Having Trouble Sleeping?

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.

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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...

Read the Sleeping Pill Safety: 10 Dos and Don'ts article > >

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.

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FreeTaxUSA - Free Federal Tax Return

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What Does the Future Hold for Small Business? : Money :: American Express OPEN Forum

Nov 08, 2010 -

Remember when the 2000s began? Seems like just yesterday, doesn’t it? Well, the end of the first decade of the “oughts” is in sight, and it’s time to start looking ahead to the next. If you’re looking to innovate in the coming years, you’ll want to take a closer look at a new report from Intuit.

Intuit 2020 Report: 20 Trends That Will Shape the Next Decade builds on more than five years of research led by the Institute for the Future and Emergent Research. It is the first in a series of reports looking at key trends affecting consumers and businesses in the coming years. Subsequent reports will drill down into specific trends and industries, but the current report presents a broad overview.

What’s the takeaway? “The coming decade will be complex, volatile and uncertain, but it will also provide many new opportunities for small businesses and their customers in the United States and abroad,” the report notes. Here are some points I found especially interesting and that have big implications for the future of innovation:

Small businesses will get ever more specialized. Customers will increasingly seek customized products and services. The rise of innovations such as cloud computing, a flexible workforce and lower-cost manufacturing options will make it easier for small businesses to seek out product and service niches.

Startup will get easier and cheaper. In response to growing niche market opportunities, lower equipment costs and better technology, it will be easier than ever to launch a business without a big investment. This means more innovation, as new ideas can be tested without much risk – and startup companies will proliferate.

Big and small firms will join forces. Collaborative partnerships with big companies will increase, as small companies bring to the table innovative practices, market agility and intimate customer knowledge. What will big firms offer small businesses? Marketing and distribution power so that they can take their innovations to broader markets.

One prediction I’m not so sure I agree with: “The Web and mobile technologies will become the great equalizer of big and small, with customers no longer knowing – or even caring – about the size of the firm that provides their goods and services.” In a niche economy where personalization is sought after, will being a small company actually be an advantage? I think consumers may, in many cases, prefer to do business with small firms provided their needs are being met.

And here’s one innovation I particularly hope to see – and I think most busy business owners wish for as well: “The hardware and software we use on a daily basis will get smarter, helping people make everyday decisions and streamline complex tasks,” the report contends. That’s especially good news given that data will become even more critical to competitiveness. Information overload isn’t going away – so smart machines to help us deal with it will be very welcome.

Older Americans Sicker Than British Peers...

Older Americans Sicker Than British Peers...

THURSDAY, Nov. 4 

-- New research suggests that middle-aged and older white Americans are sicker than their counterparts in the United Kingdom but they still manage to live as long as the Brits, thanks to doctors and drugs.

"Americans are taking worse care of themselves but getting better care from the health-care system," explained study co-author James P. Smith, a senior economist at the Rand Corp. "My fear is that unless we are able to improve ourselves in terms of sickness, making up for this with good medical care will be harder and harder to sustain in the future."

The study compared British people to Americans because complete statistics were available for both countries, Smith said. The researchers left out big chunks of the population, however: they didn't include immigrants in the United Kingdom or Latinos and blacks in the United States.

"We did so to eliminate the possibility that minorities in both countries could be causing the health differences," Smith explained.

The researchers looked specifically at the people in the 55-to-64 and 70-to-80 age groups during the years 2002 to 2006, and found that Americans are at higher risk of a disease or condition -- such as high-blood pressure, heart disease, chronic lung diseases and cancer -- or developing one.

"There are about 56 million Americans over age 60. If we had the English rate of cancer instead of the American rate, there would be 4 million fewer Americans over age 60 with cancer," Smith said. "Similarly, if we had the English rate of diabetes instead of the American rate, there would be 3.5 million fewer Americans over age 60 with diabetes. In both cases, that would cut the numbers almost in half."

Even so, the American and British people studied were about as likely to die at the same stage in their lives, with a slightly higher rate among the British aged 65 and older.

The results may surprise Americans, Smith said. "Most Americans would think that we should be healthier than the English since they smoke a lot, drink more than we do and their diets don't sound so healthy. Think of the English breakfast for example. The fact that it is not true is a real wake-up call."

The researchers reported their findings Nov. 4 in the journal Demography.

The findings suggest that the American health-care system is having trouble with disease prevention, said epidemiologist David Rehkopf.

"The better care that Americans get from their health-care system occurs very late in the disease process," said Rehkopf, an assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco. "This does have an important benefit for reducing mortality."

"However," he added, "because less focus is put on prevention, we have to live and manage chronic disease and illness for long periods of time. The findings suggest that the main deficiencies in the U.S. health system may be in preventing disease from occurring. This is important to begin to address if people want to also live disease-free, rather than just longer."

More information

For more on healthy aging, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

CFO Survey Says Expect Another Year of 9% Unemployment - Steve Schaefer - Exile On Wall Street - Forbes

The sluggish economic recovery in the U.S. has made financial planning difficult, and a new survey released Monday shows that executives continue to talk a big game about hiring new workers, but remain reticent to move such initiatives beyond the planning stage.
The Third-Quarter CFO Outlook Survey, built on interviews with 249 chief financial officers conducted by Financial Executives International (FEI) and Baruch College’s Zicklin School of Business, reports that 56.5% of those surveyed plan to hire additional employees in the next six months.
The CFOs that responded must expect hiring to be fairly limited outside their own offices though, as the survey’s question on unemployment forecasts a jobless rate of 9.4% six months from now and 9% in October 2009. The Labor Department’s October jobs report is expected to show unemployment remains at 9.6%.
John Elliott, dean of the Zicklin School of Business, says that since FEI and Baruch began their partnership on the study in 2004 the CFO pool has shown particularly strong forecasting ability in certain areas, chiefly unemployment. He notes that the first-quarter survey (conducted in February) showed expectations that the unemployment rate six months out would be 9.54%. August’s jobless rate: 9.6%.

Many companies remain wary of taking on new employees, Elliott notes, though the majority of the executives surveyed have a far more optimistic view of their own business than the broader economy. The CFO survey includes a gauge of optimism for the U.S. economy on a 0-100 scale, which rose to 55.2 in the third quarter, from 53.60 in the prior three-month period. A similar question asking about their company in particular drew a more upbeat 69.1 reading.
Another trend borne out in the survey comes on the M&A front, where deal flow has drastically improved in 2010 from a year ago. Of those surveyed, 23.3% said interest in their company as an acquisition target increased in the third quarter, compared with 3.8% who reported a decrease and 72.9% who said there had been no change. When it comes to making acquisitions, 34% of the CFOs said their interest had increased, 3.2% said it decreased and 62.8% reported no change.
Given the size of the companies surveyed – 81.4% have less than $500 million in annual revenue and only 20% are publicly traded – it seems likely that deals will continue to be of the smaller bolt-on variety with only a few occasional big-ticket moves like BHP Billiton’s $38.6 billion bid for Potash and Sanofi-Aventis’ $18.5 billion hostile offer for Genzyme.
The increasing appetite for deals comes at a period in the economic cycle when companies have taken drastic steps to reduce costs and clean up balance sheets, says Elliott, and are thus in a position of greater profitability. CFOs are expecting profits to grow 13% over the next year, he says, but with only 8% revenue growth. “The only way you get that is cost control,” says Elliott, “which doesn’t bode well for significant job growth.”
Expectations that unemployment will remain over 9% for at least another year is not a particularly encouraging sign, but the survey’s increased optimism component and a sense that companies are at least planning on certain capital expenditures are good signs in Elliott’s view.
“If you really squint for signs of hope, you can see them,” he says.