Sleep

Health Dangers of Smartphones Include Insomnia and Male Infertility

Unless you live under that proverbial rock, you are likely familiar with the purported health dangers of smartphones. Although these devices make it easier to manage our busy lives and stay in contact with loved ones, more and more studies indicate that they may also pose health risks, even when not in use.

The Effects of Electromagnetic Radiation

Even when your phone is not in use, it’s still in contact with cellphone towers. It maintains this contact using a frequency known as electromagnetic radiation, allowing your phone to make its distinctive chime as soon as you receive a text or email. Electromagnetic radiation is very similar to microwaves. There have been conflicting studies regarding whether this type of radiation affects your health, but more recent research shows that the suspected health dangers of smartphones are likely a reality.

Exactly what are these health effects? Rats exposed to constant levels of this frequency of radiation develop brain tumors. There are also specific dangers for men who keep cellphones on their person or in a pocket, including infertility and potential testicular cancer. While our brains are partially protected by a skull, male reproductive organs have few defenses against the electromagnetic radiation, which can mutate sperm and make them unable to fertilize an egg. This is particularly unfortunate when you consider how many men keep their cellphone in their pants pocket.

Smart Phones and Sleep

Smartphones can affect not just our long-term health, but our daily lives. They emit a blue-tinted light that is easy to read in almost any setting, much like computers and tablets. However, this light can affect our circadian rhythms and make it more difficult to get the sleep we need. Blue light has a huge effect on melatonin production, and can even shut it down completely. When you read on your smartphone or another device before bed, you are stopping your brain from making the hormone it needs to induce sleep. This is especially true for adolescents.

However, blue light is not the only way that a smartphone may interfere with your sleep. Electromagnetic radiation also may interfere with sleep. Children appear to be more affected, as their growing brain tissues absorb four times as much of this radiation as adults. In addition, children often lack the self-discipline needed to turn off these devices and go to sleep. It is important for children to go to sleep in a room free of televisions, tablets and other devices that could have long-term effects on both their circadian rhythm and whole-body health.

Mitigating the Health Dangers of Smartphones

This news may be shocking to people who always have their phone in hand. However, most of us either cannot or will not eschew our electronic devices completely. We need them not just for work and time management, but for much-needed recreation and fun. If you plan on keeping your smartphone in your pocket despite these health dangers, there are a few ways that you can lessen the potential damage to your body.

Use a headset or speakerphone. Moving a source of radiation away from your body significantly reduces its effect on your cells.
Keep your phone out of your pants pocket. Stash it instead in a bag, on your desk, or in a shirt pocket.
Don’t sleep with devices in your bedroom. Smart phones are not the only sources of radiation; wireless modems and other devices also emit it. By keeping these in another room, you can reduce your exposure immensely.
Avoid using your phone when it has a low signal. It has to send out more radiation to continue making contact.
Limit your children’s usage of devices. Children are especially prone to negative effects from radiation because their bodies are still growing and their cells multiplying quickly.

It may be difficult to break the smartphone habit, but it will likely have a beneficial effect on your health. There are many ways to reduce the health dangers of smartphones, but simply putting it away may be the most effective.

Children and Sleep: The Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Behavior and Health

Oct 21 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

As the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make them drink. Putting children to bed is a similar experience for many exhausted parents. You can go through a bedtime routine and tuck the little ones in at an early hour, but there is no “off” button. Some children lie awake for hours or get out of bed repeatedly asking for glasses of water and other diversions. This can lead to sleep deprivation for the whole family. Unfortunately, studies on children and sleep show that sleep deprivation can create behavioral issues and even affect children’s future physical health.

Children and Sleep: Is Lack of Sleep a National Epidemic?

There are hundreds of books on the market instructing parents on how to get their children to sleep. Many of these are focused on infants, who notoriously keep their parents awake at night. However, sleep deprivation is an issue for older children as well. Six out of ten middle-schoolers and almost 90 percent of teens do not get the sleep they need, according to pediatricians. School-aged children also are missing out on the valuable shut-eye that they need in large and ever-increasing numbers.

This sleep deprivation can have devastating effects on physical health and even behavior. American pediatricians have called for a variety of measures to remedy this, including later school times and earlier bed times. However, the problem appears to be worsening. Children are getting less sleep than ever in the U.S. and throughout the Western world. This is worsening to the point where some pediatricians have called sleep deprivation a public health crisis.

The Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Growing Minds and Bodies

Unfortunately, sleep deprivation does not come without a cost. Going to bed late, even in the preschool years, is tied to obesity. Because having a healthy circadian rhythm is necessary to a variety of metabolic processes, children who grow up consistently getting lower than recommended amounts of sleep later are more prone to unhealthy weight gain. This is especially true for children who come from low-income households, who are minorities, or who have less educated mothers—in other words, children who are already statistically at a higher risk of health problems than their peers.

The effects of sleep deprivation do not merely affect weight, but behavior as well. Adults who get less than adequate sleep are more emotionally labile and this appears to be true for children as well. In children, this may manifest as poor behavior. In addition, children who do not get enough sleep are at higher risk of depression and anxiety later on in life. For many families, this creates a downward spiral in which sleep deprivation creates bedtime behavior problems, which in turn create more sleep deprivation for both parents and tots.

Natural Solutions to Bedtime Drama

While melatonin helps many adults to nod off at bedtime, the jury is out as to whether it can be effective in breaking the link between poorly-behaved children and sleep deprivation. Melatonin appears to help children fall asleep faster, but it also has more side effects in those who are young, including headaches and appetite loss. It has been shown to help children with ADHD fall asleep, but these results are preliminary and will have to be further studied. Because its long-term effects on children have not been adequately studied, parents should talk to their pediatrician about whether this is the right choice for their family.

There are other ways that parents can help children to get enough sleep. Experts recommend turning off screens and dimming lights well before bedtime. Having a relaxing and unchanging bedtime routine also can help children to fall asleep. Light therapy during the day may be helpful for children who suffer from a delayed sleep phase, in which children have a circadian clock that runs a bit late. Last, avoid exposure to caffeine and nicotine, which is present in secondhand smoke. These stimulants are always bad for children, but they can have the additional effect of keeping them awake well after they’re tucked into bed.

Getting children to bed in time for a restful night of sleep may not always be easy, but the alternatives can be devastating to physical and emotional health. There are a variety of healthy, natural ways to help children get the sleep they need to be healthy and happy throughout their days and well into adulthood.

Melatonin for Jet Lag: Reset Your Body Clock Naturally When Travelling Across Time Zones

Oct 20 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

Modern life requires travel. Americans and Western Europeans have become more mobile than ever, which means that seeing family and building a career often means some type of travel is involved. As a result, jet lag is not just a problem for executives anymore. Millions of people find their circadian rhythm is disrupted by the busy schedule of modern life. Luckily, there are safe, natural ways to get your internal clocks back on track.

What Is Jet Lag?

Jet lag, or desynchronosis, is a state in which your inner clocks are not aligned with the external time. People can get jet lag from traveling across time zones. There is also a phenomenon called social jet lag, in which people have to be awake for work or other obligations during hours that don’t sync with their circadian rhythm.

Regardless of the reason for jet lag, it can have devastating effects on health. People with jet lag feel fatigued, yet often have trouble sleeping. They can feel mentally fuzzy and suffer from lower cognition and memory. Jet lag also puts people at higher risk of suffering from adverse health events such as infections. Despite the huge number of physical and psychological effects of jet lag, modern medicine offers very few solutions to this common problem.

Factors That Can Make Jet Lag Better… Or Worse

You may have noticed that you do not get jet lag every time you step on or off a plane. This is because there are a variety of factors that can make jet lag better or worse. For instance, researchers have found that traveling east causes worse jet lag symptoms than traveling west. It ends up that our natural internal rhythms are actually set for slightly longer than 24 hours, so it is easier to add time to our day by moving to an earlier time zone than to subtract hours in the day. Staying hydrated and eating healthy also can keep jet lag from being as severe. The healthier your body is, the more likely it will be to adjust to challenges such as travel quickly and seamlessly.

Even if you are traveling east, there are several ways that you can mitigate the effects of jet lag. Drinking lots of water helps, as travel is dehydrating and this can make jet lag symptoms worse. Avoiding caffeine, alcohol and other substances also help your body to get back on track more quickly. Ensure that you eat a wide variety of healthy foods to get the vitamins your body needs and that you get plenty of exercise. Last, do things that help your body to adjust to your new time zone. Make sure you get plenty of light exposure during the day and eat at set times.

Melatonin for Jet Lag: A Safe, Natural Treatment

Research on melatonin for jet lag has found that this supplement can make a huge difference in helping people to get both the quality and the quantity of sleep they need. Melatonin is naturally produced by your body in preparation for sleep. If you are planning to travel, scientists recommend trying to slowly adjust to the new time zone before you leave by either going to bed progressively later or taking melatonin so you can go to bed earlier. Our bodies take approximately one day per time zone to adjust, but this process can be done before travel to make the transition easier.

There are also other safe, natural remedies besides melatonin for jet lag. Stanford researchers have developed a mask that can be controlled by your smartphone intended to help treat jet lag. It uses light to help your body adjust to changes in time zone. There is also a Stop Jet Lag app that can guide you in preparing for and undergoing a large trip without being devastated by fatigue and other symptoms. The Anti-Jet Lag Calculator is a similar app that helps you to align your circadian rhythm with a new time zone by carefully planning when you eat meals and perform other daily tasks.

Unfortunately, jet lag is a fact of modern life. However, you do not have to live with the fatigue, clouded thinking, insomnia and other effects of this disorder. There are many different ways of helping your body to adjust to a new time zone with as few physical effects as possible. Taking charge of your circadian rhythm is taking charge of your health.

Advanced Sleep Phase Disorder: When You Get Tired Too Early and Wake Up Too Soon

Oct 01 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

Do you always tend to feel sleepy before everyone else? Does your internal alarm clock go off before dawn? You may suffer from Advanced Sleep Phase Disorder (ASPD), also known as Advanced Sleep Phase Syndrome.

You have probably read about the genetic differences between early birds and night owls. For some people, however, “early to bed and early to rise” is actually a disorder. Their ideal sleep hours occur earlier than modern life allows, often leaving them without the quality sleep that they need to get through the day. The good news is that if you find yourself nodding off over afternoon tea, there are ways of pushing back your circadian clock.

Not Just an Early Bird

We are told from a young age that the early bird catches the worm. Indeed, many careers and life paths still favor those who naturally go to bed early and rise with the sun. While night owls are crawling out of bed with bleary eyes, early birds are already awake and raring to go. However, just as with all sleep schedules, extremes can be unhealthy and interfere with your health.

Even the earliest early bird can make it through dinner without falling asleep and even enjoy the occasionally night out. When people have an internal clock that sends them to bed far earlier than even your standard early bird, this is considered Advanced Sleep Phase Disorder.

What Is Advanced Sleep Phase Disorder?

Although we think of our desired bedtime as a lifestyle choice, it is actually deeply embedded in our brains. When our eyes stop sensing light, they send messages to the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) of the hypothalamus, deep in the brain. This area of the brain tells the pineal gland to release melatonin, which primes your body for sleep as well as performing a variety of other important activities. Over months and years, our brains become used to a particular pattern.

For people with Advanced Sleep Phase Disorder, the brain begins releasing melatonin far too early. They are sleepy and ready for bed around 8-9 p.m. and wake around 4 or 5 a.m. This disorder appears to be inherited, with around half of a sufferer’s children also inheriting the disease. Staying awake late into the night, or even past dinner time, is a struggle for people with ASPD. Even if they want to stay awake, their brains are working hard to make their eyes heavy and their bodies ache for a bed. They begin releasing melatonin far earlier than other people and begin making cortisol, the hormone associated with wakefulness, far before dawn.

Treatment Options for ASPD

While it is difficult to change one’s innate sleep-wake cycle, the good news is that Advanced Sleep Phase Disorder can be treated. Most doctors recommend a combination of behavioral changes and other therapies. People should go to bed at the same time every night and awake at the same time in the morning, even on weekends or days off. This keeps the body from slipping into a less adaptive rhythm. Because it is almost impossible to change your sleep schedule in one sweeping shift, most experts recommend aiming to stay up a mere fifteen minutes later every night.

In addition, people with Advanced Sleep Phase Disorder can benefit from light therapy during the day and melatonin supplements at night. Light therapy, consisting of exposing yourself to bright lights for a short period of time, sends a message to the brain that now is the time for wakefulness. Melatonin supplements taken in the morning show your body that it is not yet time to wake for the day. Because your body uses these cues to regulate its circadian rhythm, purposely seeking them out can have a huge and beneficial effect on your sleep-wake cycles. Antidepressants may also help many people with ASPD, as they balance out serotonin levels to allow for optimal neurological function.

Happy Sleep, Happy Life

Why go to all this trouble? Why not simply go to bed early? Unfortunately, for people suffering from ASPD, this can interfere with daily life and lead to getting less sleep overall. Getting the right quantity and quality of sleep is crucial to feeling your best, having enough energy and even to your long-term physical health. The therapies for Advanced Sleep Phase Disorder are inexpensive and have few side effects, so many people find that the effort is worth it in the long run.

If you or a loved one cannot stay awake even until reasonable times, ASPD may be the cause. Luckily, there are ways to correct this disorder so you can get the sleep you need while living a healthy and fulfilling life.

Cancer and the Circadian Clock: Recent Insights Offer New Hope

Sep 29 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

Cancer was once a dreaded death sentence. New research, specifically studies on cancer and the circadian clock, are offering new understanding and new hope.

Around half of all people will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, making it one of the most common diseases in the modern world. While cancer once had a very high mortality rate, many people are now able to survive this disease and thrive with the help of modern therapies and treatments. The emerging science of chronobiology may hold the key to understanding and treating many common types of cancer.

Cancer and the Circadian Clock

Cancer cannot grow and metastasize without sabotaging the “checkpoints” on cell division and metabolism that exist in healthy cells. The circadian rhythm is intricately entwined with these checkpoints. Every cell in our body lives, functions and dies by a rhythm set by our internal clocks, which are in turn set by light levels, the times we eat, and a variety of other factors. In cancer cells, these rhythms are often disrupted so the cell can divide without normal controls.

In a recent study of liver tumors, the cancer cells were found to not only divide inappropriately, leading to tumor growth, but also to interfere with the normal function of the liver as a whole. The liver is responsible for a wide range of metabolic activities, which include glucose regulation and toxin removal from the blood. When liver cells turn cancerous, they act erratically. A small liver tumor can disrupt the entire body’s metabolism by disrupting how glucose is regulated.

Marching to the Beat of Its Own Drum

In many ways, cancer cells act like “hijackers,” taking over normal bodily functions and performing them in an erratic way. However, not all tumors function independent of the circadian rhythm. Some cancers, such as certain types of leukemia, depend on circadian rhythm genes to survive. A recent study found that normal stem cells in the blood can survive even without BMAL1, a crucial gene that regulates the circadian rhythm of each cell. On the other hand, stem cells with leukemia die when this gene is “knocked out.” This insight may present a new method of treating leukemia by genetically modifying cells with this cancer so they don’t express a gene that is important to their survival.

The Circadian Rhythm

Liver cancer and leukemia are not the only two cancers to show a link to the circadian rhythm in research. Breast cancer also appears to be associated with a circadian rhythm gene. Because breast cancer in itself is not life-threatening, metastasis is generally its biggest threat. Cancerous cells can eventually leave the breast and travel to the brain, the lungs, or the bones, where they can interfere with more necessary tissue. Having even small mutations in a circadian rhythm gene called Arntl2 is an important predictor of breast cancer death. The reason for this increased morbidity is that tumors with a functioning Arntl2 gene are unlikely to metastasize.

Sleep Disorders: A Cancer Risk Factor?

The link between cancer and the circadian clock is especially clear when you examine the relationship between sleep and cancer outcomes. Regardless of the type of cancer, having sleep apnea (and possibly other disorders that interfere with sleep) is a risk factor for poor cancer outcomes. People with sleep apnea suffer from decreased oxygenation during their sleep, which increases levels of VEGF, or vascular endothelial growth factor. VEGF is crucial for the survival of cancer cells because it creates new blood vessels, allowing them to get the nutrients they need to grow out of control. While we associate sleep apnea with poor sleep and snoring, it may have even greater effects on our health in the long run.

New Treatments and New Hope

Because cancer is so dependent on the circadian rhythm, some people may benefit from taking medications that attack cancer cells at certain times of day. Treating a disease at a particular time of day, a practice known as chronotherapy, ensures that cancer cells are hit with the right drugs at the right time—the time when they are most likely to deliver optimal effects. This practice can also lead to fewer side effects, as treatments can be targeted to times when they have the least impact on healthy cells. While normal cells undergo growth and metabolism only at certain times of the day, cancerous cells that have lost their checkpoints tend to divide without any set time frame or even a pause. They are in constant growth phase. Taking medications at times of the day when healthy cells are not active (but cancer cells are!) allows drugs to hit cancer cells alone while sparing healthy ones.

While treatment for cancer was once limited to surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, new research has brought forth new medications and treatments that kill malignant cells by disrupting their growth and other key metabolic processes. Understanding more about the relationship between cancer and the circadian clock will allow doctors to attack cancer more aggressively while yielding better outcomes for the people who suffer from this disease. Because all of us will suffer from cancer or love someone who does in our lifetimes, this is truly life-changing research.

Work and the Circadian Rhythm: How Your Ideal Work Schedule Changes as You Age

Sep 17 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

What is your ideal work schedule? While the answer will vary from person to person, most people prefer a day shift that does not begin too early or end excessively late. Exactly what is too early or too late? New research suggests that the answer to this question largely depends on your age.

The Circadian Rhythm of Teens

By the time many adolescents apply for their first job, they have already settled into a circadian rhythm that roughly resembles that of adults. However, there are key differences that set teens apart. Mostly notably, teens fall asleep and wake later. They begin to release melatonin later in the day so their circadian rhythm is a little delayed compared to adults. These brain differences can linger well into the mid-20s, at which time your brain has officially grown up.

Many teens suffer from a disorder called “social jet lag,” in which they are required to awaken too early for school, work and other obligations and thus suffer health consequences. Pediatricians advocate for schools and other youth activities to begin at 9 a.m. or later and suggest that early start times may be a partial cause of health problems ranging from depression to obesity.

In adulthood, the ideal work schedule mainly depends on your unique circadian rhythm, which research has found is primarily a product of genetic factors. Experts recommend that people work a schedule that allows them to take advantage of their most energetic and wakeful times of the day while sleeping at the time of night that is best for them. However, for many people this ideal work schedule is not possible. Shift work is common and can have devastating health effects, some of which last up to five years after the worker has resumed a normal day shift.

Getting poor-quality sleep may set people up for a host of serious diseases later in life. The brain undergoes cleaning processes during sleep, which remove metabolic wastes that can later contribute to dementia. In addition, many cells in the human body perform essential repair processes when we sleep, which prevents aging and even can lower one’s risk of cancer. Getting a sufficient quality and quantity of sleep every night is an important way of reducing the long-term effects of age and keeping your body healthy.

Middle Age: When the Ideal Work Week Shortens

When most people hit their forties, they are working more hours than ever. Their children are older and education is complete, allowing a complete focus on career. However, powering through your last decades of work may be bad for your health. According to a recent study, the ideal work week for the health of middle-aged people is 25 hours, or just three days per week.

While it is important to stay active and continue being productive as we age, working too many hours, or at odd hours, can lead to stress and health problems. Many companies are shortening the length of the work week and finding this decision yields happier, healthier and more productive employees. Allowing ample time to rest, relax and engage in fulfilling activities allows people to more easily maintain a healthy circadian rhythm.

Working Through Retirement: Effects on Circadian Rhythm

We do not currently know the ideal work schedule for people over the age of 65 because working past this age is a relatively new phenomenon. Humans were once lucky to live to this age, but now around 27 percent of modern people plan to continue working into their golden years. Older people tend to go to sleep earlier, wake more often, arise at an early time and compensate later with napping or rests throughout the day. Working may make it difficult for these people to get the “catch up” sleep that they need to stay healthy and thrive. We have no idea how working well into old age may affect the human body as this is such a new shift. People in years gone by were almost always deceased or incapacitated by that age.

The world cannot always accommodate one’s ideal work schedule. We will always need night nurses, police officers and other nighttime workers. However, it is important to know what amount and timing of work is the healthiest. This will allow us to ensure that more people have a healthy circadian rhythm and that we can screen those who work odd shifts for the resulting health risks.