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Cautions About Sleep Medications
In my office, people who are taking many sleep medications for long-term use often come in looking for alternatives. In naturopathic practice there is a place for medications in the 'Therapeutic Order.' In naturopathic medicine the 'least force' treatment is used...
Mommy’s Sleep Holiday
Pretty regularly, women who are desperate for sleep come to me. These women say things like "I'm losing it," "I'm going to go insane if I don't get some sleep" or "I can't take this anymore." Most of them are mothers whose sleep is being regularly disrupted by their...
Sleep and Trauma
In my office, it is not unusual to learn that a person's sleep difficulties started with a trauma or bad experience. For many people, the trauma they experienced was years (or decades) ago, and still affects their sleep. These sleep difficulties can take the form...
A Mother’s Sleep Dilemma
Unfortunately, being a sleep expert doesn't make one immune to sleep difficulties. Having been a life-long good sleeper, all my sleep difficulties began with motherhood. Many mothers in my naturopathic sleep medicine practice tell me that they stay up late so they can...
Sleep in the Elderly
You may hear people tell how their sleep has worsened as they age. They describe lower quality night time sleep, and more need to nap during the day. Recently I had the privilege of working with a person age 101 on sleep health. This was a good experience, which...
Sleep in America, 2010
Each year, the National Sleep Foundation comes out with its Sleep in America Poll. This year 1007 people (ages 25-60) from across the country were asked about their ethnicity and sleep habits, let’s look at the results. Sleep Habits Differ by Ethnicity This study...
Is it Insomnia or Delayed Sleep Phase?
Insomnia is an inability to fall asleep easily or stay asleep throughout the night. Delayed Sleep Phase is when a person is on a later schedule than the norm. The tricky thing is that Delayed Sleep Phase can masquerade as insomnia, because it can also cause difficulty...
Sleep Promoting Thoughts
There's a saying in the sleep community "the only people who try to sleep are insomniacs, everyone else just sleeps." Unfortunately, sleep can be one of those things that becomes more difficult the harder you try. Sometimes patients share that when it starts getting...