scott Burns. Drawn along on dark somnambulic rhythms, it incorporates elements of fantasy, horror and 80s synthwave aesthetics without giving itself over completely to any of them.
A wordless first 10 minutes introduces us to Sarah (Julia Sarah Stone), a runaway student apparently unwelcome or unwilling to return home, waking in spectrally lit parks and falling asleep in coffee shops. Dropping suddenly into surrealistic CGI dreams that track inexorably towards a demonic figure who, if approached too closely, wakes her with a start. Sarah decides to try and climb out of this insomniac bath by enrolling in a university sleep study. It is overseen by Dr Meyer, a Cronenbergian academic in big glasses, but run by a trio of researchers who, like the memory technicians in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, have a loose relationship with scientific protocol. Becoming close to Jeremy (Landon Liboiron), she learns that they are using pioneering technology to observe the subjects’ dreams – and that the same shadowy presence manifests in all of them.
Continue reading...What happens when your natural sleeping pattern is at odds with the rest of the world?
For as long as she can remember, Jenny Carter has gone to bed late and not woken up until late the following morning, sometimes even the early afternoon. Growing up, she didn’t have a bedtime, and at university she preferred to write her essays between 6pm and 10pm. She loves evenings. They’re when she feels the most creative and can concentrate the best. But that’s not when her employer or society expects her to be productive.
“Going to bed at a ‘normal’ time feels so unnatural to me,” she says. “But society just doesn’t cater for people whose sleep cycle doesn’t fit the generic 9 to 5.” She has got into trouble at work for her timekeeping, which has led to disciplinary action. “I’ve had to write off so many events, meetings and opportunities, because they were in the morning and I just knew I wouldn’t be awake.”
Continue reading...When I couldn’t sleep, I would turn to my mobile for a portal into another world. But there were definite downsides to scanning Instagram in the early hours
When I was a kid, I thought that monsters came out of the dark. Turns out, they actually come out of the light. Like you, I run my life on the supercomputer in my pocket. At night I would place it under the pillow and struggle to put it out of mind, its bright screen a portal to other worlds.
Sure, most of Twitter is bile, but social media suits my exhibitionist spirit; I want to be front and centre of whatever conversations are happening. As a journalist, I am meant to be. When I said I wanted to get my phone out of my bedroom, a colleague half-jokingly asked : “What if something happens?”
Continue reading...Authors call for cognitive behavioural therapy to be offered through GPs
Forget counting sheep and drinking warm milk, an effective way to tackle chronic insomnia is cognitive behavioural therapy, researchers have confirmed.
The authors of a new study say that although the therapy is effective, it is not being used widely enough, with doctors having limited knowledge about it and patients lacking access.
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