Tag: behavior and cognition

In extreme heat, here are 14 ways to keep your body and home cool without AC | CNN

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Editor’s Note: This story was first published in 2020 and has been updated.



CNN
 — 

Whether you’re without power, enduring extreme heat or trying to save money, there are ways to feel comfortable without artificial cooling.

Heat can foster fun summer activities, but the body shouldn’t be too hot for too long, as too much heat can harm your brain and other organs, according to the US National Institutes of Health. Sweating is the body’s natural cooling system, but when that’s not enough, there’s increased risk for developing the heat-related illness hyperthermia — signs of which include heat cramps, heat edema and heat stroke. Heat combined with high humidity exacerbates this risk, since the air’s saturation level makes sweat accumulate on the skin, preventing the body from cooling naturally.

Staying cool can be done by using some basic supplies and knowing how to manipulate your home to control its temperatures. Here are 14 methods for doing so.

When you’re hot and flushed, hydrating yourself is the first and foremost step to cooling down, said Wendell Porter, a senior lecturer emeritus in agricultural and biological engineering at the University of Florida.

The temperature of the water doesn’t matter since your body will heat it, he added. If your body is suffering from the heat and needs to cool itself, it can’t do that without enough moisture, since the body cools itself by sweating.

Taking a cold shower or bath helps cool your body by lowering your core temperature, Porter said.

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For an extra cool blast, try peppermint soap. The menthol in peppermint oil activates brain receptors that tell your body something you’re eating or feeling is cold.

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Place a cold washrag or ice bags (packs) on your wrists or drape it around your neck to cool your body. These pulse points are areas where blood vessels are close to the skin, so you’ll cool down more quickly.

Place box fans facing out of the windows of rooms you’re spending time in to blow out hot air and replace it with cold air inside.

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If the weather in your area tends to fall between 50 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit in the mornings and evenings, opening the windows on both sides of the house during those times can facilitate a cross-flow ventilation system. If you do this, you can opt to use or not use the fans, but the fans would help cool the house faster, Porter said. The outdoors can pull the hot air from your home, leaving a cooler temperature or bringing in the breeze. Just be sure to close windows as the sun comes out, then open them when the weather is cool again.

Just resting near a fan would reduce your body temperature as well.

If you have windows that face the sun’s direction in the morning through afternoon, close the curtains or blinds over them to “keep the sun from coming directly into the house and heating up (the) inside,” Porter said.

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You could also install blackout curtains to insulate the room and reduce temperature increases that would happen during the day.

If you do turn the air conditioning on, don’t set it below 70 degrees Fahrenheit in an effort to cool the house faster, said Samantha Hall, managing director of Spaces Alive, an Australia-based design research company helping to create healthy, sustainable buildings.

“It just runs for longer to reach that temp and will keep going until you start to feel a bit chilly and is then hard to balance,” she added. Instead, keep the unit temperature as high as possible while still comfortable.

Cotton is one of the most breathable materials, so cotton sheets or blankets could help keep you cool through the night.

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The lower the thread count of the cotton, the more breathable it is, Porter said. That’s because higher thread counts have more weaving per square inch.

If you can’t sleep through the night because you’re too hot, try sleeping somewhere besides your bedroom, if that’s an option. Heat rises, so if you have a lower or basement level in your home, set up a temporary sleeping area there to experience cooler temperatures at night.

Common advice for staying cool without air conditioning includes refrigerating or freezing wet socks, blankets or clothing then ringing them out to wear while you sleep. But this isn’t a good idea, Porter said.

Because of “the amount of energy they can absorb from your body that night, they will be warm in just a matter of minutes,” he said. “And then you’d have damp stuff that would mold your mattress. So you definitely don’t want to do that.”

If no one’s using a room that doesn’t have vents or registers, close the door to that area to keep the cool air confined to only occupied areas of the house.

Flip the switch for the exhaust fan in your kitchen to pull hot air that rises after you cook or in your bathroom to draw out steam after you shower.

Incandescent light bulbs generate a higher temperature than LED light bulbs do. To make the switch, watch for sales on energy-efficient bulbs, then slowly replace the bulbs in your house, Porter said.

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Switching light bulbs can save money but won’t reduce a lot of heat in the home, Hall said. However, if you focus on switching the bulbs in areas you’re sitting near, that would make a more noticeable difference, Porter said.

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Oven heat can spread throughout your house. Keep the heat centralized in one area, such as a slow cooker. Or, cook outdoors on a grill to keep the heat outside.

Eating an ice pop or ice cream to cool down may help for a moment. But don’t go overboard on the sugar if you’re overheated or at risk of being overheated, Porter said.

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“Sugar would run your metabolism up and you’d start feeling internally hot,” he said. “So the cool treat might be good, but the extra sugar might not.”

If you’ve tried everything and still can’t beat the heat at home, you could look online for any local programs that are offering ductless air conditioners.

Depending on your state, some cooling centers — air-conditioned public facilities where people might go for relief during extremely hot weather — may be open and taking precautions to ensure they’re as safe as possible. You could start by checking with your local utility offices, as they would know who is offering certain programs, Porter recommended.

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8 reasons why you wake up tired, and how to fix it | CNN

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Editor’s Note: Sign up for the Sleep, But Better newsletter series. Our seven-part guide has helpful hints to achieve better sleep.



CNN
 — 

You sleep for seven to eight hours almost every night, only to feel unrested through the morning or even most of the day. How could you be following a golden rule of sleep so right yet feel so wrong?

This discrepancy is often due to a heightened state of sleep inertia, a circadian process that modulates memory, mood, reaction time and alertness upon waking, according to a 2015 study. Some people experience impaired performance and grogginess in this period after first turning off the alarm. The effects of sleep inertia usually go away after 15 to 60 minutes but can last for up to a few hours.

Sleep inertia impairs more sophisticated cognitive skills such as evaluative thinking, decision-making, creativity and rule usage, and gets worse the more sleep deprived a person is.

But even if your job isn’t saving lives or driving a truck overnight, experiencing sleep inertia for hours can still affect your quality of life.

The way to address this begins with evaluating your sleep using the “two Qs,” said pulmonary and sleep specialist Dr. Raj Dasgupta, a clinical associate professor of medicine at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine. “If you’re getting the good quantity sleep, the next question is, ‘Am I getting good quality sleep?’ ”

Dasgupta suggested seeing a sleep specialist, who can check for an underlying or primary sleep disorder. But there are other more easily modifiable factors that could be interfering with the restoration and recovery processes — such as memory consolidation, hormone regulation and emotional regulation or processing — that need to happen during sleep.

“There are a lot of conditions that cause fatigue, but they don’t necessarily make people feel like they’re ready to fall asleep,” said Jennifer Martin, a professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a former president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

These can include chronic pain conditions, metabolic or thyroid conditions, anemia and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

If you’re feeling inexplicable fatigue, “an important first step might just be a routine physical with your family doctor,” Martin said.

Additionally, the National Sleep Foundation has said healthy adults need seven to nine hours of sleep nightly, so you might need more than eight hours of sleep to feel energized. You could try going to sleep an hour earlier or waking an hour later than usual and see if that makes a difference, said Christopher Barnes, a professor of management at the University of Washington who studies the relationship between sleep and work.

If you’re sedentary, your body can get used to having to expend low levels of energy — so you might feel more tired than you should when trying to do basic daily activities, Martin said.

The World Health Organization has recommended that adults get at least 150 minutes (2½ hours) of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity weekly, while pregnant people should do at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic and strengthening exercises per week.

Having anxiety or depression can be energetically taxing, Dasgupta said. These conditions can also negatively influence the time needed to fall asleep as well as whether (and how many times) you wake up throughout the night, he added.

And sometimes the medications used to treat depression or anxiety can have side effects such as insomnia or disruption of deeper stages of sleep, Dasgupta said.

Sometimes our schedules differ on weekdays versus weekends, Barnes said. Schedules can also fluctuate for people with shift-based jobs.

“A very common practice would be to say, ‘OK, well, it’s Friday night. I don’t have to work tomorrow morning, so I can stay up a bit later,’ ” Barnes said. Maybe you stay up even later Saturday night since you don’t have to work Sunday either, then go to bed earlier on Sunday ahead of the workweek.

But by this point, you’ve already adjusted your sleep schedule back by a couple of hours in a short period of time. “This is very much analogous to jet lag,” Barnes said. “That rapid reset doesn’t work very well.”

More than 50% of your body is made of water, which is needed for multiple functions including digesting food, creating hormones and neurotransmitters, and delivering oxygen throughout your body, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Being dehydrated has been linked to decreased alertness and increased sleepiness and fatigue.

The Institute of Medicine recommends that women consume 2.7 liters (91 ounces) of fluids daily and that men have 3.7 liters (125 ounces) daily. This recommendation includes all fluids and water-rich foods such as fruits, vegetables and soups. Since the average water intake ratio of fluids to foods is around 80:20, that amounts to a daily amount of 9 cups for women and 12½ cups for men.

Having good sleep hygiene includes keeping your bedroom dark, quiet and cold at night — and only using it for sleep and sex.

Avoid consuming caffeinated drinks less than six hours before bedtime and limit the consumption of alcohol and heavy or spicy foods at least two hours before bed. Alcohol can prevent deeper stages of sleep, and such foods can cause digestive issues that interfere with restorative sleep.

“The person (or pet) with whom you share a bed has a big impact on your sleep,” Martin said.

Maybe your bed partner has a sleep disorder and snores or tosses and turns. Or maybe the person has a different schedule that’s disruptive to your sleep. Pets can also disrupt your sleep schedule since they don’t have the same sleep patterns as humans, she added.

“The most important thing — if your bed partner snores — is to get them to see a sleep specialist and have them evaluated for sleep apnea,” Martin said. Sleep apnea — a condition wherein breathing stops and restarts while someone’s sleeping — is common in people who snore, she added.

On that note, sleep disorders are another factor that can dramatically diminish sleep quality, Barnes said.

Someone with sleep apnea might wake up 50 times, 100 times or even more throughout the night, he added.

“Once you’re awake, you’re no longer in the deep sleep, and you don’t get to usually drop immediately into the deepest sleep,” Barnes said. “Bringing people out of that deep sleep by waking them up is going to generally result in less time spent in the deepest stage of sleep.”

Other sleep disorders that can affect daily energy levels include narcolepsy and restless legs syndrome, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The ideal way to track sleep quality and quantity — especially if you think you could be diagnosed with a sleep disorder — is undergoing polysomnography at a sleep clinic, Barnes said.

Apps and electronic wearables — such as watches or rings — that measure sleep aren’t as accurate as clinic tests, but still provide sufficient information for healthy adults, Barnes said. “I’d want to know that it was developed and then validated against another, more accurate device.”

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Using melatonin for sleep is on the rise, study says, despite potential health harms | CNN

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Editor’s Note: Sign up for the Sleep, But Better newsletter series. Our seven-part guide has helpful hints to achieve better sleep.



CNN
 — 

More and more adults are taking over-the-counter melatonin to get to sleep, and some may be using it at dangerously high levels, a study has found.

The overall use among the US adult population is still “relatively low,” but the study does “document a significant many-fold increase in melatonin use in the past few years,” said sleep specialist Rebecca Robbins, an instructor in the division of sleep medicine for Harvard Medical School. She was not involved in the study.

The study, published in the medical journal JAMA, found that by 2018 Americans were taking more than twice the amount of melatonin than a decade earlier.

Melatonin has been linked to headaches, dizziness, nausea, stomach cramps, drowsiness, confusion or disorientation, irritability and mild anxiety, depression and tremors as well as abnormally low blood pressure. It can also interact with common medications and trigger allergies.

While short-term use for people with jet lag, shift workers and those who have trouble falling asleep appears to be safe, long-term safety is unknown, according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health at the National Institutes of Health.

“In an associational study we found that older adults who reported frequent use — every night or most nights — of a sleep aid (over the counter or prescription) had a higher risk of incident dementia and early mortality,” Robbins said.

However, researchers could not determine which type of sleep aid — over-the-counter medications, such as melatonin, or prescription medications — was responsible for the findings.

Since 2006, a small but growing subset of adults are taking amounts of melatonin that far exceed the dosage of 5 milligrams a day typically used as a short-term treatment, the study found.

However, pills for sale may contain levels of melatonin much higher than what is advertised on the label. Unlike drugs and food, melatonin is not fully regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration, so there are no federal requirements that companies test pills to ensure they contain the amount of advertised melatonin.

“Previous research has found that that melatonin content in these unregulated, commercially available melatonin supplements ranged from — 83% to +478% of the labeled content,” said Robbins, who coauthored the book “Sleep for Success! Everything You Must Know About Sleep But are Too Tired to Ask.”

Nor are there any requirements that companies test their products for harmful hidden additives in melatonin supplements sold in stores and online. Previous studies also found 26% of the melatonin supplements contained serotonin, “a hormone that can have harmful effects even at relatively low levels,” according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.

“We cannot be certain of the purity of melatonin that is available over the counter,” Robbins said.

Taking too much serotonin by combining medications such as antidepressants, migraine medications and melatonin can lead to a serious drug reaction. Mild symptoms include shivering and diarrhea, while a more severe reaction can lead to muscle rigidity, fever, seizures and even death if not treated.

Because it is purchased over the counter, experts say many people view melatonin as an herbal supplement or vitamin. In reality, melatonin is a hormone made by the pineal gland, located deep within the brain, and released into the bloodstream to regulate the body’s sleep cycles.

“There is a view that if it’s natural, then it can’t hurt,” Robbins told CNN in an earlier interview on the impact of melatonin on children. “The truth is, we just really don’t know the implications of melatonin in the longer term, for adults or kids.”

Another reality: Studies have found that while using melatonin can be helpful in inducing sleep if used correctly — taking it at least two hours before bed — but the actual benefit is small.

“When adults took melatonin, it decreased the amount of time it took them to fall asleep by four to eight minutes,” Dr. Cora Collette Breuner, a professor in the department of pediatrics at Seattle Children’s Hospital at the University of Washington, told CNN in 2021.

“So for someone who takes hours to fall asleep, probably the better thing for them to do is turn off their screens, or get 20 to 40 minutes of exercise each day, or don’t drink any caffeinated products at all,” Breuner said.

“These are all sleep hygiene tools that work, but people are very reticent to do them. They rather just take a pill, right?”

There are other proven sleep tips that work just as well, if not better than sleeping aids, experts say. The body begins secreting melatonin at dark. What do we do in our modern culture? Use artificial light to keep us awake, often long past the body’s normal bedtime.

Research has found that the body will slow or stop melatonin production if exposed to light, including the blue light from our smartphones, laptops and the like.

“Any LED spectrum light source may further suppress melatonin levels,” said Dr. Vsevolod Polotsky, who directs sleep basic research in the division of pulmonary and critical care medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in an earlier CNN interview.

So ban those devices at least an hour before you want to fall asleep. Like to read yourself to sleep? That’s fine, experts say, just read in a dim light from a book or use an e-reader in night mode.

“Digital light will suppress the circadian drive,” Polotsky said, while a “dim reading light will not.”

Other tips include keeping your bedroom temperature at cooler temperatures — about 60 to 67 degrees Fahrenheit (15 to 20 degrees Celsius). We sleep better if we’re a bit chilly, experts say.

Set up a bedtime ritual by taking a warm bath or shower, reading a book or listening to soothing music. Or you can try deep breathing, yoga, meditation or light stretches. Go to bed and get up at the same time each day, even on weekends or your days off, experts say. The body likes routine.

If your doctor does prescribe melatonin to help with jet lag or other minor sleep issues, keep the use “short term,” Robbins said.

If you are planning to use melatonin for a short-term sleep aid, try to purchase pharmaceutical grade melatonin, she advised. To find it, look for a stamp showing that the independent, nonprofit US Pharmacopoeial Convention Dietary Supplement Verification Program has tested the product.

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Sleep apnea raises risk of long Covid by up to 75% for some, study says | CNN

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CNN
 — 

Adults who have obstructive sleep apnea have up to an 75% increased risk, on average, of developing long Covid after a SARS-CoV-2 infection compared with people without sleep apnea, a new study found.

Women with obstructive sleep apnea had up to an 89% increased risk, while men had a 59% higher risk, according to the analysis of electronic health data on nearly 1.8 million people.

Obstructive sleep apnea is a potentially dangerous disorder in which breathing stops for about 10 seconds multiple times during the night due to a blockage of the airways by heavy or relaxed soft tissues in the mouth and throat.

A second analysis of medical records of a smaller group of 330,000 adults found the risk to be only 12%, according to the study, which is part of RECOVER, or Researching Covid to Enhance Recovery. RECOVER is a National Institutes of Health initiative dedicated to understanding why some people develop long Covid and how best to detect, treat, and prevent the condition.

Why the huge difference in numbers? People in the larger study had additional health concerns, or comorbidities, such as obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, said senior study author Lorna Thorpe, co-lead of the RECOVER Clinical Science Core at NYU Langone Health.

“The range of 12% to 75% is likely due to a combination of different study populations and different levels of comorbidities, but also different definitions of long Covid,” she said. “We didn’t even have a diagnostic code for long Covid until October 2021.

“I believe the risk is likely to be in the middle, but we will need additional studies to tease that out,” added Thorpe, a professor and director of the division of epidemiology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

A third analysis of medical records of 102,000 children with sleep apnea found no correlation between sleep apnea and long Covid after the various confounding health conditions were factored out, “which, of course, is great news,” Thorpe said.

“By using three very large networks of electronic health records, we were able to do this study three times, which is one of the strengths of the research,” she added. “This study is the first collaboration of this focus and scale to find that adults with sleep apnea are at greater risk for long Covid.”

This is an “important study” on long Covid, said Dr. Sairam Parthasarathy, a principal investigator of the University of Arizona Health Sciences RECOVER Adult Study and professor of medicine.

“Research needs to be done in a prospective study to verify this association, and if found to be true these findings have implications for treatment of long Covid,” said Parthasarathy, who was not involved in the study.

“It is important to note that some of the symptoms of long Covid such as fatigue may be related to obstructive sleep apnea, and that the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea may improve such long Covid-related symptoms,” he added.

The study, published Thursday in the journal Sleep, is one of a several studies released since Congress allocated $1.15 billion to NIH in January 2021, to study the long-term effects of Covid over a four-year period. To date, the agency says it has used about $811 million to fund research.

Researchers wanted to investigate the role of sleep apnea in long Covid due to the well-known association between the condition and poorer outcomes after a Covid infection.

“People with sleep apnea are at higher risk for a more severe case of Covid-19, admission to intensive care at the hospital and for mortality,” Thorpe said.

“Obstructive sleep apnea can result in increased inflammation, potentially disrupted sleep leading to an increased propensity to develop infections and reduced immunity,” said Dr. Bhanu Prakash Kolla, a sleep medicine specialist in the Center for Sleep Medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

“This could potentially explain the pathway by which obstructive sleep apnea leads to an increased risk of having Covid and also … (long Covid),” said Kolla, who was not involved in the study.

Sleep apnea is an underdiagnosed condition regardless of gender, said the University of Arizona’s Parthasarathy.

“It is conservatively estimated that 80% of patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) are not diagnosed,” he said. In addition, “an assumption with these analyses is that patients with OSA are likely to be treated. However, nearly half of them are not using the treatment.”

Why would women have up to an 89% higher risk compared with 59% in men? The study did not address that issue.

However, “one can postulate this difference may be based on what we know about sex differences in sleep and immune responses,” said Dr. Phyllis Zee, director of the Center for Circadian and Sleep Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

Zee, who was not involved with the new research, coauthored one of the first published studies on the link between sleep apnea and serious Covid infection.

“Women typically have stronger immune responses to viral infections, and thus also vulnerability for post-infection inflammation,” Zee said. “Women in general have more insomnia and with long Covid tend to present with fatigue and insomnia symptoms, which are also common symptoms of long Covid.”

Another reason could be that sleep apnea has historically been considered a male disease, Thorpe said, which could mean that by the time a woman is diagnosed her apnea is more advanced.

“It could be that the women who are documented in electronic health records have more severe sleep apnea because physicians more often look for sleep apnea among men,” she said.

As scientists continue to learn more about long Covid, further information will become available, Thorpe said. In the meantime, people who have sleep apnea — or who snore, snort and stop breathing at night, which are all signs of the condition — should be exceedingly careful when they contact Covid.

“People with sleep apnea who get infected with Covid should seek early treatment and consider getting Paxlovid, the oral medication prescribed to reduce risk of severe outcomes,” Thorpe said. “They should also keep up with their vaccinations to lower the risk of infection in the first place.”

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What happens if you wake up before your alarm? Tips from sleep experts | CNN

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Sign up for CNN’s Sleep, But Better newsletter series. Our seven-part guide has helpful hints to achieve better sleep.



CNN
 — 

Many people dread the blaring sound of an alarm clock, signaling the start of a busy workday. Others wish they weren’t already awake and that the sound had actually woken them up.

Waking up many minutes or even hours before the alarm is not a new phenomenon, sleep experts tell CNN, but it can cause people discomfort.

More than a third of Americans get fewer hours of sleep a night than the minimum recommendation of seven hours, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to the National Institutes of Health, studies across the globe show anywhere from 10% to 30% of the population struggles with insomnia, defined as the consistent difficulty falling asleep and the inability to return to sleep after going to bed.

Those experiencing insomnia can have a combination of “nocturnal awakenings” and what’s categorized as “early morning awakenings,” according to a 2009 study from the Stanford Sleep Epidemiology Research Center and other universities. The study finds that some people may experience early awakenings without other insomnia symptoms such as “difficulty initiating sleep,” “nocturnal awakenings” and “non-restorative sleep,” meaning sleep that isn’t substantial even with the recommended hours.

While insomnia treatments include cognitive behavioral therapy and medication, other daily tips can have an impact on early morning awakenings. An acute sleep disorder could be at play for someone not experiencing chronic insomnia but waking up early.

The constant waking up before that daily sound is coupled with an immense frustration about not falling back asleep. The stress can feel isolating and all-consuming, taking more precedence than the initial sleep problem.

“You start ruminating about it, and then you start doing things that make insomnia worse,” said Dr. Rajkumar Dasgupta, associate professor of clinical medicine at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles.

“Don’t start telling yourself … ‘I’m going to make myself stay in bed until I fall asleep,’ ” he said.

So, what can you do about it?

If you wake up suddenly — in what feels like the early morning hours — resist checking the clock. Finding out it’s 3 a.m. when you set the alarm for 7 a.m. can cause increased worry about the hours of sleep you hoped to attain.

“The anxiety and the frustration build,” said sleep specialist Wendy Troxel, a senior behavioral scientist at Rand Corp. “Clock watching becomes habitual, and that habitual response of frustration and anxiety also causes a stress response in the body.”

When anxiety and worry take precedence, cortisol levels increase, and the body becomes alert. This process is counterproductive for maintaining drowsiness, as the brain becomes hyper-engaged.

“You look at the clock. It’s 3 o’clock in the morning like clockwork, and immediately might grit your teeth. You think of all the demands … how awful it is going to be when you’re sleep-deprived,” Troxel said. “All of this mental processing and agitation is antithetical to the sleep state. It’s making you more alert and aroused … versus sending the signal to the brain that it’s OK to drift.”

If your alarm is on the phone, checking the clock can pose an even more significant trigger. Consider getting an alarm that isn’t attached to your phone.

“Our phone is our strongest signal to our waking lives,” Troxel said. “You’re getting the light exposure from your phone, which can directly stimulate your circadian signal for alertness. The content of what we are consuming on our phones can be very activating, whether it’s scrolling through social media or reading the news. These can all stimulate emotional states that are more activating rather than relaxing.”

Paradoxically, experts say to get out of bed. Yes, even at 3 a.m.

“Abandon the idea of getting back to sleep,” Troxel said. “When you do that, when you let the pressure go that sleep isn’t so effortful, sleep is more likely to come back.”

In a stimulus control technique, you can distract your brain with a mundane task to help bring back drowsiness faster than staying frustrated in bed.

Mentally assigning the bed with sleeping helps people associate positive sleep thoughts with their space. Leaving the room when agitation sets in can separate the frustration from the bed.

Anything from reading a book to knitting or listening to soft music (but not using a phone) can positively distract the brain. Once drowsiness sets in again, head back to bed.

Dasgupta recommends keeping track not only of when you went to bed and woke up on a given night, but also the calming techniques, environmental factors — and even nutrition and exercise routines that seemed to help you sleep that day.

“Perfect sleep is like having a puzzle, and you need all the right pieces,” Dasgupta said. “People who have insomnia, they’re missing one of those sleep hygiene pieces. When you make your recommendation, like a muscle relaxation, maybe that’s not the thing that they were missing. Maybe sound wasn’t the key part. Maybe you need more of that weighted blanket.”

It also depends on our given circadian rhythm, or the 24-hour solar cycle the body runs on that alerts us when sleepiness sets at night. If any environmental factors change — such as travel, work schedule or lighting — the body’s circadian rhythm may be thrown off, signaling an uncomfortable early wake-up before the alarm, Dasgupta said. In this case, changing the lighting in a given room or getting alternative lighting could help.

Progressive muscle relaxation may work — start at the toes, clench the given muscles for three seconds and release. Breathe through this process. The 4-7-8 breathing exercise coupled with muscle relaxation can be successful, Dasgupta said. Breathe in for 4 seconds, hold it for 7 seconds and breathe out for 8 seconds.

Relaxing breath

Follow along as Dr. Ellen Vora guides you through the 4-7-8 breathing technique.

Source: Courtesy Dr. Ellen Vora

Others may find that yoga, meditation or reading can help when they wake up before their alarm. The same techniques don’t work for everyone, but practicing various strategies that may affect sleep is critical, ultimately building a well-followed routine.

If the problem continues beyond three times a week for three months, experts recommend talking to a sleep specialist. It may require more than a simple habit change.

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When older parents resist help or advice, use these tips to cope | CNN

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KFF Health News
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It was a regrettable mistake. But Kim Sylvester thought she was doing the right thing at the time.

Her 80-year-old mother, Harriet Burkel, had fallen at her home in Raleigh, North Carolina, fractured her pelvis and gone to a rehabilitation center to recover. It was only days after the death of Burkel’s husband, 82, who had moved into a memory care facility three years earlier.

With growing distress, Sylvester had watched her mother, who had emphysema and peripheral artery disease, become increasingly frail and isolated. “I would say, ‘Can I help you?’ And my mother would say, ‘No, I can do this myself. I don’t need anything. I can handle it,’ ” Sylvester told me.

Now, Sylvester had a chance to get some more information. She let herself into her mother’s home and went through all the paperwork she could find. “It was a shambles — completely disorganized, bills everywhere,” she said. “It was clear things were out of control.”

Sylvester sprang into action, terminating her mother’s orders for anti-aging supplements, canceling two car warranty insurance policies (Burkel wasn’t driving at that point), ending a yearlong contract for knee injections with a chiropractor and throwing out donation requests from dozens of organizations. When her mother found out, she was furious.

“I was trying to save my mother, but I became someone she couldn’t trust — the enemy,” Sylvester said. “I really messed up.”

Dealing with an older parent who stubbornly resists offers of help isn’t easy. But the solution isn’t to make an older person feel like you’re steamrolling them and taking over their affairs. What’s needed instead are respect, empathy and appreciation of the older person’s autonomy.

“It’s hard when you see an older person making poor choices and decisions. But if that person is cognitively intact, you can’t force them to do what you think they should do,” said Anne Sansevero, president of the board of directors of the Aging Life Care Association, a national organization of care managers who work with older adults and their families. “They have a right to make choices for themselves.”

That doesn’t mean adult children concerned about an older parent should step aside or agree to everything the parent proposes. Rather, a different set of skills is needed.

Cheryl Woodson, an author and retired physician based in the Chicago area, learned this firsthand when her mother — whom Woodson described as a “very powerful” woman — developed mild cognitive impairment. She started getting lost while driving and would buy things she didn’t need, then give them away.

Chastising her mother wasn’t going to work. “You can’t push people like my mother or try to take control,” Woodson said. “You don’t tell them, ‘No, you’re wrong,’ because they changed your diapers and they’ll always be your mom.”

Instead, Woodson learned to appeal to her mother’s pride in being the family matriarch. “Whenever she got upset, I’d ask her, ‘Mother, what year was it that Aunt Terri got married?’ or ‘Mother, I don’t remember how to make macaroni. How much cheese do you put in?’ And she’d forget what she was worked up about, and we’d just go on from there.”

Woodson, author of “To Survive Caregiving: A Daughter’s Experience, a Doctor’s Advice,” also learned to apply a “does it really matter to safety or health?” standard to her mother’s behavior. It helped Woodson let go of her sometimes unreasonable expectations.

One example she related: “My mother used to shake hot sauce on pancakes. It would drive my brother nuts, but she was eating, and that was good.”

“You don’t want to rub their nose into their incapacity,” said Woodson, whose mother died in 2003.

Barry Jacobs, a clinical psychologist and family therapist, sounded similar themes in describing a psychiatrist in his late 70s who didn’t like to bend to authority. After his wife died, the older man stopped shaving and changing his clothes regularly. Though he had diabetes, he didn’t want to see a physician and instead prescribed medicine for himself. Even after several strokes compromised his vision, he insisted on driving.

An adult child needs to show empathy and respect for the autonomy of an aging parent.

Jacobs’ take: “You don’t want to go toe-to-toe with someone like this, because you will lose. They’re almost daring you to tell them what to do so they can show you they won’t follow your advice.”

What’s the alternative? “I would employ empathy and appeal to this person’s pride as a basis for handling adversity or change,” Jacobs said. “I might say something along the lines of, ‘I know you don’t want to stop driving and that this will be very painful for you. But I know you have faced difficult, painful changes before and you’ll find your way through this.’ “

“You’re appealing to their ideal self rather than treating them as if they don’t have the right to make their own decisions anymore,” he said. In the older psychiatrist’s case, conflict with his four children was constant, but he eventually stopped driving.

Another strategy that can be useful: “Show up, but do it in a way that’s face-saving,” Jacobs said. Instead of asking your father if you can check in on him, “Go to his house and say, ‘The kids really wanted to see you. I hope you don’t mind.’ Or ‘We made too much food. I hope you don’t mind my bringing it over.’ Or ‘I wanted to stop by. I hope you can give me some advice about this issue that’s on my mind.’ “

This psychiatrist didn’t have any cognitive problems, though he wasn’t as sharp as he used to be. But encroaching cognitive impairment often colors difficult family interactions.

If you think this might be a factor with your parents, instead of trying to persuade them to accept more help at home, try to get them medically evaluated, said Leslie Kernisan, author of “When Your Aging Parent Needs Help: A Geriatrician’s Step-by-Step Guide to Memory Loss, Resistance, Safety Worries, and More.”

“Decreased brain function can affect an older adult’s insight and judgment and ability to understand the risks of certain actions or situations while also making people suspicious and defensive,” she noted.

This doesn’t mean you should give up on talking to an older parent with mild cognitive impairment or early-stage dementia, however. “You always want to give the older adult a chance to weigh in and talk about what’s important to them and their feelings and concerns,” Kernisan said.

“If you frame your suggestions as a way of helping your parent achieve a goal they’ve said was important, they tend to be much more receptive to it,” she said.

A turning point for Sylvester and her mother came when the older woman, who developed dementia, went to a nursing home at the end of 2021. Her mother, who at first didn’t realize the move was permanent, was furious, and Sylvester waited two months before visiting. When she finally walked into Burkel’s room, bearing a Valentine’s Day wreath, Burkel hugged her and said, “I’m so glad to see you,” before pulling away. “But I’m so mad at my other daughter.”

Sylvester, who doesn’t have a sister, responded, “I know, Mom. She meant well, but she didn’t handle things properly.” She learned the value of what she calls a “therapeutic fiblet” from Kernisan, who ran a family caregiver group Sylvester attended between 2019 and 2021.

After that visit, Sylvester saw her mother often, and all was well between the two women up until Burkel’s death. “If something was upsetting my mother, I would just go, ‘Interesting,’ or ‘That’s a thought.’ You have to give yourself time to remember this is not the person you used to know and create the person you need to be your parent, who’s changed so much.”

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Older dogs who sleep badly may have dementia, study says | CNN

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CNN
 — 

In a veterinary lab in North Carolina, Woofus, a 15-year-old basset hound mix, is allowing researchers to attach an electroencephalogram, or EEG, electrodes to his head before padding off to a dark, cozy room for an afternoon nap.

During his snooze, the study team will analyze Woofus’ brain waves to judge the quality of his sleep. Woofus has canine cognitive dysfunction syndrome, or CCDS, the doggie disorder that’s similar to Alzheimer’s disease in people. The elderly dog’s owners say he is struggling to get enough rest at night.

“Just like humans with Alzheimer’s disease, dogs with CCDS experience sleep disruptions, such as insomnia and sleep fragmentation,” said veterinarian Dr. Natasha Olby, a professor of neurology, neurosurgery and gerontology at North Carolina State College of Veterinary Medicine in Raleigh.

Woofus isn’t the only sleep-deprived dog in this study. On other days in the clinic, Jake, a 13-year-old pointer, and Coco, a 12-year-old dachshund, among others, might be taking a siesta while researchers peer inside their brains.

“Owners of dogs with CCDS report their dogs suffer from difficulty sleeping at night, increased sleeping during the day or both, as well as pacing and vocalizations at night,” Olby said. “This can be very hard on the dog’s owners — not only are they worried for their pet, their sleep is also significantly disrupted.”

To find out whether sleep problems in dogs indicate early signs of dementia as they do in people, Olby and her team turned to a group of senior dogs enrolled in an ongoing study testing antiaging supplements. The dogs visit twice a year “and do all kinds of really fun cognitive testing,” she said. “They really enjoy it and like the handlers they work with.”

To be considered for the antiaging study, the dog must have lived more than 75% of the expected life span for their breed or mix of breeds. A dog also could not be crippled by arthritis or going blind, as the pet needed to be able to perform tasks designed to test their cognitive capabilities.

A dog might be asked, for example, to find a treat hidden under a cup or a snack inside a cylinder in which one end had been closed by a researcher. By repeating the tasks at the clinic every six months, any decline in the dog’s mental agility or performance can be tracked.

Woofus, 15-year-old basset hound mix, plays

For the new study measuring a dog’s brain waves during sleep, researchers used a form of electroencephalogram called polysomnography, used in sleep clinics to diagnose sleep problems in people.

“It’s the gold standard method to look at what the brain is doing during sleep,” Olby said, adding this is the first canine study to apply the same technology used on humans.

“We glue these electrodes on with a really great conductive glue that’s water soluble. Then we just wash it off afterwards,” she said. “We don’t use anywhere near as many electrodes as you see on people in a sleep lab, because dogs have far less cortex and surface area to cover.”

Already at ease with the staff, it wasn’t too difficult to train 28 senior dogs to wear electrodes and walk around with dangling wires without complaint, she said.

Jake, a 13-year-old pointer, was one of 28 dogs trained to sleep with EEG electrodes.

To make the dogs more comfortable during their siestas, owners bring their dogs’ beds from home, which are placed in a protected room with white noise.

“Staff sit with them while they nap to make sure that they’re not trying to pull out or eat the electrodes or do anything that might hurt them,” Olby said.

When sleeping brain waves were compared with a dog’s cognitive testing, researchers found that dogs with greater dementia spent less time in deep and REM sleep, just as people do. The study was recently published in the journal Frontiers in Veterinary Science.

“Dogs that did worse on our memory tests had levels of REM sleep which were not as deep as they should be,” Olby said. “We found the same when it came to deep sleep.”

While no one knows the exact mechanism at work — either in people or in dogs — research like this study may help scientists better understand the process and find ways to treat it, Olby said.

“There’s a possibility we might be able to identify an early signature of change on the EEG that can tell us, ‘Hey, things are starting to slide.’ Because with a chronic neurodegenerative process, of course we’d love to be able to intervene sooner rather than later.”

In the meantime, there are medications for anxiety and melatonin for sleep that veterinarians can prescribe as a dog ages, Olby said. And as with people, diet and exercise appears to be a factor.

“There’s been some very nice studies showing diets that are enriched in flavonoids and antioxidants and medium-chain fatty acids could possibly slow the development of dementia in dogs,” she said. “It’s just like people — if you can eat a Mediterranean diet and do your exercise, you’re going to do better.”

Doggie dementia is a worrisome reality for many senior dogs. Research has found that by 11 or 12 years of age, 28% of dogs had mild and 10% had severe cognitive impairment. By the time the dogs reached age 15, the risk had risen to 68% for mild and 35% for severe cognitive impairment. A 2022 study found the odds of canine cognitive dysfunction increased by 52% with each year of age, Olby said.

Pet owners can look for signs that their dog’s mental functions are declining. According to Olby, vets use an acronym called DISHA-AL, which stands for disorientation, interaction changes, sleep/wake cycle alterations, house soiling; activity changes (increased or decreased); and anxiety and learning & memory.

“One of the earliest signs is you’ll start to see a little confusion just like you do with people, they suddenly start to make some mistakes and things you wouldn’t expect them to do. Very similar to us,” Olby said.

“Do you really think there’s enough room for you?” — Delilah, a 10-year-old Siberian husky.
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Lynx (top) and Luna (bottom) are 2-year-old Siberian Forest cats.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading’)’ height=”1125″ width=”2000″/>

Dogs and cats who share their human's bed tend to have a

Banshee, a 6-year-old Husky mix, is a rescue who survived heartworms.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading’)’ height=”1500″ width=”2000″/>

Mason, a 3-year-old lab mix, loves to sleep next to his dad every night but hates covers.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading’)’ height=”1125″ width=”2000″/>

“What? I don’t snore!” — Luna, a 2-year-old Siberian Forest cat.
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Molly (left), a 15-year-old cockapoo mix, likes to sleep in her human’s armpit, while Evie (right) prefers the end of the bed and hates to be woken up early.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading’)’ height=”900″ width=”1600″/>

Evie, a 4-year-old Jack Russell terrier mix, has been known to crawl onto her human if she needs more affection.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image_gallery-image__dam-img–loading’)’ height=”1358″ width=”2000″/>

A dog who sleeps at the end of the bed with their face toward the door might have a more protective personality, Varble said.</p><p>

Is sleeping with your pets good for them?

Dogs may also lose learned behaviors, or forget their house training and begin to have unintentional accidents around the house, she added.

“A classic problem is wandering around and getting lost under the table or something — they just can’t process the information and figure out where they are. Changes in sleep cycle, increased anxiety, all of these things are classic signs of dementia,” she said.

Don’t assume that is what is wrong with your dog, however. Just like in people, other health problems such as metabolic disease, urinary tract infections or even brain tumors can mimic classic signs of dementia.

“High blood pressure can make dogs anxious, for example,” Olby said, “so a vet needs to thoroughly check the dog to rule out disease.”

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Sleeping will be one of the challenges for astronauts on Mars missions | CNN

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CNN
 — 

Astronauts have been adjusting to the challenges of sleeping in space for years — and the lessons learned from their zero gravity slumbers will ensure that one day the first crewed missions to Mars will have gotten enough rest before exploring the red planet.

Rotating crews have spent an average of six months living and working aboard the International Space Station for nearly 23 years, and they struggle with sleep issues just like people on Earth. Some of the challenges are similar to those of shift workers or people with abnormal schedules, but others are more unique to the space environment.

NASA astronaut Josh Cassada is bundled up in his crew quarters on the International Space Station on March 2.

For example, most people don’t have to worry about floating away from their beds due to zero gravity. Don’t worry — astronauts use special restraints to keep them from floating through the space station while asleep.

Two of the biggest challenges for astronauts include their sleep environment and the establishment of a natural sleep cycle.

Astronauts have dark, quiet and private crew quarters on the space station conducive to good sleep — but that won’t always be the case on other space missions, said Dr. Erin Flynn-Evans, director of the Fatigue Countermeasures Laboratory at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California.

Like their historic Apollo predecessors, the Orion capsules that will be used during future Artemis missions to the moon are small vehicles with limited space for crews and sleeping bags for rest periods.

“I think of it like camping,” Flynn-Evans said. “If it’s for a couple days, probably no big deal. But the longer you’re in close quarters with someone, the more disruptive that can be.”

While the space station affords incredible views of Earth, the 16 sunrises an astronaut witnesses a day can wreak havoc on circadian rhythm, the body’s natural clock for sleeping and waking.

On Earth, disruptions to circadian rhythm occur for people who work overnight shifts or experience jet lag while traveling across time zones.

“Light is what resets our circadian rhythm and keeps us organized to that day-night cycle, but in space we have several challenges,” Flynn-Evans said.

The space station orbits around Earth every 90 minutes, creating alternating cycles of darkness and light. Rather than force the astronauts to adapt to such a strange cycle, experts at NASA have added lighting to the interior of the space station that mimics what people experience during a normal day on Earth.

“We have to try to block out the light from windows during the night,” she said, “and we have to really try to maximize the light either through windows or with internal lighting to make sure the crew are getting that synchronizing stimulus so that they’re able to stay awake and asleep at the right time.”

Jet lag begins before astronauts ever arrive at the space station, and their sleep schedules are shifted for days before liftoff based on the time of day and time zone from which they will launch. Once they reach the space station, each astronaut is shifted to Greenwich Mean Time, “a nice middle ground between all of the countries that participate,” Flynn-Evans said.

At the Fatigue Countermeasures Laboratory, Flynn-Evans and her colleagues develop tools to help astronauts overcome sleep challenges. Some of the strategies involve managing when the astronauts are exposed to blue light, the primary synchronizing wavelength for the circadian system, and when to reduce blue light to help them sleep.

Astronauts have regimented schedules, but the arrival of resupply missions or new crews sometimes interrupt those. Flynn-Evans and other researchers develop approaches to shifting sleep safely for the astronauts, such as determining when to take naps or stay up later to accommodate schedule changes.

The same tips that help astronauts sleep also apply on Earth, including following a regular schedule with waking and falling asleep at the same time as much as possible and limiting exposure to blue light before going to bed, which is emitted by LED TVs, smartphones, computers and tablets.

Although scientists have sleep data from years of spaceflight, conducting simulated missions on Earth allow for more control.

“We do fake space missions all the time,” Flynn-Evans said. “We have what we call an analog space environment at Johnson Space Center called the Human Exploration Research Analog or HERA, and that’s basically a small habitat.”

The CHAPEA crew will live in a habitat with individual quarters at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The habitat mimics the size of a lunar base or small spacecraft and can house crews of four people for long periods of time. Flynn-Evans was involved in a study in which crews spent 45 days in the habitat and were restricted to five hours of sleep on weeknights and eight hours on weekends. The participants were tested for alertness and performance.

Findings from the experiment showed that if crew members only got five hours of sleep one night, they needed more opportunities to catch up on sleep on subsequent nights to prevent the ill effects of sleep deprivation. The current requirement is that crew members get 8½ hours of sleep per night on missions to avoid long-term sleep loss, fatigue-induced errors and health complications, according to NASA.

In June, NASA will begin the first experiment in a new 3D-printed Martian habitat at Johnson Space Center called the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog, or CHAPEA.

Over the course of one year, a four-person crew will live and work inside a 1,700-square-foot (158-square-meter) space to simulate living on Mars. The focus for the first experiment is nutrition, but Flynn-Evans and her fellow researchers will also monitor how well the crew sleeps.

Habitats such as HERA and CHAPEA allow scientists to simulate surprises that may happen on a real mission to the moon or Mars, such as limited resources, failing equipment, communication issues and other stressors of small habitats.

An unexpectedly rich source of sleep data has proven to be studying the Earth-bound scientists and engineers who work on Mars missions such as the Perseverance rover.

A day on Mars lasts about 39 minutes longer than one on Earth, but it’s just enough that the members of Mars mission control have to adjust their schedules constantly to stay on Perseverance’s timetable.

“If you’re shifting 39 minutes a day, that means that you’re basically going to bed 39 minutes later every day,” Flynn-Evans said. “It doesn’t seem that bad on a single night. But after five days, it’s like you’ve crossed like six time zones. It’s a real stressor on the body.”

Many unknowns still exist about being on “Mars time,” such as how the time shift affects the human body’s metabolism.

Understanding how people on Earth adapt to live on Mars time is one way of preparing for future missions to the red planet. Flynn-Evans and her team are working closely with those planning the Artemis lunar missions to optimize the astronauts’ schedules and ensure that the lighting is sufficient and the noise is dampened inside Orion when they need to sleep.

Researchers also want to study how much caffeine astronauts require for alertness to make sure crews don’t run out of coffee in a spacecraft with limited storage.

“Sleep is intimately tied with performance, alertness, interpersonal communication and relationships,” Flynn-Evans said, “so we want to make sure that the crews are set up for success and getting that sleep they need.”

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How psilocybin, the psychedelic in mushrooms, may rewire the brain to ease depression, anxiety and more | CNN

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CNN
 — 

Shrooms, Alice, tweezes, mushies, hongos, pizza toppings, magic mushrooms — everyday lingo for psychedelic mushrooms seems to grow with each generation. Yet leading mycologist Paul Stamets believes it’s time for fans of psilocybin mushrooms to leave such childish slang behind.

“Let’s be adults about this. These are no longer ‘shrooms.’ These are no longer party drugs for young people,” Stamets told CNN. “Psilocybin mushrooms are nonaddictive, life-changing substances.”

Small clinical trials have shown that one or two doses of psilocybin, given in a therapeutic setting, can make dramatic and long-lasting changes in people suffering from treatment-resistant major depressive disorder, which typically does not respond to traditional antidepressants.

Based on this research, the US Food and Drug Administration has described psilocybin as a breakthrough medicine, “which is phenomenal,” Stamets said.

Psilocybin, which the intestines convert into psilocin, a chemical with psychoactive properties, is also showing promise in combating cluster headaches, anxiety, anorexia, obsessive-compulsive disorder and various forms of substance abuse.

“The data are strong from depression to PTSD to cluster headaches, which is one of the most painful conditions I’m aware of,” said neurologist Richard Isaacson, director of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic in the Center for Brain Health at Florida Atlantic University.

“I’m excited about the future of psychedelics because of the relatively good safety profile and because these agents can now be studied in rigorous double-blinded clinical trials,” Isaacson said. “Then we can move from anecdotal reports of ‘I tripped on this and felt better’ to ‘Try this and you will be statistically, significantly better.’ “

Classic psychedelics such as psilocybin and LSD enter the brain via the same receptors as serotonin, the body’s “feel good” hormone. Serotonin helps control body functions such as sleep, sexual desire and psychological states such as satisfaction, happiness and optimism.

People with depression or anxiety often have low levels of serotonin, as do people with post-traumatic stress disorder, cluster headaches, anorexia, smoking addiction and substance abuse. Treatment typically involves selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, which boost levels of serotonin available to brain cells. Yet it can take weeks for improvement to occur, experts say, if the drugs even work at all.

With psychedelics such as psilocybin and LSD, however, scientists can see changes in brain neuron connectivity in the lab “within 30 minutes,” said pharmacologist Brian Roth, a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“One of the most interesting things we’ve learned about the classic psychedelics is that they have a dramatic effect on the way brain systems synchronize, or move and groove together,” said Matthew Johnson, a professor in psychedelics and consciousness at Johns Hopkins Medicine.

“When someone’s on psilocybin, we see an overall increase in connectivity between areas of the brain that don’t normally communicate well,” Johnson said. “You also see the opposite of that – local networks in the brain that normally interact with each other quite a bit suddenly communicate less.”

It creates a “very, very disorganized brain,” ultimately breaking down normal boundaries between the auditory, visual, executive and sense-of-self sections of the mind – thus creating a state of “altered consciousness,” said David Nutt, director of the Neuropsychopharmacology Unit in the Division of Brain Sciences at Imperial College London.

And it’s that disorganization that is ultimately therapeutic, according to Nutt: “Depressed people are continually self-critical, and they keep ruminating, going over and over the same negative, anxious or fearful thoughts.

“Psychedelics disrupt that, which is why people can suddenly see a way out of their depression during the trip,” he added. “Critical thoughts are easier to control, and thinking is more flexible. That’s why the drug is an effective treatment for depression.”

There’s more. Researchers say psychedelic drugs help neurons in the brain sprout new dendrites, which look like branches on a tree, to increase communication between cells.

“These drugs can increase neuronal outgrowth, they can increase this branching of neurons, they can increase synapses. That’s called neuroplasticity,” Nutt said.

That’s different from neurogenesis, which is the development of brand-new brain cells, typically from stem cells in the body. The growth of dendrites helps build and then solidify new circuits in the brain, allowing us to, for example, lay down more positive pathways as we practice gratitude.

“Now our current thinking is this neuronal outgrowth probably doesn’t contribute to the increased connectivity in the brain, but it almost certainly helps people who have insights into their depression while on psilocybin maintain those insights,” Nutt said.

“You shake up the brain, you see things in a more positive way, and then you lay down those positive circuits with the neuroplasticity,” he added. “It’s a double whammy.”

Interestingly, SSRIs also increase neuroplasticity, a fact that science has known for some time. But in a 2022 double-blind phase 2 randomized controlled trial comparing psilocybin to escitalopram, a traditional SSRI, Nutt found the latter didn’t spark the same magic.

“The SSRI did not increase brain connectivity, and it actually did not improve well-being as much as psilocybin,” Nutt said. “Now for the first time you’ve got the brain science lining up with what patients say after a trip: ‘I feel more connected. I can think more freely. I can escape from negative thoughts, and I don’t get trapped in them.’ “

Taking a psychedelic doesn’t work for everyone, Johnson stressed, “but when it works really well it’s like, ‘Oh my god, it’s a cure for PTSD or for depression.’ If people really have changed the way their brain is automatically hardwired to respond to triggers for anxiety, depression, smoking — that’s a real thing.”

How long do results last? In studies where patients were given just one dose of a psychedelic “a couple of people were better eight years later, but for the majority of those with chronic depression it creeps back after four or five months,” Nutt said.

“What we do with those people is unknown,” he added. “One possibility is to give another dose of the psychedelic — we don’t know if that would work or not, but it might. Or we could put them on an SSRI as soon as they’ve got their mood improved and see if that can hold the depression at bay.

“There are all sorts of ways we could try to address that question,” Nutt said, “but we just don’t know the answer yet.”

The mycelium, or rootlike structure, of Lion's mane mushroom is part of the

Stamets, who over the last 40 years has discovered four new species of psychedelic mushrooms and written seven books on the topic, said he believes microdosing is a solution. That’s the practice of taking tiny amounts of a psilocybin mushroom several times a week to maintain brain health and a creative perspective on life.

A typical microdose is 0.1 to 0.3 grams of dried psilocybin mushrooms, as compared with the 25-milligram pill of psilocybin that creates the full-blown psychedelic experience.

Stamets practices microdosing and has focused on a process called “stacking” in which a microdose of mushrooms is taken with additional substances believed to boost the fungi’s benefits. His famous “Stamets Stack” includes niacin, or vitamin B3, and the mycelium, or rootlike structure, of an unusual mushroom called Lion’s mane.

Surveys of microdosers obtained on his website have shown significantly positive benefits from the practice of taking small doses.

“These are self-reported citizen scientists’ projects, and we have now around 14,000 people in our app where you register yourself and report your microdose,” Stamets told an audience at the 2022 Life Itself conference, a health and wellness event presented in partnership with CNN.

“I’m going to say something provocative, but I believe it to my core: Psilocybin makes nicer people,” Stamets told the audience. “Psilocybin will make us more intelligent and better citizens.”

Scientific studies so far have failed to find any benefits from microdosing, leaving many researchers skeptical. “People like being on it, but that doesn’t validate the claims of microdosing,” Johnson said. “People like being on a little bit of cocaine, too.”

Experimental psychologist Harriet de Wit, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at the University of Chicago, was excited to study microdosing because it solves a key problem of scientific research in the field – it’s hard to blind people to what they are taking if they begin to trip. Microdosing solves that problem because people don’t feel an effect from the tiny dose.

De Wit specializes in determining whether a drug’s impact is due to the drug or what scientists call the “placebo effect,” a positive expectation that can cause improvement without the drug.

She published a study in 2022 that mimicked real-world microdosing of LSD, except neither the participants nor researchers knew what was in the pills the subjects took.

“We measured all kinds of different behavioral and psychological responses, and the only thing we saw is that LSD at very low doses produced some stimulant-like effects at first, which then faded,” de Wit said.

The placebo effect is powerful, she added, which might explain why the few additional studies done on it have also failed to find any positive results.

“I suspect microdosing may have an effect on mood, and over time it might build up resilience or improve well-being,” Nutt said. “But I don’t think it will rapidly fragment depression like macrodosing and going on a trip.”

Obviously, not all hallucinogenic experiences are positive, so nearly every study on psychedelic drugs has included therapists trained to intercede if a trip turns bad and to maximize the outcome if the trip is good.

“This is about allowing someone access into deeper access into their own mental processes, with hopefully greater insight,” Johnson said. “While others might disagree, it does seem very clear that you need therapy to maximize the benefits.”

There are also side effects from psychedelics that go beyond a bad trip. LSD, mescaline and DMT, which is the active ingredient in ayahuasca tea, can increase blood pressure, heart rate, and body temperature, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Ayahuasca tea can also induce vomiting. LSD can cause tremors, numbness and weakness, while the use of mescaline can lead to uncoordinated movements. People hunting for psychedelic mushrooms can easily mistake a toxic species for one with psilocybin, “leading to unintentional, fatal poisoning.”

Another issue: Not everyone is a candidate for psychedelic treatment. It won’t work on people currently on SSRIs — the receptors in their brains are already flooded with serotonin. People diagnosed with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, or who have a family history of psychosis are always screened out of clinical trials, said Frederick Barrett, associate director of the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins.

“If you have a vulnerability to psychosis, it could be that exposing you to a psychedelic could unmask that psychosis or could lead to a psychotic event,” Barnes said.

Then there are the thousands of people with mental health concerns who will never agree to undergo a psychedelic trip. For those people, scientists such as Roth are attempting to find an alternative approach. He and his team recently identified the mechanisms by which psychedelics bond to the brain’s serotonin receptors and are using the knowledge to identify new compounds.

“Our hope is that we can use this information to ultimately make drugs that mimic the benefits of psychedelic drugs without the psychedelic experience,” Roth said.

“What if we could give people who are depressed or suffer from PTSD or anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorder a medication, and they could wake up the next day and be fine without any side effects? That would be transformative.”

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Regular internet use may be linked to lower dementia risk in older adults, study says | CNN

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CNN
 — 

If your parents or grandparents ask you how to post on Instagram or how to send a birthday message to a Facebook friend, a new study suggests you might want to help them – not just to be nice but because getting them online may help their brain health, too.

A study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society suggested that older people who regularly used the internet were less likely to develop dementia.

The researchers saw this association after about eight years tracking 18,154 adults between the ages of 50 and 65 who did not have dementia when the study period began.

The adults were a part of the Health and Retirement Study, a multidisciplinary collection of data from a representative sample of people in the US that is gathered by the National Institute on Aging and the Social Security Administration.

Each of the participants was asked a simple question: “Do you regularly use the World Wide Web, or the Internet, for sending and receiving e-mail or for any other purpose, such as making purchases, searching for information, or making travel reservations?”

People who used the internet at the start of the study had about half the risk of dementia as people who were not regular users.

The researchers also looked at how often these adults were online, from not at all to more than eight hours a day. Those who used the internet for about two hours or less a day had the lowest risk of dementia compared with those that didn’t use the internet, who had a “notably higher estimated risk.”

The researchers noted that people who were online six to eight hours a day had a higher risk of dementia, but that finding wasn’t statistically significant, they said, and more research is needed.

Scientists still don’t know what causes dementia, so the new research can’t pinpoint the exact connection between internet usage and brain health. Study co-author Dr. Virginia W. Chang has a few ideas.

“Online engagement may help to develop and maintain cognitive reserve, which can in turn compensate for brain aging and reduce the risk of dementia,” said Chang, an associate professor of global public health at New York University’s School of Global Public Health.

The study also did not look at what people were exploring online. Although the internet is full of cat videos and conspiracy theories, it can also be intellectually stimulating, and some studies have shown that intellectual stimulation may help prevent dementia. A 2020 study found an association between cognitively stimulating jobs and a lower risk of dementia, for example.

As people age, it’s natural for brain processing speeds to slow a little, and it may get harder to remember what’s on all those open browser tabs on your computer. But in a healthy brain, routine memory and knowledge remains pretty stable. People with dementia have trouble with routine brain functions like making new memories, solving problems and completing normal tasks.

About 6.2 million people 65 and older have Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. That number is expected to grow exponentially as baby boomers age.

“Overall, this is important research. It identifies another potentially modifiable factor that might influence dementia risk,” said Dr. Claire Sexton, the Alzheimer’s Association’s senior director of scientific programs and outreach, who was not involved in the new study. “But we wouldn’t want to read too much into this study in isolation. It doesn’t establish cause and effect.”

Beyond medications, experts have been looking for ways to help people keep dementia at bay.

The Alzheimer’s Association is working on the US Pointer Study, a two-year clinical trial to pinpoint exactly what lifestyle interventions may lower a person’s risk of dementia.

Risk factors like family history and age can’t be changed, but scientists think there are some healthy behaviors that can reduce the risk of this kind of cognitive decline.

Lifestyle factors like exercise, getting enough sleep, maintaining a healthy weight, keeping blood pressure in check, managing blood sugar, quitting smoking and staying engaged with others may help. Internet surfing isn’t one of the official activities listed by the CDC, but the new study adds to the growing body of evidence that suggests more research could better establish this connection.

The new research isn’t the first to find that the use of the internet may help reduce cognitive decline. One 2020 study found only a smaller cognitive decline in male internet users. Others have not seen a gender difference.

In the latest study, the difference in risk between regular users and those who did not use the internet regularly did not vary by gender, level of education, or race or ethnicity.

Some studies have also shown a benefit to training older adults on computers and have suggested that the internet can positively connect them to others and help them learn information or skills.

Research also suggests that most older adults most frequently use the internet for basic tasks like email, news or online banking. But a growing number are learning newer social platforms like BeReal or dancing and singing on TikTok. And learning new skills may be protective against dementia, studies suggest.

Older adults’ use of social networking sites can also increase their connections to other people and reduce isolation. Some studies have shown that older people who were lonely were three times more likely to develop dementia than those who said they felt socially connected to others.

“We need further evidence, not just from observational studies like this one but also interventional studies,” Sexton said. That way, doctors might someday treat people for dementia like they do with heart disease: by suggesting lifestyle changes in addition to medication.

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