Baseball season is nearly over and we’re approaching the championship season, so before you place your bets or pick your favorite team, it may be a good idea to find out what time each player hits the sack at night and wakes up in the morning. At least that’s the result of some preliminary research done by scientists at the Martha Jefferson Hospital Sleep Medicine Center in Charlottesville, Virginia. Their study showed that morning people – also referred to as early birds or ‘larks’ – tend to get their best batting in early in the morning, and as it gets later in the day their abilities tend to wane.

Though this may seem like an obvious conclusion that did not require extensive research, W. Christopher Winter, medical director of the program and lead author of the study defends his research and points out that it has never been carefully analyzed before. Though a fair amount of research has studied how increasing sleep quantity and quality may improve an athlete’s performance, little has been done that links a player’s genetic tendency towards early morning or late night alertness with their athletic ability. Continue reading →

This summer was hailed for the high number of super moons that were viewed from Earth – these coincidences of the Earth being close to the Moon in its elliptical orbit and the occurrence of a full moon have been beautiful to behold. But a recent study conducted at the University of Toronto point to the notion that they may have wreaked havoc on people’s sleep.  The study points to a full moon having a negative impact on the human ability to fall asleep, as well as on the quantity of deep sleep that they are able to get. People don’t sleep as well or as long when the moon is full. Continue reading →

If you’re trying to improve the quality and quantity of your sleep then you’re not alone. With more and more studies being published every day about how important it is to get high quality rest, people are turning in earlier and turning to high-tech devices to give them a leg up. But sometimes adding new behaviors isn’t as important as doing away with old ones, or getting your head straight on mistaken beliefs that you’ve been carrying around with you. In the interest of helping you get a better night’s sleep, here are several sleep myths that you need to be on the right side of.

You Can Make Up for Lost Sleep

How many times have you told yourself that it doesn’t matter that you stayed up late every night this week because you’ll make up for it on the weekend? The idea sounds great in theory, and there’s no doubt that it feels great to sleep in an extra hour or two on Saturday or Sunday (or both), but the truth is that if you’ve shorted yourself more than an hour or two of sleep, then you’re simply not likely to be able to make up for your sleep debt. Not only that, before you ever get to the weekend you’re likely going to be seeing the impact of your sleep deprivation. Though your extra sleep on the weekend may make you feel a bit more refreshed, it will not be enough to restore your attention, memory and cognitive performance to where it should be. Continue reading →

Sleep scientists from Washington State University are calling attention to a rare and little-understood sleep disorder with a particularly frightening name. Exploding head syndrome sounds a lot worse than it is. Though the experience is certainly unpleasant for those who are experiencing it, at least it is not quite as bad as the visual image that the condition evokes. Exploding head syndrome is characterized by experiencing extremely loud and sudden noises during the onset of sleep.

It is not known how many people actually experience this sleep disorder, as there is not a great deal of research on the topic. The study gathered and reviewed all of the existing literature on the topic in order to raise awareness of the phenomenon. Their research yielded a clearer picture of exactly what those who suffer from the condition experience. Symptoms include very loud and disruptive noises being heard. Patients have described the sounds as being similar to the sound of firecrackers going off, slamming doors, explosions, and even gunshots. They may experience the sounds in either one ear or both ear and the sounds are sometimes accompanied by bright flashes of light. Continue reading →

If you are an animal lover who thinks that the more pets in your room and in your bed, the merrier, then we have some bad news for you.  A number of studies conducted over the last several years have shown that sleeping with pets is particularly bad for you because it robs you of the good night’s sleep that you need.

A recent survey that was presented at SLEEP 2014, the 28^th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, showed that thirty percent of those who acknowledged sleeping with their pets also admitted to being woken up at least one time each night by their animals, and 63 percent said that they have overall poor sleep quality. Five percent indicated that once their pet has woken them up in the middle of the night they find they have a hard time falling back to sleep.  Continue reading →