How to find insomnia relief is a question that many people we work with struggle with. A recent editorial in JAMA Psychiatry and the accompanying research article suggests that the online program that we’ve been recommending to our patients for years (SHUTi) is the treatment of choice for insomnia. We have been extremely pleased with the results from this program which can …
Chronic Insomnia Best Treatments
Chronic Insomnia – What are the Best Treatments? The American College of Physicians just published guidelines on the treatment of chronic insomnia. These guidelines were based on a comprehensive review of the literature. They note that chronic insomnia is very common, but the literature on treatment is relatively poor. Many treatments that are used do not have good evidence …
Common Over the Counter Medications Linked to Dementia
Common over-the-counter medications may increase your risk for dementia. That is the startling finding of a recently published journal article which used a number of approaches to examine the possible risk of using medications that have anticholinergic effects. This includes many psychiatric medications as well as many common over the counter antihistamine medications, medications for sleep, and for GI problems: …
Benzodiazepines and Dementia
High use of benzodiazepines is not associated with an increased risk for dementia or Alzheimer’s disease according to a large prospective study published in the British Medical Journal. Previous research had suggested that there might be a link and we all know that single doses of benzodiazepines impair cognition and memory so it made sense that there might be such …
Do We Need 8 Hours of Sleep?
A recently published study that looked at patterns of sleep in three different hunter gatherer societies challenges the long-held notion that we all need to sleep 8 to 9 hours a night and that many of us in Western society are chronically sleep deprived. The results are summarized in an article we just published in our companion website MoodSurfing.com. Tantalizing …
Chronotherapy for Depression Treats Suicidality
Chronotherapy for depression may be a very fast and effective treatment for suicidality, according to a preliminary study just published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research. 10 inpatients received what was called “triple chronotherapy” and showed dramatic and rapid reductions in suicidal ideation and depression. Of course this is a very small sample and only one study. But it points …
Melatonin and Sleep
What is the relationship between melatonin and sleep? And why are the results that people have from taking melatonin supplements to help induce sleep so variable? A recent article has suggested that the two melatonin receptors, melatonin one (M1) and melatonin two (M2) that have been shown to existing humans may have different effects on sleep. A quick review may …
New Drug with New Mechanism for Insomnia – Suvorexant
Belsomra (suvorexant) was approved earlier this week by the FDA for use as needed to treat difficulty in falling and staying asleep. The drug blocks receptors for orexin – also known as hypocretin – the master hypothalamic regulator of the sleep-wake cycle. There are, in fact, two forms of orexin, A and B; hence it is a dual orexin …
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