Studies show that obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) affects much more than just your sleep. It can even damage your brain.

A recent brain imaging study from France involved 16 adults. Each of them had just been diagnosed with sleep apnea.

In numerous brain regions the study found a loss of “gray matter.” This is brain tissue that contains fibers and nerve cell  bodies. There also was a decrease in brain metabolism.

The authors suggest that these changes may explain some of the impairments that often occur in people with sleep apnea. Examples include attention lapses and memory loss. The study was published in March 2009 issue of the Journal of Sleep Research.

The results are similar to those found by a research team from UCLA. Their study was published in Neuroscience Letters in June 2008. They reported that people with sleep apnea have tissue loss in the “mammillary bodies.” These are brain regions that help store memory.

In July 2008 the UCLA team published another brain imaging study in the journal Sleep.It involved 41 people with moderate to severe sleep apnea. It also included 69 control subjects matched by age.

Results show that people with sleep apnea have extensive alterations in “white matter.” This is nerve tissue in the brain. It contains fibers that are insulated with myelin -a white, fatty sheath. The structural changes appear in brain regions that help control mood and memory. These regions also play a role in adjusting your blood pressure. Damage also was found in fiber pathways that connect these brain regions.

What causes the brain damage? The authors suggest that oxygen, blood flow and blood pressure may be involved. Sleep apnea involves breathing pauses that can occur hundreds of times a night of sleep. These pauses can produce drastic changes in oxygen levels.

These breathing pauses also reduce blood flow in the brain. People with sleep apnea also are at risk for high blood pressure. Both of these conditions create a potential for brain tissue damage.

Dr. Ronald Harper of UCLA said that the studies show how important it is for sleep apnea to be treated. CPAP is the most common treatment for sleep apnea. The findings make it all the more imperative that OSA be treated as soon as possible to prevent further injury. The long-term effects of OSA are terribly damaging to memory and thinking processes.

Can treatment reverse the brain damage caused by sleep apnea? The authors are uncertain if the changes are permanent.

But studies show that CPAP does help your heart, it may even save your life.

Insomnia can make you feel like your mind is racing out of control. A revealing new study explains why your brain may be unable to put the brakes on your thoughts. It links the problem to low levels of a brain chemical.

A new study shows that GABA levels are reduced by 30 percent in adults with chronic primary insomnia. The study was published in the Nov. 1 issue of the journal Sleep.

GABA is reduced in the brain of individuals with insomnia, suggesting over activity is present. It was explained that low GABA levels create an imbalance of brain activity. This may lead to an inability to shut down waking signals in the brain.

If your GABA levels are low, then your mind can’t slow down. It may race forward at full speed even when it is time to sleep. An over active mind is a key feature of psychophsicological insomnia. At bedtime you are unable to stop thinking and worrying. Your body may be ready for sleep, but your mind remains alert. This state of “hyperarousal” can make it hard for you to fall asleep.

Most with insomnia have “secondary” insomnia. It occurs along with another medical problem, mental illness or sleep disorder. It also may result from the use of a medication or substance. In contrast primary insomnia is unrelated to another health problem. Estimates that about 25 percent of people with insomnia have primary insomnia. The study only links low GABA levels to long lasting, primary insomnia.

All participants in the study had been suffering from primary insomnia for mor than six months. The average duration of their symptoms was about 10 years. The GABA connection affirms that primary insomnia is a legitimate disorder.

Recognition that insomnia has manifestations in the brain may increase the legitimacy of those who have insomnia and report substantial daytime  consequences. It was also explained that insomnia can affect your energy, concentration and mood. It also increases your risk of depression.

One solution for the problem of primary insomnia is the use of hypnotic medication. The short-term use of a sleeping pill can help break the cycle of sleepless nights. The study notes that many of the most effective sleeping pills increase activity at the GABA neurons.

Another treatment option is cognitive behavioral therapy. CBT helps you learn how to correct attitudes and habits that hinder your sleep. Many of these bad habits develop as people try to cope with chronic insomnia.

 Current economic conditions in the U.S. are forcing many consumers to cut back on health care expenses. Yet sleep experts advise that the cost of a sleep study is a sound investment for millions of people who suffer from a sleep disorder.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that about 15 million adults in the U.S. did not receive needed medical care in 2005 because they could not afford it. In July, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners conduted a national survey. Results show that 22 percent of people have reduced the number of times they visit the doctor because to current economic conditions.

 In such a challenging economy, should your sleep needs be a priority?

Sleep is one of the cornerstones of good health. It affects everything from your weight and blood pressure to your energy and mood. If you have been struggling with an ongoing sleep problem, then a sleep study may be just what you need. It could be the key that unlocks the door to a dramatic improvement in your health and a better quality of life for you.

 Losing sleep over the economy, but losing sleep over an undiagnosed problem is no fun.

People are notorious for underestimating how sleepy they are. People assume that thier disrupted sleep and level of sleepiness when awake is normal for their age. Symptoms of some sleep disorders also can go unnoticed. For example loud snoring and gasping for breath durning sleep are two warning signs for sleep apnea. But you may be unaware of these sym if you live or sleep alone. As a result, millions of people go through each day wondering why they can’t stay awake. Others go to bed each night wondering why they can’t sleep. The answers to these questions often can be found by a sleep study…

    Here are some benefits to think about:
Research shows that there are numerous benefits to detecing a sleep disorder with a sleep study.  The study pinpoints the nature and cause of your sleep problem. This provides the foundation for an effective treatment plan. Treating a sleep disorder promotes heath, productivity and well-being. In the long run it also can save you money!

• Improved Health
  Research has linked sleep disorders to many other health problems. These include heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes and obesity. A study in the journal Sleep even shows that people with severe, untreated sleep apnea have five times the risk of dying from a heart problem. Effective treatment of a sleep disorder can reduce the risk and severity of other related health challenges.
• Reduced Spending
  Studies have linked undetected and untreated sleep disorders to an increase in health-care utilization and spending. You are likely to make more visits to the doctor’s office each year. You are also likely to spend more money on your health care. Expenses may include testing, medications and hospitalization. Research shows that effective treatment of a sleep disorder can reduce your health-care spending. Compared to the high cost of remaining untreated, treating most sleep disorders is relative inexpensive.
• Greater Productivity
  Studies have linked sleep disorders to lower productivity and more absences at work. A severe sleep disorder may even prevent you from being able to stay employed. Effective treatments of a sleep disorder can enable you to improve your job performance.
• Better Safety
  Research has linked sleep disorders to an increased risk of work-related injuries and motor-vehicle accidents. Effective treatments promotes your safety at work on the roads.
• Improved Quality of Life
  Sleep disorders can take a severe tool on your personal well-being. Taking care of yourself leads to improvements in your mood, attitude, energy, memory and overall outlook on life. Sleep disturbances can put strain on your relationships.

Mysleepapnea.com can help you with obtaining a Home Sleep Test.

The wise words of Wilse Webb, a prominent sleep researcher recently said.

  So, question of pose: How long can humans stay awake?

The experiemental answer to this question is 264 hours (about 11 days).  In 1965, Randy Garder, a 17 year-old high school student, set this apparent world-record for a science fair. Several other normal research subjects have remained awake for eight to 10 days in carefully monitored experiments. None of these individuals experienced serious medical, neurological, physoiological or psychiatric problems.

  On the other hand, all of them showed progressive and significant deficits in concentration, motivation, perception and other higher mental processes as the duration of sleep deprivation increased. Nevertheless, all experimental subjects recovered to relative normality within one or two nights of recovery sleep.  Other anecdotal reports describe soldiers staying awake for four days in battle, or un-medicated patients with mania going without sleep for three to four days.

  The more difficult answer to this question revolves around the definition of “awake.” As mentioned above, prolonged sleep deprivation in normal subjects induces altered stated of consciousness ( often described as “microsleep”), numerous brief episodes of overwhelming sleep, and loss of cognitive and motor functions. We all know the dangerous, drowsy driver, and have heard about drowsy flyers crashing planes because they fell asleep while flying. RandyGardner was “awake” but basically cognitively dysfunctional at the end of his ordeal.

 In certain rare human medical disorders, the question of how long people can remain awake raises other surprising answers, and more questions. Morvan’s fibrillary chorea or Morvan’s Syndrome is characterized by muscle twitchings, pain, excessive sweating, weight loss, periodic hallucinations, and severe loss of sleep ( agrypnia ). Michel Jouvet and his colleagues in Lyon, France, studies a 27 year-old man with this disorder and found he had virtually no sleep over a period of several months. During that time he did not feel sleepy or tried and did not show any disorders of mood, memory, or anxiety. Nevertheless, nearly everynight between 9:00 and 11:00 p.m., he experienced a 20 to 60-minute period of auditory, visual, olfactory and somesthetic (sense of touch ) hallucinations, as well as pain and vasoconstriction in his fingers and toes. In recent investigations, Morvan’s Syndrome has been attributed to serum antibodies directed again by specific potassium (K+) channels in cell and nerve membranes.

  So, to return to the orginal question, “How long can humans stay awake?” the ultimate remains unclear. Despite studies, there are no reports that sleep deprivation per se has killed any humab ( excluding accidents and so forth ). Indeed, the U.S. Departmend of Defense has offered research funding for the goal of sustaining a fully awake, fully functional “24/7″ soldier, sailor, or airman. Future warriors will face intese, around the clock fighting for weeks at a time. Will bioengineering eventually produce genetically cloned soldiers and citizens with a variant of Morvan’s Syndrome who need no sleep but remain effective and happy? I hope not. A good nights sleep is one of life’s blessings.

As Coleridge wrote years ago, “Oh sleep! It is a  gentle thing, beloved from pole to pole.”

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Bad Sleep Habits: it involves the things that you do normally everyday. Although, these habits keep your sleep from being refreshing. They can also keep you from feeling alert during the day. These activities are all the things that you should be able to control. These specific behaviors fall into the follow two general categories:

     1.  Practices that keep you awake.

     2.  Practices that bring disorder to your sleep schedule

Many common factors may keep you awake at night. At first, alcohol may make you sleepy; but it is also more likely to wake you up during the night. Drinking coffee or colas that contain caffeine can make you more alert. The nicotine ina cigarette can have the same effect. People often use these substances to “keep their edge” during the day. This “edge” is not always gone by the time they try to go to sleep.

Other factors that cause you to stay awake when they occure too close to bedtime include the following:

• Worry
• Excitement
• Mental stress
• Physical exercise

Many other practices can keep you from having a regular pattern of sleeping and waking up. Perhaps you are unable to fall asleep because you spend too much time in bed. Maybe you don’t go to bed and wake up at the same times everyday. Or maybe you nap too often, too long, or too close to your bedtime. These bad habits can confuse your body. This will cause you to stay awake when you should really be asleep.

You can be affected in the followig negative ways:

• Mood changes
• Depression
• Short attention span
• Poor concentration
• Daytime sleepiness
• Frustration with sleeping
• Caffeine dependence
• Alcohol abuse or dependence

It may often be obvious to other people around you that the things your are doing are hurting your sleep. You, however, may be completely unaware of it. You may also find that your sleep problems tend to come and go. This is because you are likely to change your sleep habits over time.

  Who gets it?
It is typically not found in younge children. It may develop though, as early as the teen years.

It may also begin at anytime throughout adulthood. The timing of when it begins depends on when the habits that distrurb sleep are developed. The rate at which it affects males and females differently is not known.

  How do I know if I have it?
First, you need to determine if you have insomnia:

1. Do you have trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, waking up too early, or not feeling refreshed after sleeping?
2. For a child, does the child resist going to sleep or sleeping alone?
3. Does this problem occur even though you have the opportunity and the time to get a good night’s sleep?
4. Dout have at least one of the following problems? You have:

• Low energy
• Lack of motivation
• Attention, concentration or memory problems
• Poor performances at school or work
• Extreme mood changes
• Daytime sleepiness
• Trouble making errors at work or while driving
• Tension, headaches or stomach aches
• Frustration or worry about your sleep

If your answer to each of these questions is yes, then you might have insomnia. Now continue to see if you might have inadequate sleep hygiene”

1. Have you had these problems for at least one month?
2. Do you you have at least one of the following bad habits?

• You have a bad sleep schedule. You nap a lot, go to bed and wake up at different times everyday, or spend too much time in bed.
• You often use products with alcohol, nicotine, or caffeine near bedtime
• You actively do things that excite your mind, body, or emotions near bedtime.
• You often use the bed to do things other than sleep. This includes paying bills, talking on the phone and eating.
• You do not keep a comfortable sleeping environment. Research shows that having your bedroom slightly cooler ( via a cieling fan and the slight noise of the fan) are helpful. Low dim lighting such as nightlights are requested, and lavender sented candles can help soothe you into a good sleep regimen.

If you also answered yes to these questions, then you may have inadequate sleep hygiene.

It is also important to know if there is something else that is causing your sleep problems. They may be a result of one of the following:

• Another sleep disorder
• A medical condition
• Medication use
• A mental health disorder
• Substance abuse

  Do I need to see a sleep specialist?
Talk with a family doctor about your difficulty sleeping. See if you are able to correct the bad sleep habits that are affecting your sleep. Are you having a hard time improving your habits? Or are you still having a sleep problem even after making these changes? If so, then you made need to see a sleep specialist.

  What will the doctor need to know?
First, the doctor will need to know when your insomnia started. He or she will also want to know what else has been going on in your life. The doctor will need to know about any other medical problems you have today or had in the past. Be sure to tell the doctor if you are taking any medications.

Keep a sleep dieary for two weeks. The sleep diary will help the doctor see your sleeping patterns. The sleep diary information gives the doctor clues about what is causing your problem and how to correct it.

  Will I need to take any test?
Doctors do not need any tests to treat most insomnia patients. A sleep specialists may give you a written test to analyze your mental and emotional well-being. The specialist may need to test your blood in the lab if he or she thinks that you have a related medical problem.

  How is it treated?
Many cases of insomnia will respond to changes that you can make on your own. You can often sleep better by simply following the practices of good sleep hygiene.

Sleep hygiene consists of basic habits and tips that help you develop a pattern of healthy sleep. There are also easy ways to make your bed and bedroom more comfortable.

  You need to seek help from a therapist if stress or depression is the cause of your sleep problems.

When self-treatment does not work, a doctor can provide help. Doctors can teach you different ways to improve your sleep. An example of this is to use relaxation exercises when you go to bed. They can also help you find ways to take your mind off of sleep. Staying out of bed until you are tired is a good way to start off slowly. These methods are a part of what is known as behavioral therapy. With slow changes, you will see the biggest change at the end, feeling refreshed and happy.

  Are you satisfied with your life? If not, how’s your sleep? A new study shows there may be a connection.

Life satisfaction and sleep quality are known to be important factors in your overall health and well-being. But how are they related?

Does poor sleep cause you to be less satisfied with your life? Or does low satisfaction with your life lead to sleep problems?

The researchers sought to find the an answer. Their study involved 18,631 same-sex twins in Finland.

They measured life satisfaction, sleep quality and other factors. Then they did a follow up six years later and recorded the same measures.

  What did they find? People who became dissatisfied with their life during the six years between study points were more likely to have had sleep problems. Fifty-nine pecent of these newly dissatified people had reported at the beginning of the styd that they sleep poorly.

The results also show that poor sleep predicted a consistent pattern of life dissatifaction. But the reverse wasn’t true; life dissatisfaction did not consistently predict poor sleep.

Studying twins also provided a genetic look at the connection. The study shows that both sleep quality and life satisfaction has a strong genetic component; there was substantial heritability for both traits.

Both genetic influence is different; the genetic component shared by sleep quality and lif satisfaction was relatively weak.

The study supports the idea that poor sleep may have direct effects on the brain, emotions and mood.

  So how is the quality of your sleep? You can get a better idea by completing this brief sleep evaluation.

Updated information about the FMCSA proposed medical ruling for CDL requirements.

According to Trasport Topics, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration last week issued a final rule requiring all interstate truck drivers to prove they have passed medical examinations and proposed a separate rule setting up a national registry of qualified examiners.

The rule would require proof of an exam to obtain and keep commercial driver license.

This  new rule, long sought by safety advocates, also will require states to merge commerical driver license records and truk drivers’ medical examination certificates into a singe electronic record that law enforcement officials could check at any time.

Current federal regulations require that commercial drivers pass medical exams every two years, but in most states, drivers are required only to prove evidence of their medical certifications to their employers or when asked by roadside inspectors or law enforcement officers.

Under the new rule, drivers will be required to keep their state licensing agencies informed each time they pass their mandated medical exams, which is every two years for drivers who don’t have special medical conditions. Some drivers with medical problems are required to pass medical exams as often as every three months!

The new driver medical requirements are intended to help prevent medically unqualified drivers from operating on the nation’s highways by providing state licensing agencies with a means of identifying interstate CDL holders who are unable to obtain a medical certificate.

FMCSA also said this rule would deter drivers from submitting falsified medical certificates because enforcement personnel would have electronic access to information about the medical certificate and the identity of the medical examiner.

After the new rule is implemented, drivers will no longer be required to carry a medical certification care in thier wallets.

*Did you know… During 2007, FMCSA and its state partners conducted more than 3.4 million roadside inspections, citing drivers with more than 145,000 violations for failing to have medical examination  certificated in their possession and issued 6,105 violations for physically unqualified drivers.

It is said that the propsed medical examiners rule would help prevent “doctor shopping” and fraud.

  On the heels of a report criticizing the federal governments efforts to ensure that truck drivers are medically qualified, the House transportation committee’s chair man blasted the top   truck safety agency for not living up to tis mission and for dragging its feet on the health issue.

Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, laid into the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Admin. for not moving fast enough to implement congressional mandates or recommendations from the National Transportation Safety Board.

“It shouldn’t take you eight years. It shouldn’t take you five years. Or three years,” Oberstar said during a July 24 hearing by the committee. “People’s lives are at stake, and they are depending on you and your colleagues. We’ve given you a half-billion dollar [annual] budget, practically, to do this. There is no excuse for foot-dragging.”

Oberstar’s comments were in response to a Government Accountability Office report that said hundreds of thousands of drivers have potentially serious medical conditions, some significant enough to prevent them from driving a truck.

During the hearing, Rose McMurray, FMCSA’s chief safety officer, defended the agency’s work on driver health issues, telling the committee the agency was committed to completing rules later this year that would address most of NTSB’s recommendations.

“Four of the NTSB’s eight most-wanted recommendations will addressed by the medical certification and national registry rules,” she said, adding that the remaining recommendations would be addressed by the agency’s medical review board.

The top Republican on the committee’s panel on highways, Rep. John Duncan Jr. (R-Tenn.) also questioned the GAO (Government Accountability Office) conclusions.

“I am concerned this report will be seen by some to imply a broader problem in the CDL population,” he said. “In fact, the report makes it clear that these 15 cases are not representative of the commercial driver population.”

Oberstar was unconvinced and pointed to a report by the transportation committee’s staff that also noted issues with the medical certification program.

“Staff got 600 medical card from drivers at truck weigh stations, and thy tried to verify them with the medical examiners who issued the card, or allegedly issued the card,” he said. “The report documents 30 cases -5%- where the medical examiner didn’t exist, or the medical examiner indicated that the signature of that person had been forged or changed.”

Oberstar, as well as, Rep Peter DeFazio, the chairman of the highways sub-committee, pressed McMurrayto explain why the agency has taken so long with its medical rules, which she said have been “difficult to develop.”

DeFazio asked McMurray if the agency had the resources to complete the rules, but she answered that it wasn’t a “matter of resources, as much as it is a problem of expertise.”

McMurray also said that “other rule-makings” have taken priority over the medical rules, but without specifying which ones.

The rules are also complicated by cost issues, she said, telling Oberstar they are “a significant burden on states.”

That burden, McMurray said, comes in costs to upgrade information technology to handle new databases, and new training requirements for enforcement officers and medical examiners.

“The sheer size of the driver population will require thousands of certified medical examiners to evaluate drivers,” McMurray also added.

Oberstar, however, said the agency lacked “a safety mindset,” and, if it had one, “you would have done this in the last eight years.”

“What we need is will -and willpower- at the highest levels, he said. “And it is apparent there isn’t that will at the level of the secretary of Transportation and permeates all the way down through the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.”

1. The record for the longest period without sleep is 18 days, 21 hours, 40 minutes during a rocking chair marathon.  The record  holder reported hallucinations, paranoia, blurred vision, slurred speech and memory and concentration lapses.

2. Anything less than five minutes to fall asleep at night means you’re sleep deprived. The ideal is between 10 and 15 minutes, meaning you’re still tired enough to sleep deeply, but no so exhausted you feel sleepy by day.

3. It’s impossible to tell if someone is really awake without close medical supervison. People can take cat naps with their eyes open without even being aware of it, microsleep.

4. A new baby typically results in 400-750 hours lost sleep for parents in the first year.

5. One of the best predicors of insomnia later in life is the development of bad habits from having been sleep deprived by young children.

6. The continuous brain recordings that led to the discovery of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep were not done until 1953, partly because the scientists involved were concerned about wasting paper.

7. REM sleep occurs in bursts totaling about 2 hours a night, usually beginning about 90 minutes after falling asleep.

8. Dreams, once thought to occure only during REM sleep, also occure (but to a lesser extent) in non-REM sleep phases. It’s possible there may not be a single moment of our sleep when we are actually dreamless.

9. REM dreams are characterized by bizarre plots, but non-REM dreams are repetirive and thought-like, with little imagery obesessively returning to a suspicion that you left your mobile phone somewhere, for example.

10. Certain types of eye movements during REM sleep correspond to specific movements in dreams, suggesting at least part of the dreaming process is analogous to watching a film.

11. No-one knows for sure if other species dream, but some do have similar sleep cycles to humans.

12. Elephants sleep standing up during non-REM sleep, but lie down for REM sleep.

13. Some scientists believe we dream to fix experiences in long-term memory, that is, we dream about things worth remembering. Others reckon we dream about things worth forgetting to eliminate overlapping memories that would otherwise clog up our brains.

14. Dreams may not serve any purpose at all but be merely a meaningless byproduct of two evolutionary adaptations: sleep and consciousness.

15. REM sleep may help developing brains mature. Premature babies have 75 percent REM sleep, 20 percent more than full-term babies. Similerly, a newborn kitten, puppy, rat or hamster experiences only REM sleep, while a  newborn guinea pig (which is much more developed at birth) has almost no REM sleep at all.

16. Scientists have not been able to explain a 1998 study showing a bright light shone on the backs of human knees can reset the brain’s sleep-wake clock.

17. British Ministy of Defense researchers has been able to reset soldiers’ body clocks so they can go without sleep for up to 36 hours. Tiny optical fibers embedded in special spectacles project a ring of bright white light ( with a spectrum identical to a sunrise) around the edge of soldiers’ retinas, fooling them into thinking they have just woken up. The system was first used on US pilots during the bombing in Kosovo.

18. Seventeen hours of sustained wakefulness leads to a decrease in performance equivalent to a blood alcohol-level of 0.05%.

19. The 1989 Exxon Valdex oil spill off Alaska, the Challenger space shuttle disaster and the Chernobyl nuclear accident have all been attributed to human errors in which sleep-deprivation played a role.

20. The NRMA insurance estimated fatigue is involved in one in 6 fatal road accidents.

21. Exposure to noise at night can suppress immune function even if the sleeper doesn’t wake. Unfamiliar noise, and noise during the first and last two hours of sleep, has the greatest disruptive effect on the sleep cycle.

22. The “natural alarm clock” which enables some people to wake up more or less when they want to is caused by a burst of the stress hormone adrenocorticotropin. Researchers say this reflects an unconscious anticipation of the stress of waking up.

23. Some sleeping tablets, such as barbiturates supress REM sleep, which can be harmful over a long period.

24. In insomnia following bereavement, sleeping pills can disrupt grieving.

25. Tiny luminous rays froma digital alarm clock can be enough to disrupt the sleep cycle even if you are not fully awake. The light turns off a “neutral switch” in the brain, causing levels of a key sleep chemical to decline within minutes.

26. To doze off, we must cool off; body temperature and the brain’s sleep-wake cycle are closely linked. That’s why hot summer nights can cause a restless sleep. The blood flow mechanism that transfer core body heat to the skin works best between 18-30 degress. But later in life, the comfort zone shrinks to between 23-25 degress, one reason why older people have more sleep disorders.

27. A night on the grog (alochol) will help you get to sleep but it will be a light slumber and you won’t dream much.

28. After five nights of partial sleep deprivation, three drinks will have the same effect on your body as six would when you’ve slept enough.

29. Humans sleep on average around three hours less than other primates like chimps, rhesus monkeys, squirrel monkeys and baboons, all of whome sleep for 10 hours.

30. Dolphins at risk of attack by predators are able to balance the need for sleep and survival, keeping one half of the brain awake while the other slips into sleep mode.

31. Ten percent of snorers have sleep apnea, a disorder which causes sufferers to stop breathing up to 300 times a night and significantly increases the risk of sufferig a heart attack or stroke.

32. Snoring occurs only in noo-REM sleep.

33. Teenagers need as much sleep as small children ( about 10 hrs.) while those over 65 need the least of all ( about six hours). For the average adult aged 25-55, eight hours is considered optimal.

34. Some studies suggest women need up to an hour’s extra sleep a night compared to men, and not getting it may be one reason women are much more susceptible to depression than men.

35. Feeling tired can feel normal after a short time. Those deliberately deprived of sleep for research initially noticed greatly the effects on their alterness, mood and physical performance, but the awareness dropped off after the first few days.

36. Diaries from the pre-electric-light-globe Victorian era show adults slept nine to ten hours a night with periods of rest changing with the seasons in line with sunrise and sunsets.

37. Most of what we know about sleep we’ve learned in the past 25 years.

38. As a group, 18-24 year-olds deprived of sleep suffer more from impaired performance than older adults.

39. Experts say one of the most alluring sleep distractions is the 24-hour accessibility of the internet.

40. The extra-hour of sleep received when clock are put back at the start of daylight savings has been found to coincide with a fall in the number of road accidents.