Decoding the Science of Sleep

With having a new born sleep is a critical commodity that is often in short supply in my household.  Last we we posted an article on a new migraine cures.  One thing I have personally noticed is the correlation between sleep and migraines.  Sleep deprivation often triggers migraines.

As our schedules have gotten busier, a global economy where business never sleeps, and smartphones that are always on, it's no wonder that people have become more tired.  Where do you find time to fit sleep into your schedule?

As this WSJ article points out, "sleep likely hovers somewhere near flossing in most of our lives: something we are supposed to do more—but don't."

• Sleep wasn't something we were supposed to worry about in the early years of the 21st century. Technology was making the world smaller by the day; the global economy blurred the lines between one day and the next, and things like time and place were supposed to be growing ever less important in the always-on workplace. Most of us never gave sleep much thought—considering it nothing more than an elegant on-off switch, like the ones on our smartphones, that the body flips when it needs to take a break from its overscheduled life. Sure, we'd like to get a bit more of it. But, beyond that, sleep likely hovers somewhere near flossing in most of our lives: something we are supposed to do more—but don't.
• This skyrocketing sleeplessness has given rise to a large and growing industry: Americans now spend tens of billions of dollars on prescriptions, at sleep labs, on mattresses and for medical devices in our quest for some simple shuteye, according to Marketdata Enterprises, a market research firm based in Tampa, Fla. "Fatigue management consultants," meanwhile, now work with more than half of the current Fortune 500 companies, law-enforcement groups and even Super Bowl-winning teams on ways to maintain a consistently high-performing workforce and prevent accidents.
• And no amount of caffeine can alleviate the need for sleep. When that time comes, many adults turn to sleeping pills for help. About 60 million prescriptions for sleeping pills were filled in the U.S. last year, according to IMS Health, a data and analytics firm in Parsippany, N.J. That number is up from 48 million in 2006. Yet a number of studies have shown that drugs like Ambien and Lunesta offer no significant improvements in the quality of users' sleep.