If you toss and turn at night you are not alone. Up to 40 per cent of Canadians say they have problems sleeping. Other numbers bear this out. Lack of sleep contributes to 500,000 automobile accidents each year, and
many industrial accidents (including farm accidents) involve sleepiness. Shift work, travel across time zones, stressful times such as a family death, and older age can be factors in sleepless nights.
Sleep is a pattern of rhythmic electrical activity in the brain and can be measured by an electroencephalogram or EEG. In fact, in sleep labs an EEG is used to measure your sleep.
Read Also
Ground rules for farm family communications
Establishing meeting ground rules can help your family find ways to communicate that work for your farm. Here are some…
There are cycles of rapid eye movement or REM sleep and non-REM sleep and four stages with the fourth being the deepest and having the most intense brain activity. It is thought that sleep is used to organize and process thoughts and plays a role in memory.
Although eight hours is considered to be a normal amount of sleep, you may require more or less. The amount of sleep you require also changes with time. As people age, they need less sleep. Think of a baby sleeping around the clock, and you with your usual eight hours. If you are having trouble getting a good night s sleep, try keeping a diary or log of your sleep, remembering to count any daytime naps you may take. Your number of hours of sleep may surprise you.
It may be the quality of your sleep, not the quantity, that is the problem. Drugs may be the culprit. You may think that drugs which cause drowsiness would not be a problem. After all, you do want to sleep. However, they can interfere with what is called sleep architecture, i.e. the pattern and quality of your sleep. Anti-anxiety medications, antidepressants, seizure drugs, and even antihistamines have sedation as a side-effect, and ironically sleeping tablets themselves can help you sleep, but do change your sleep patterns.
Obviously, any drug that causes wakefulness will interfere with your sleep. Caffeine, nicotine in cigarettes, some diet products, and decongestants found in many cough and cold remedies can cause stimulation. If you are having problems with sleep, ask your pharmacist to check any medication, including natural and herbal remedies, for potential side-effects.
Medical conditions may impact your sleep quality, so controlling them will be essential for a good night s sleep. Chronic pain, arthritis, breathing problems, restless legs, muscle cramps, and even depression can keep you awake. Sleep apnea is a breathing disorder with disturbances or pauses in your breathing that awaken you. Partial obstruction of the breathing passages is the cause, and snoring is a symptom. A wide array of products are available to keep airways open and to stop snoring. Because overweight people experience both snoring and sleep apnea more commonly, an economical approach is weight loss, which brings other health benefits too.
Drugs used to induce sleep act through the nervous system on the brain s sleep centres and specifically at gamma aminobutyric acid or GABA sites. These drugs include the benzodiazepines such as oxazepam, lorazepam and agents like zopiclone, eszopiclone, and zolpidem.
The ideal sleeping tablet would be one that puts you to sleep, keeps you asleep for about eight hours, and gives you good-quality sleep without daytime drowsiness. Unfortunately, none of the available drugs used for sleep do this, and they can produce dependency and may be misused. They need to be used for the shortest possible time for you to identify and correct the underlying problem for your sleeplessness.
If you are tossing and turning rather than sleeping, check your sleeping habits or sleep hygiene. You want a cool, dark, quiet bedroom and you want to have regular sleeping habits. And, remember to avoid things that might keep you awake such as a heavy meal, caffeine, spicy foods, and the evening television news. Sleep well!
Marie Berry is a lawyer/pharmacist interested in health care and education.
———
Most of us take our gastrointestinal tracts for granted& until something goes wrong. If you take care of your digestive system, however, you may avoid those problems. Of course, this includes being aware of how medication can impact your bowel. Next month, we ll take a look at some gastrointestinal drugs and how they can affect your overall health.
