One of my areas of expertise within sleep medicine is behavioral sleep medicine. Most of the behavioral sleep medicine experts in the U.S. are psychologists. I am one of a few in Washington State with an M.D. ⁣⁣background. ⁣⁣Practicing behavioral sleep medicine was...

⁣Intimate and romantic relationships bring happiness and positive emotions to our lives for some time but then are susceptible to hedonic adaptation.⁣ What are the best ways to combat hedonic adaptation in marriage/partnerships? ⁣One exercise for countering hedonic...

Working hard to achieve is enjoyable. But how do we combat the sensation that we’re in a hamster wheel or on a treadmill with no end point? I learned from my course with Dr. Santos we can practice measures to counter hedonic adaptation. ⁣ Over the next few weeks I’ll...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...