Ask readers of this newspaper if they're getting adequate sleep, and many would probably say "Ha!"
Twenty percent of Americans sleep less than six hours a night, and nearly one-third have lost sleep worrying about financial concerns, according to the National Sleep Foundation, which recommends that adults get seven to nine hours. "Our society thinks sleep is for slackers," says Darrel Drobnich, the organization's chief program officer.
But all that lost sleep is taking an insidious toll. Chronic, inadequate sleep raises the risk of cardiovascular disease, depression, diabetes and obesity. It impairs cognitive function, memory and the immune system and causes more than 100,000 motor-vehicle accidents a year. Sleep deprivation also changes the body's metabolism, making people eat more and feel less satisfied.
Studies presented at the American Association of Sleep Medicine's annual meeting in Seattle this week also found that inadequate sleep is associated with lower GPAs among college students and with elevated levels of visfatin, a hormone secreted by belly fat that is associated with insulin resistance.
What many people don't realize is that even if they log respectable time in bed (known as TIB among sleep researchers), they may be getting poor-quality sleep, with not enough of the restorative phases. REM, the Rapid Eye Movement phase in which dreaming occurs, is crucial for consolidating memories, learning, creativity, problem-solving and emotional balance. Deep, or slow-wave sleep, when the body secretes human growth hormone, is critical for development and physical repair. Both REM and deep sleep decline with age and are highly vulnerable to disruptions, from caffeine and alcohol to anxiety and a variety of sleep disorders.
One tip-off that you haven't gotten enough restorative sleep is trouble waking up and excessive daytime sleepiness (a condition known as EDS). "People say, 'Oh, I don't have a sleep problem. I can fall asleep anywhere, anytime' -- but that means you are excessively sleepy," says Charles Czeisler, a professor of sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Other symptoms of sleep deprivation include mood changes, difficulty focusing or remembering and a chronic need for caffeine, which can then create a vicious circle of dependence and disruption. That would be me.
Finding out what's going on in your sleep generally requires spending the night in a professional sleep lab hooked up to lots of wires and monitors. But I've been testing a new home-sleep monitor called the Zeo Personal Sleep Coach that lets people track their sleep patterns nightly in their own bedrooms.
You sleep wearing a soft headband with sensors that monitor your brain waves and send signals wirelessly to a device that looks like a sleek clock radio. It displays whether you are awake or in light sleep, deep sleep, or REM sleep, in real time, all through the night.
"If you can measure it, you can manage it," says Stephan Fabregas, one of two recent Brown University graduates who invented the Zeo because they were looking for a way to wake up feeling less groggy after late nights.
Of course, not everyone needs a fancy gadget to tell them whether they are sleeping properly. But I was stunned by my results: The Zeo showed that I woke up numerous times and was awake for long stretches of the night, without having any recollection. (Perception of time is often distorted at night -- many people with insomnia actually sleep more than they think they do.) Even though I was in bed for six or seven hours each night, I was averaging only about four hours of real sleep and very little REM or deep sleep. No wonder I feel so tired!
The Zeo stores the information on a memory card you can upload to a Web site, which helps track your sleep patterns and sends daily coaching tips for getting better sleep. The $399 device comes with six months of daily email coaching, which can be extended at a cost of $99 for each additional six months.
To help you keep track of your sleep, the Zeo also gives you a "ZQ" score every morning, based on the quantity and quality of your sleep the night before. There's no ideal ZQ -- you're comparing your own score from night to night. But the average for people in their 20s is 86; for those in their 40s, it is 74; and for those in their 50s, it is 67, since sleep quality declines with age.
My ZQs bounced from the 40s to a dismal 15 the first week. Switching to decaf after 3 p.m. and making an effort to get to bed earlier helped me bring my score into the 50s the second week. ("Having caffeine even first thing in the morning can induce changes in brain activity during sleep," says Kenneth Wright, director of the Sleep and Chronobiology Lab at the University of Colorado at Boulder and one of Zeo's scientific advisers.) I also noticed that the nights when I had the longest stretches of wakefulness were those when my column was due -- probably a sign that I was still thinking about it long after turning in.
Zeo says its brain-wave results are similar to those from professional sleep labs -- but only about 140 people have tested it so far. And the Zeo isn't designed to diagnose actual sleep disorders, which plague an estimated 70 million Americans -- you need to see a doctor for that.
To see if something besides drinking coffee and thinking great thoughts was affecting my sleep, I underwent a sleep study at the Sleep Health Center connected with Brigham and Women's Hospital in Brighton, Mass. A polysomnography, as such tests are called, measures brain waves like the Zeo, but also heart rate, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation, body positions and movements. It took about 45 minutes to have all of the sensors and wires attached -- and then a little longer to get comfortable enough to sleep.To my surprise, the study found that I had a fairly severe case of Periodic Limb Movements, episodes of involuntary muscle movements in the night. About 10% of adults have PLMs. Many don't even notice; sleep partners are often bothered more than the sleepers themselves. But PLMs can be very disruptive if they are accompanied by arousals from sleep. I was averaging 42 arousals per hour. According to David White, another Harvard sleep physician who prescribed the study for me, PLMs can be due to an iron deficiency or medication side effects, and they are often related to "restless-leg syndrome," which causes an irresistible urge to move the legs, day or night. Medications like Requip can minimize the movements; I'm going to give them a try.he study also showed I had some obstructive sleep apnea, in which the airway narrows, especially when the muscles relax in sleep. People with OSA stop breathing momentarily until a lack of oxygen alerts the brain, which wakes them up with a gasp. These mini arousals can occur as often as 70 times an hour, leaving the sufferer exhausted and at risk for heart disease, stroke and atherosclerosis. An estimated 4% of men and 2% of women have OSA. One telltale sign is having a shirt-collar size larger than 17 inches. Another sign is loud snoring, although I certainly don't do that. ("Women never snore -- they all deny it," says Dr. White.)
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
What is confidence????
What is confidence????
A hypothetical situation where 20 CEOs board an airplane and are told that the flight that they are about to take is the first-ever to feature
pilotless technology: It is an uncrewed aircraft. Each one of the CEOs is then told, privately, that their company's software is running the
aircraft's automatic pilot system. Nineteen of the CEOs promptly leave the aircraft, each offering a different type of excuse.
One CEO alone remains on board the jet, seeming very calm indeed. Asked why
he is so confident in this first uncrewed flight,
he replies :
"If it is the same software thats developed by my company's IT systems department, this plane won't even take off." !!!!
That is called Confidence!!!
Friday, June 5, 2009
Floating wind turbine launched
The world's first floating wind turbine is to be towed out to sea this weekend.
Statoil's Alexandra Beck Gjorv told the BBC the technology, the Hywind, to be put off Norway's coast - "should help move offshore wind farms out of sight".
And it could lead to offshore wind farms eventually being located many miles offshore, away from areas where they cause disruption, Ms Gjorv added.
This would benefit military radar operations, the shipping industry, fisheries, bird life and tourism.
"Taking wind turbines to sea presents new opportunities," said Ms Gjorv, of Statoil's new energy division.
"The wind is stronger and more consistent [and] areas are large."
The Hywind, a 2.3 megawatt (MW) wind turbine built by Siemens, combines technologies from both the wind farming industry and the oil and gas sectors, and will be tested off the coast of Norway for two years.
In a similar way to how large parts of icebergs are hidden below the sea surface, the turbine has a 100 metre draft that is anchored to the seabed with cables, that can be up to 700 metres long.
Scientists trace laughter back 16million years... by tickling apes
As science experiments go, it was real hoot.
Researchers mapping the evolution of laughter gently tickled the feet, palms, necks and armpits of baby humans and apes.
By analysing the sounds the animals made - giggles, hoots, grunts and pants - they concluded that laughter can be traced back some 16million years, and that it evolved along the same pathway as our evolution.
In the first study of its kind, Portsmouth University researchers tickled three human babies and young orangutans, gorillas, chimps and bonobos and recorded their 'laughter'.
They then teased apart the different sounds in the recordings and mapped the similarities between animals. The result looked like the evolutionary family tree, in which humans are most closely related to chimps and bonobos and most distanced from orangutans.
And it showed that laughter evolved gradually over the last 10million to 16million years, reports the journal Current Biology.
Primatologist Dr Davila Ross said: 'Our results on laughter indicate its pre-human basis.
'This is important for emotional research in humans and animals as well as for the management of primates in captivity and in the wild.'
The analysis also revealed that gorillas and bonobos have some control over their breathing - a skill that was thought to be unique to humans and to have played an important role in the evolution of speech.
Dr Ross said that apes use laughter differently to humans, adding: 'Although we can use it to mock each other, previous research has indicated it developed in our ancestors as a play tool.
'Apes like to play with each other and sometimes this can get out of hand so their form of laughter is used to prevent them getting over aggressive.'
Jaak Panksepp, a scientist from Washington State University in the U.S. who studies laughter-like responses in animals, said the findings were exciting.
His work has suggested that even rats 'laugh' in response to play and tickling - producing chirps too high-pitched for people to hear.
Other studies have shown that young chimps can outperform people in memory games, completing them more quickly and with fewer mistakes.
Scientists have also observed chimpanzees making a 'toolbox' of items when foraging for food and gorillas using branches to test the depth of water they plan to wadeThursday, June 4, 2009
Sunday, May 31, 2009
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