The Science and Art for Better Sleep: A Stress Doc Guide

This blog contains my latest writings on Brain Fitness; specifically, the power of sleep to impact a wide array of our physiological and neurological health systems.  I’m convinced that in an “always on,” “do more with less” world, the problem of work-life/stress-sleep balance is both epic (and epidemic) in nature.  For example, Sunday, while watching the football games at Champs Restaurant and Bar, during commercials I would do some final editing of the attached manual.  On both sides of me, 30-something guys asked what I was doing.  Once I mentioned the subject matter, the verbal and emotional floodgates opened up.  All acknowledged the challenge of getting sufficient sleep, and its impact on performance and productivity as well as social civility.

I’ll soon be sharing a companion module on napping, meditation, visualization, guided imagery, and dreaming.

I think you will find the both modules thought-provoking and “hands on” regarding tools and techniques for better sleep hygiene and brain fitness.  And, naturally, your feedback is much appreciated.  Sleep on it, at least!  Thanks.

Mark

stressdoc@aol.com

301-875-2567

P.S.  Of course, if you know of companies, organizations, or groups that might be interested on a dynamic, thought-provoking, interactive, and FUN presentation on “Sleep Hygiene” or “Stress and Brain Resiliency,” just email or call.

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The Science and Art for Better Sleep:  A Stress Doc Guide

Stationed at a week-long health fair “Brain Fitness” vendor table provided the opportunity for sober learning about modern day living:  most Baltimore, MD city employees – I’d say close to 75% – are not getting seven hours or more of sleep on a regular basis, and about half are getting less than six hours.  Why was I so concerned?  Hey, can’t you just catch up on sleep with a “catnap” or hibernate on a weekend?  (Of course, there are different perspectives and solutions on sleep problems.  For example, I recall my warehouse work as a 20-year old.  In that setting, for some individuals, poor sleeping conditions meant there were no empty bins in which to hide and snooze.)

Actually, most of the folks coming to the vendor table were also concerned.  I was encouraged that many seemed hungry for the information on sleep and other dynamics for “Natural SPEED” (see below).  Let me illustrate my professional and personal interest on the nexus of sleep and mind-body fitness.

Almost two decades ago I discovered that disturbed and disrupted sleep doesn’t just affect powers of concentration, productivity, and personal safety, but it also has implications for heart health.  For one year in the early ‘90s, at a 24/7, 6,000 person inner city Baltimore US Postal Service Processing & Distribution Plant, I was a half-time Stress and Violence Prevention Consultant (when the expression “Going Postal” was just coming into vogue).  The Plant Manager wanted me to be the “friendly Social Worker on the beat.”  I walked the cavernous work floors and warehouses and engaged employees on all three shifts.  And believe me, I met all types and had all kinds of encounters:  a) exhausting emergencies, like an employee having a heart attack on the work floor surrounded by colleagues in shock, b) the post-traumatic stress of a postal carrier being accosted by a robber with a knife, and c) poignant grieving, helping a normally stoic supervisor mourn the loss of her son and her husband within a two month span.  The son had died of AIDS; the father of an impaired and fractured heart.

But without doubt, personally, the greatest challenge and source of mind-body stress was that once/week “graveyard shift” – from 9pm to 6am.  This weekly circadian upheaval definitely threw my “biological clock” out of whack.  (How I facilitated a weekly, highly contentious one hour upper management-frontline supervisor meeting, with twenty deadline-driven and distracted individuals, at 3 in the morning…today, defies mind-body credulity.)

For Whom the Stress Tolls

Shortly after a one year “tour of duty,” (budget cuts impelled my release despite all levels of in-house protest) for the first time, in my mid-forties, I was exhibiting high blood pressure.  Despite ferocious dietary and exercise efforts to recover normal readings (and to temper a “this shouldn’t be happening to me” blow to a middle-aging ego), after several months I had to accept my new medical diagnosis – hypertension!  Most likely, the “always on” pressure of the postal experience – especially the jarring graveyard shift – had brought out a family pattern of “basic hypertension.”  Reluctantly, I began taking blood pressure medications, a regimen I continue to this day.

And after doing some reading, I was less surprised.  For many folks, working against your natural awake-sleep cycle rhythm can have an array of adverse health consequences, including reducing one’s life span.

Sleep Disturbance-Diabetes Connection

And the second nail in my sleep awareness coffin occurred about two years ago.  I was watching a show on Sixty Minutes about the importance of sleep and the country’s looming sleep deprivation epidemic.  What really caught my attention were the effects on sleep study subjects that were blocked from reaching deep levels of sleep.  Upon exhibiting “deep” levels of brain waves and eye movement, subjects would be gently shaken as they slept.  This procedure prevented subjects from sustaining deeper levels of unconsciousness.  This is critical as many of the major restorative functions in the human body like muscle growth, tissue repair, protein synthesis, and growth hormone release occur mostly, or in some cases only, during the deepest stages of sleep.

And, in fact, within thirty-six hours, these deep sleep-deprived subjects began revealing incipient signs of pre-diabetes symptomatology, a warning indicator of two national epidemics – sleep deprivation and obesity.

As, noted in the attached manual, Stress Doc’s Better Sleep Guide, diabetes and sleep problems often go hand in hand.  Diabetes can cause sleep loss (e.g., frequent nightly urination to excrete high blood sugar), and there’s evidence that not sleeping well can increase your risk of developing diabetes.  The body's reaction to sleep loss can resemble insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes.  Insulin’s job is to help the body use glucose for energy.  In insulin resistance, cells fail to use the hormone efficiently, resulting in high blood sugar.  Diabetes occurs when the body does not produce enough insulin or the cells do not properly use the insulin.  When insulin is not doing its job, high blood sugar levels build in the body to the point where they can harm the eyes, kidneys, nerves, or heart.

Dr. Lynn Maarouf, RD, the diabetes education director of the Stark Diabetes Center at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, says high blood sugar is a red flag for sleep problems among people with diabetes for another reason.  “People who are tired will eat more because they want to get energy from somewhere,” she says.  “That can mean consuming sugar or other foods that can spike blood sugar levels.”  The key is eating properly throughout the day (e.g., moderate amount of food intake throughout the day or “grazing”) and getting blood sugar levels under control to sleep better at night.  (Denise Mann, “The Sleep-Diabetes Connection,” WebMD Feature.)

From Health Fair to Brain Fitness Manual

Partly in response to the need and interest discovered in the above-mentioned health fair, I’m developing a “Brain Fitness” manual and workshop program in conjunction with a national organizational wellness company headquartered in Baltimore.  Sleep is the first component of my Stress and Brain Resiliency Formula – Developing Natural SPEED:  Sleep, Priorities-Passion-Empathy-Exercise-Diet.  Eventually I will be bringing out a “Natural SPEED for Brain Fitness” book.

Until then, I have pasted a Training Objectives and Outline of “The Science and Art for Better Sleep” and have also attached the actual manual/program guide.  I hope it helps you and/or others you know take a more careful and candid look at personal sleep patterns.  (Of course, your feedback on my work is always appreciated.)  Without a doubt, your sleep regimen affects myriad organ systems, in addition to the heart, hormones, and brain. 

The five major segments of this module begin to convey the wide-ranging criticality of sleep:

Ø  Three Theories of Why We Sleep

Ø  The Four Stages of the Sleeping Brain

Ø  Sleep Requirements and Seven Benefits (and Cost Deficits) of Sleep Patterns

Ø  Insomnia, Chronicity, and Maladaptive Coping

Ø  Sleep Hygiene and the Dynamic Dozen for Better Sleep

A vital sleep regimen truly is one of the keys to mind-body health, productivity, and living life to the fullest.  And it is surely necessary to help one and all…Practice Safe Stress!

The Science and Art for Better Sleep:  Program Objectives and Outline

In a 24/7, “always on,” “do more with less,” TNT – Time-Numbers-Technology – driven and distracted world, is it any surprise how wide-spread the struggle to get sufficient and nourishing sleep?  For too many, all manner of stress ominously hover and swoop like birds in a Hitchcock movie; at the burnout battlefront, is that incoming yet another email or an e-missile?  Surely, achieving work-life/stress-sleep balance has become the elusive if not unimaginable, modern day holy quest.  And this rampant stress-sleep crisis appears to be linked with many health issues and may be fueling another health epidemic – obesity – along with associated diseases such as diabetes!

Training Objectives

Day-to-day, of course, ongoing lack of sleep disrupts concentration and problem-solving performance, not to mention jeopardizing personal-professional safety.  Inadequate sleep may also adversely impact your capacity for short-term and long-term learning along with memory recall and the overall neurological-physiological functioning and fitness of your brain-body?

This workshop will illustrate how sleep hygiene and brain fitness are critical for both individual and organizational wellness and productivity.  The benefits and costs of sleep dynamics – surplus and deficits, and overall patterns will be outlined.  Finally, participants will gain skills and strategies, tool and techniques for strengthening sleep hygiene.  Critical learning areas include:

Ø  Three Theories of Why We Sleep

Ø  The Four Stages of the Sleeping Brain

Ø  Sleep Requirements and Seven Benefits (and Cost Deficits) of Sleep Patterns

Ø  Insomnia, Chronicity, and Maladaptive Coping

Ø  Sleep Hygiene and the Dynamic Dozen for Better Sleep

 

Program Outline

A.  Three Theories of Why We Sleep

1.  Energy Conservation Theory

2.  Restorative Theory

3.  Brain Plasticity Theory

B.  The Four Stages of the Sleeping Brain

Stage 1:  Falling Asleep

Stage 2:  Light Sleep

Stage 3:  Deepest Sleep

Stage 4:  REM Sleep

C.  Sleep Requirements and Seven Benefits (and Cost Deficits) of Sleep Patterns

1)  How Much Sleep Do You Need? 

2)  Benefits (and Cost Deficits) of Sleep Patterns

1.  Learning, Memory, and Performance:  Attention, Children/Students Athletes, and Creativity

2.  Metabolism and Weight
3.  Safety
4.  Mood
5.  Cardiovascular Health and Stress
6.  Disease and Inflammation, Diabetes and Alzheimer’s
7.  Longevity and Quality of Life

D.  Insomnia, Chronicity, and Maladaptive Coping 

1.  Definition of Insomnia

 

2.  Is It Acute or Chronic?

3.  Maladaptive Coping

a. Drinking alcohol to make you sleepy

b. Big meals at night
c. Watching TV till you get sleepy
d. Paying bills before bedtime
e. Taking sleeping pills daily

E.  Sleep Hygiene and the Dynamic Dozen for Better Sleep

1.  What Is Sleep Hygiene?

2.  The Dynamic Dozen for Better Sleep

1)  Keep a Regular and Ritual Sleep Schedule

2)  Naturally Regulate Your Sleep-Wake Cycle
3)  Reduce Screen Time before Bed
4)  Bedroom-Bedtime Environment
5)  Exercise to Enhance Sleep
6)  Eat to Enhance Sleep
7)  Fight After–Dinner Drowsiness
8)  Nap to Make Up for Lost Sleep
9)  Relaxation Techniques for Better Sleep
10) Getting Back to Sleep after Awakening During the Night
11) Coping with Shift Work Sleep Disorder
12) Know When to See a Sleep Doctor

Mark Gorkin, MSW, LICSW
The Stress Doc ™

301-875-2567 www.stressdoc.com
stressdoc@aol.com

Google blog: http://www.blogger.com/home


Mark Gorkin, the Stress Doc ™, www.stressdoc.com, acclaimed Keynote and Kickoff Speaker, Webinar Presenter, Retreat Leader and Motivational Humorist, is the author of Practice Safe Stress and The Four Faces of Anger. A former Stress & Violence Prevention consultant for the US Postal Service, the Doc leads highly interactive, innovative and inspiring programs for corporations and government agencies, including the US Military, on stress and brain resiliency/burnout prevention through humor, change and conflict management, generational communication, and 3 "R" -- Responsible, Resilient & Risk-Taking -- leadership-partnership team building. Email stressdoc@aol.com for his popular free newsletter & info on speaking programs.

Stress Doc Mantra: "Think out of the box, perform outside the curve (the Bell Curve) and be out-rage-ous!"
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