To Sleep Perchance To Dream

Preventive Medicine by DR. BARRY

One of the cornerstones of good health is sleep. Poor sleep will shorten your life. Poor sleep can wreck your day. In a study done in Britain called the Whitehall II Study they found that less than five hours of sleep doubled your risk of death from cardiovascular disease which , if you needed reminding, is the number one cause of death in America according to the CDC. Personally, I think the number one cause of death in America is sugar, which in its infinite wisdom, our government subsidizes.

Good sleep is screwed up by all kinds of things including the room not being cold enough, the room not being dark enough, having a TV in your bedroom, having too much computer and smartphone face time before bedtime because of the effects of the blue light they emit on the pineal gland etc. These issues are all called sleep hygiene. Even if you attend to all these issues you could still have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. Many people have sleep trouble. According to the Cleveland Clinic, 50 percent of Americans will occasionally have difficulty sleeping and 10 percent of Americans have chronic insomnia.

So, you go to your doctor and complain of poor sleep and what happens? You are given a pill. Maybe it’s Elavil. Maybe it’s Trazodone. Both of these meds were originally developed as antidepressants and have been repurposed as sleep aids and are popular because they are available without a restricted prescription like Ambien, Lunesta, Halcion etc. These drugs, the real sleeping pills , require a special step for your doctor to go through to prescribe them. That should tell you something. These pills are addicting. These pills eventually develop tolerance so, like narcotics, you need more and more over time to have the same effect. These pills will put you to sleep but it’s not a normal sleep physiologically. It’s very hard to get people off these pills. Last, but not least, all of the hypnotic medications , including Benadryl, are associated with an increasing risk of dementia later in life.

So, obviously, I am not a big fan of medications for sleep. You were not born with a sonata deficiency, you did not develop a trazodone shortage….you should be able to get reasonable sleep without prescription medications. You could try melatonin or tryptophan both of which are natural substances and are safer by far than any prescription medication. Even these supplements lose their effectiveness in many people over time. You could always try acupuncture or hypnosis for insomnia, neither have any side effects that can hurt you.

If you do any research at all on the internet regarding insomnia you will find that cognitive behavioral therapy is the number one recommended treatment for insomnia. CBT , as it’s referred to, is a form of psychotherapy or talk therapy where people learn to understand what’s keeping them from getting a good night’s sleep and by working through it, resolve their issues that are affecting their sleep. Unfortunately , If there are any therapists that do CBT for sleep in Syracuse they are keeping it a well guarded secret because I have not found a single therapist who specializes in this locally. Luckily, the internet once again comes to the rescue.

There is a company on the internet that will help you with CBT for insomnia. Dr. Robert Oexman founded an online company called SOMLY.COM specifically to use CBT for insomnia. He has run sleep labs at Stanford and Harvard so he has plenty of credibility. They focus on both the environmental issues affecting sleep as well as the cognitive issues. The full program costs $250 and what I really like about this program is that it comes with a money back guarantee. So, you really have nothing to lose except another nights poor sleep. As always, I have zero point zero relationship with this company and get nothing from recommending them except knowing I have given you another option for a chronic debilitating condition that you now can have more control over with a different approach not available locally.