The Sleep Blog
On Happiness Part 1:
A few years ago when I was focusing a lot of my time outside of work on climbing mountains, I thought a lot about a concept called hedonic adaptation. At the time, I wasn’t familiar with the term, but through my adventures and travels I became aware of the idea that...
Black Out Shades:
For the past few years my husband and I have had an ongoing debate about whether our bedroom is dark enough. We live on Puget Sound and there is a lot of light pollution from aircraft, boats, and the moon’s reflection on the water. Til recently we had blinds but not...
Sleep and Dreams
Dr. William Dement passed away last year. He was one of the pioneers in the field of sleep medicine. He founded the first sleep clinic in the United States @stanford which is where I trained. Early in his career at the University of Chicago he studied dreams and...
Sleep Quality versus Sleep Quantity:
When I’m developing customized sleep plans for my patients a lot of the times people are solely focused on the end result of getting eight hours of sleep per night. The evidence-based solutions I utilize are a series of small steps which are implemented over time and...
A Mindful Moment for Insomnia:
Mindfulness can be an extremely powerful tool for treating insomnia. In my last post I talked about reducing sympathetic activation (flight or fight). In this post I’ll focus on facilitating parasympathetic activity (rest and digest). Mindfulness can sound...
A Rare Sleep Disorder:
Today I thought it would be engaging to share a rare sleep disorder, but one I’ve seen and diagnosed. Exploding Head Syndrome Presents as a sudden loud noise, snap, or explosion usually at sleep onset or upon awakening. Can occur as an isolated incident or in a...
Sleep Apnea Screening Tools
Is it possible to know if I have obstructive sleep apnea without seeing a sleep specialist? Two common screening tools used for obstructive sleep apnea are the Berlin questionnaire and the STOP-BANG which are validated for obstructive sleep apnea. For a non-sleep...
What is CPAP?
CPAP is an acronym for continuous positive airway pressure. Gentle air pressure is applied to the upper airway by way of a mask to prevent the throat from collapsing during sleep in ppl with obstructive sleep apnea. CPAP is extremely effective, safe, and (most of...
Deep Sleep Part 2:
A very common questions I get asked is how can I get more deep sleep? The brain generates deep sleep through a pathway involving the neurotransmitter adenosine. There are several ways to increase adenosine The longer we are awake the more adenosine (sleep debt) we...
What is deep sleep?
I doubt there are many people who would decline an opportunity to have more deep sleep. Deep sleep is synonymous with restoration but what is it? In the sleep lab, we identify deep sleep by an electrical pattern generated by the brain which is characterized by...
An Introduction to CPAP
The most commons concerns I hear about CPAP are things like: What does it look like? How big is it? Will I be able to sleep on my side? Will I be able to roll over? Is there a mask that works better than others? In this Instagram video series I’ll show you...
What is REM Sleep?
Our brains generate four stages of sleep, two lighter stages and two deeper stages. REM Sleep is one of the two deep stages of sleep. Brain waves during REM sleep are similar to wakefulness showing the brain is very active. REM Sleep is distinguished from all the...
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