Day and night, technicians monitor small screens inside Toledo’s Regional Center for Sleep Medicine.
The screens keep tabs on patients taking part in sleep studies in the five cozy, tastefully decorated bedrooms at the West Central Avenue facility.
The center, affiliated with the University of Toledo College of Medicine, has been in existence since 2004, one of more than 3,000 sleep clinics that have popped up in North America to combat a little-publicized epidemic. According to the American Sleep Association, 50 to 70 million adults in the United States have a sleep disorder, which could include insomnia, sleep apnea, narcolepsy, and several other disorders. The Association said sleeping issues result in $18 billion a year in lost productivity and injuries.
In 2015, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society issued a joint statement, saying that adults aged 18 to 60 need to get at least seven hours of sleep a day for optimal health. Few Americans reach that mark. Various studies have reported that as many as 40 percent of Americans are sleep-deprived.
Medical research is now consistent in showing that lack of sleep can contribute to obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, depression, and increases the risk of cardiovascular disease. Teenagers should get eight to 10 hours of sleep, but again rarely meet the goal because of early school start times, extracurricular activities, or excessive social media use.
March has been designated as Sleep Awareness Month. The increased recognition of sleep’s importance is a departure from past decades.
Thomas Edison was famously disdainful of sleep.
The Ohio-born inventor was known to sleep no more than three or four hours, and in 1921, he wrote: “We are always hearing people talk about ‘loss of sleep’ as a calamity. They better call it loss of time, vitality and opportunities. Just to satisfy my curiosity I have gone through files of the British Medical Journal and could not find a single case reported of anybody being hurt by loss of sleep.”
Dr. Andre J. Aguillon, the medical director for the Regional Center for Sleep Medicine, and the center’s psychologist, Dr. Elisabeth James, know differently. They hear the stories of lives disrupted or physically damaged by an inability to sleep.
“A lot of people are running pretty ragged; either they are not getting enough sleep or it’s not restorative because they have some underlying condition,” Dr. James said. “There are a lot of socially acceptable practices that undermine getting restorative sleep.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study in 2014 highlighting the areas of the country that were suffering from sleep deprivation. Those areas were concentrated in the Northeast and South. Ohio was one of the most problematic areas, with 38 to 44 percent of residents getting inadequate sleep.The regions of the country that were least affected by sleeplessness were those that were less densely populated, like North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. Less ambient light and noise of big cities was believed to be behind the differences.
But other reasons are blamed on the “socially acceptable practices” mentioned by Dr. James.
“The most common reason is people not practicing good sleep hygiene. Avoid any stimulants several hours before bedtime, meaning caffeine and nicotine. Avoid alcohol at bedtime,” Dr. Aguillon said. “Remove any electronics at bedtime. Tablets and smart phones emit blue spectrum light that fool the brain into thinking it’s daytime.”
He said it is important to exercise regularly, but not too close to bedtime, and to keep a regular sleeping schedule. Dr. James added that societal changes are also a contributing factor in sleep issues.
“Many people at many levels of work are constantly working. There is not a boundary as to when the end of the work day is. We have to constantly be available to our boss or maybe a person may have their own business that causes a lot of disruption,” Dr. James said. “In younger families, you often see people with multiple jobs who have changing schedules. Lots of other people are taking care of an elderly adult. If there is an ongoing need for night-time care or a chronically variable sleep pattern, it can cause a sleep problem for the caregiver.”
She added that the reverse can also be true when seniors have their sleep disrupted by adult children or grandchildren living in their home.
It all adds up to growing sleep deficits, which have continued to widen since the 1940s, when Americans slept an hour longer each night.
Besides exercising, practicing alcohol and caffeine moderation, and keeping electronic devices away from the bed, there are other practical steps. Allow an hour to unwind before bed, ensure that the bedroom is cool and dark, meditate, and write down the next day’s schedule so your subconscious does not fixate on it. And it seems to be obvious, but many people aren’t willing to invest in a comfortable bed or even a pillow that matches their sleeping style.
Dreampad’s line of pillows was featured on Shark Tank in November. Randall Redfield originally founded Dreampad to help children with trauma, anxiety issues, or autism get to sleep. It was a pad that would play soothing music through transducers. The vibrational music is not carried through the air, but rather through the cranium to the inner ear.
What ended up happening, according to Mr. Redfield is that, yes, the pad was effective with children, but it also helped their parents, who were having trouble sleeping through the night while worrying about their children. Mr. Redfield expanded his company to include four different styles of pillows with the technology, which was lauded by a Columbia University study for its ability to provide a deeper sleep.
“The Dreampad works in two ways: One, it has the vibration that is working on a physiological level to calm you and second, the music works at a psychological level to take your mind off your thoughts,” Mr. Redfield said. “Sleeplessness in the United States is one of the biggest problems facing the entire country.”
Whether the solution is through professional help, better nighttime habits, or a better sleeping environment, the evidence has never been clearer that adequate and quality sleep is just as important as eating healthy or exercising.
“There is this notion that sleep is not important, that it’s a luxury, not a necessity. That’s just not true,” Dr. Aguillon said.
Contact Brian Dugger at bdugger@theblade.com or on Twitter @DuggerBlade.
First Published March 19, 2018, 12:02 a.m.