Pacific Standard July-August 2013 Cover

Across Cultures, Music Therapy Promotes Sounder Sleep

April 11, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
counting-sheep

Music does more than soothe the savage beast. It also provides relief for the irritated insomniac. That’s the conclusion of a just-published meta-analysis by Chinese researchers, who examined 10 studies conducted on three continents. Across the globe, they report, sweet sounds induce sound slumber. “Music appears to be effective in treating acute and chronic sleep disorders,” writes the research team, led by Chun-Fang Wang of the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery at Pingjin Hospital in Tianjin. “It is low-cost and safe, and could be used to improve sleep quality in various ... Read More

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The Nap Zapper

January 29, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
Nap Zapper

As American workers began migrating from fields and factories to offices in the 1920s, forward-thinking inventors got busy devising ways to squeeze more productivity out of deskbound drudges. In this March 1923 issue of Science and Invention magazine, editor Hugo Gernsback—namesake of the prestigious Hugo Awards for science fiction—proposed a way to get rid of rest altogether: the electrical sleep eliminator. Gernsback believed that sleep was little more than a habit picked up by ancient humans in reaction to the cycle of the sun’s rising and setting, one that was no longer ... Read More

More like this: January-February 2013, Time Machine
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Sociologists and The End of Sleep

January 23, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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The past week has seen a flurry of attention around the latest purported wonder drug, Modafinil, which claims to make sleeping basically optional, with no ill effects. Just pop one, and two hours of sleep is plenty—with no headaches, "sleep debt," hangover feeling, withdrawal, post-dopamine crash (as with that other common sleep-avoidance drug, speed) and little addiction risk. Stuff like this is the dry straw of punditry: There's virtually nothing about Modafinil's off-label use that doesn't invite speculation, and no way to disprove that speculation in the short term. Will not having to ... Read More

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What A Healthy, Happy, Wailing Baby You Have!

January 8, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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Researchers at Philadelphia's Temple University claim to have conclusively proven that tough love advocates are right, and the best way to get a reluctant baby to sleep is to let it scream like Janet Leigh until it passes out. The study just published in Developmental Psychology gathered data on the sleep habits of more than 1,200 babies, checking with new parents at six, 12, 24 and 36 months. It found that two-thirds of kids slept through the night by six months, or woke up long enough to need attention only once or twice a week. The remaining third of the kids woke up and fussed, ... Read More

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Creativity Blocked? Try a Common Scents Solution

December 3, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Woman sleeping below odor lines

“Sleep on it” is a traditional piece of advice for puzzled people in need of an innovative solution. In recent years, the wisdom of this approach has been validated by science, with one study linking dream-heavy REM sleep with later flashes of insight. There is no guarantee you’ll awake from a nap with an ending for your novel. But newly published research suggests the odds of such a breakthrough increase if you remind your slumbering self of the pressing issue at hand. That requires employing a sense that remains alert and functioning even as we sleep: smell. In a ... Read More

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Good Night, Vietnam

November 6, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
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Carol Worthman Anthropologist of Unconsciousness, Emory University WHAT’S HER DEAL? Trying to find out how television affects our sleep. HOW IS SHE DOING THAT? Worthman and her staff are currently documenting patterns of slumber among residents of 14 off-the-grid villages in a remote corner of Vietnam. Some of the 3,000 residents will soon be fitted with wireless GPS monitors and wristwatch-like gadgets that sense movement to determine whether the wearers are awake, resting, or asleep. Those devices will feed Worthman’s lab in Atlanta real-time data on where and when her subjects ... Read More

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Delaying School Start Times Causes Alarm

October 25, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment

If, as the science says, teens are more alert and healthier when they sleep later, why haven't more high schools adjusted their start times? The answer to that question lies in a mix of logistics and politics. "It was, as it's been in every other town, polarizing," recalls Lisa Bogan, a former school board member in Wilton, Conn., which changed its start times in 2003. She is now the school start time change specialist (yes, there is such a position) for the League of Women Voters of Connecticut. The state league embraces efforts to change school start times because it sees them as a way to ... Read More

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A Day in the Life of a Sleepy Student

October 25, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Ethan Boroson at Cheshire Academy

At 5:15 a.m., Della frisks around the kitchen wagging her tail, far more chipper than the rest of the family right now. Ethan has pulled on a hoodie and makes his way downstairs to grab a granola bar "so I don't get hungry during my workout." This is not breakfast. It's hours until breakfast. Ethan alternates between texting a friend to confirm his class schedule for the day, packing equipment into his sports bag and talking with his parents. The 17-year-old jokes about getting his own car over the summer. "Ethan fantasizes in the morning," his father says dryly as he scans the ... Read More

More like this: Education, Magazine Feature Story, November-December 2010
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Get Plenty of Sleep Before Imitating Rock Gods

August 20, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment

Well, the 24th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies has come and gone, and we're assuming San Antonio proved an ideal choice to host. But it wasn't all napping and rapid-eye movement. One of the papers presented at the conference took a close look at how getting enough sleep improves your abilities at — wait for it — "Guitar Hero." One of the top-five best-selling video game franchises of all time — more than 38 million copies have been sold since the original was released in 2005 — "Guitar Hero" challenges gamers to play along to classic hits using ... Read More

More like this: Media, September-October 2010, The Cocktail Napkin
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No More Dozing Off in First Period

August 1, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment

A pilot study at a small private high school in Providence, R.I., has confirmed the well-documented benefits of a half-hour delay in the school start time for teens, an easy fix for the chronic and rampantly ignored sleepiness of adolescents. The study shows that two months after the St. George's School changed its start time from 8 to 8:30 a.m., students were getting 45 minutes more sleep on school nights, on average, or nearly eight hours in all. They were going to bed an average 18 minutes earlier, presumably because it felt so good. On Sundays, they spent less time sleeping to catch ... Read More

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