Ah, the insomniac's plight: waking up with a hangover without having had a drop to drink. A poor night's sleep can have you starting your day feeling drained before your feet even hit the floor. Other mornings, you could swear you got a peaceful eight hours, yet your body tells a different story.
Too many of us are missing out on sweet dreams. Nearly one-third of Americans say they lie awake at least a few nights each week. Getting a poor night's sleep means more than just a bad day ahead. The quality of your sleep can harm your health long-term; sleep deprivation is linked to obesity and high blood pressure, poor concentration, and lack of energy for exercising, healthy eating, and leisure activities.
Sleeping Pill Safety: 10 Dos and Don'ts
It's 3 a.m. and you're staring at the green glow of your digital clock, wondering if you'll get any shut-eye before the alarm blasts in a few short hours. After several sleepless nights, you're feeling cranky and lethargic. Is it safe to start taking a sleep medication? Many people turn to sleep aids because insomnia and sleep shortage have become commonplace in this country, leading to potentially serious consequences. In a 2008 National Sleep Foundation poll, 29% of respondents -- nearly...
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Why are we having a hard time catching the zzz's we need? Here are six surprising sleep wreckers that might be keeping you up at night.
Stress and Sleep
Who's stressed? Who isn't? Three in four U.S. adults say they felt moderate to high stress levels in the past month, according to a 2009 stress survey conducted by the American Psychological Association. Even teenagers find that school and family finances are stressing them out, with nearly half of teens polled saying their worries have gotten worse over the past year. The result? Many of us hit the sheets with our minds still churning, too wound up to sleep.
"No one sleeps well with worries," says Joyce Walsleban, RN, PhD, associate professor of medicine at NYU's School of Medicine. "They are too alerting. They will either keep you up or wake you up later on."
Stress hormones shoulder some of the blame. When you're stressed out, your adrenal glands release hormones, such as adrenaline and cortisol, which keep you amped up and struggling to snooze.
Completely eliminating stress and anxiety from your life isn't realistic. But learning how to place your worries up on a shelf for the night can help you manage them so they don't ruin your sleep. For starters, bar your work life -- a common cause of stress -- from your bedroom.
"We see people using BlackBerries and laptops in bed, answering emails, and continuing to do the work they do all day long. For people who suffer from insomnia, that can perpetuate it," says Alon Avidan, MD, associate professor of neurology and associate director of UCLA's Sleep Disorders Program.
Walsleban suggests giving your body time -- an hour or so -- to unwind before slipping into bed. Take a bath, read a good book (try fiction!), and learn to practice deep breathing and relaxation exercises to calm nerves and encourage a peaceful night's sleep.
Depression and Sleep
Insomnia and depression tend to go hand in hand, and it can be difficult to figure out which came first. In fact, research suggests that people with insomnia have 10 times the risk of developing depression as people who sleep well. And people who are depressed commonly struggle with insomnia, showing symptoms such as difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or waking up feeling rested. The brain chemical serotonin, which affects mood, emotion, sleep, and appetite, according to Walsleban, is one likely reason the two conditions travel in tandem.
Ironically, Avidan warns, a common class of medication used to treat depression -- selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors -- sometimes causes sleep disorders, such as periodic limb movement disorder, which causes your legs to jerk while you sleep, or rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder, in which people act out their dreams, punching, kicking, or jumping from bed while still asleep. Talk with your doctor about all possible medication side effects.

