You check your ring or watch first thing in the morning before you even sit up. The score says 62. Now you feel tired, even if you felt fine ten seconds ago. That reaction has a name. It is called orthosomnia, and it is becoming a real problem in sleep clinics. Sleep trackers have helped… Continue reading
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Sleep Divorce: Does Sleeping Separately Actually Help Your Relationship?
More couples are choosing to sleep in separate beds or separate rooms. The trend has a catchy name, sleep divorce, but it has nothing to do with ending a relationship. It is about protecting sleep, and in many cases, protecting the relationship itself. As a sleep doctor, I get asked about this often. Patients want… Continue reading
Sleepmaxxing: What Actually Works vs What’s Hype
“Sleepmaxxing” is everywhere right now. Mouth tape, weighted blankets, magnesium, blue light glasses, ice cold bedrooms, and a wrist full of sleep data. The idea is simple. Optimize every part of your sleep and you will wake up sharper, calmer, and healthier. Some of this is genuinely useful. Some of it does very little. As… Continue reading
Bedwetting and Sleep: What Every Parent Should Know About Enuresis in Children
Nearly 1 in 5 children who wet the bed also have a breathing problem during sleep. Most parents never make that connection. They see bedwetting as a bladder issue or a “phase” their child will grow out of. Sometimes that is true. But for a large group of children, the real story is happening in… Continue reading
Do I Have Insomnia? How to Recognize the Signs and When to Get Help
You lie in bed. Your mind is running through tomorrow’s to-do list. An hour passes. Then two. You start to wonder if this counts as insomnia, or if you are just a light sleeper going through a rough patch. This question comes up in my clinic almost every week. Here is how to tell the… Continue reading
What Is Beauty Sleep, and Where Did the Term Come From
You have heard someone call it their “beauty sleep.” Maybe you have said it yourself, half joking, before heading to bed early. But the phrase is older than you think, and the science behind it is more real than most people assume. Here is what beauty sleep actually means, where the term started, and what… Continue reading
Idiopathic Hypersomnia: What You Need to Know
On average, people with idiopathic hypersomnia wait years for a correct diagnosis. Studies from the United States, the Czech Republic, and India report delays of 6 to 9 years in adults, and in some patients the wait stretches even longer. If you or someone you know has been struggling with unexplained, unrelenting sleepiness and has… Continue reading
Why CBT-I Is the Best Treatment for Insomnia
If you have insomnia, you have probably been told to try sleep hygiene tips first. Cut caffeine. Dim the lights. Stick to a schedule. These things help a little, but they rarely fix chronic insomnia on their own. The treatment with the strongest evidence behind it is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia, known as CBT-I…. Continue reading
Can Poor Sleep Raise Your Risk of Dementia? Here Is What the Research Shows
If you regularly sleep six hours or less a night in your 50s and 60s, your risk of developing dementia later in life goes up by roughly 30 percent. That number comes from a 25-year study of nearly 8,000 people, and it is one of the strongest signals we have that sleep is not just… Continue reading
Fixing Delayed Sleep Phase Before School Starts
Summer bedtimes drift late. School start times don’t. That gap is why so many kids and teens walk into the first week of school running on four to six hours of sleep. If your child can’t fall asleep before midnight and can’t wake up before 10am, this isn’t laziness or bad habits. It’s a circadian… Continue reading