Question: 

Hello Belleruth, I deal with anxiety. I am managing it pretty well. However, both my husband and I are unemployed and job searching, which is stressful. 

Some nights I get monkey brain when I go to bed, and I can't shut it off. It takes me forever to get to sleep and if I do get to sleep, I don't sleep well. 

I do have your Relaxation and Wellness CD, but I am wondering if Healthful Sleep would be better. Please let me know. 

Question:  

My father has suffered from dementia since 1999.  He no longer has clarity in his mind and does not recognize me or my brother.   He lives in a special care facility where he gets good care.

The staff recently told me that he was becoming more agitated and sleepless during the night.  As a result, he is extremely tired and confused during the day.

Any suggestions as to what kind of tools might help him, or will nothing reach him at this point?

Thanks.  Arnold 

A grateful parent posted this paean to the Sleep Fairy, and it’s amazingly similar to what my niece told me years ago – she’s the one who put me onto this phenom of a snooze-inducing CD for kids.

She had a child with night terrors who was too scared to fall asleep.  Nights were hellish for the whole family for months – not to mention the cranky, exhausted days that followed.

They tried all sorts of things, but to no avail. Then a friend suggested she try this CD, and it was like blessed magic fairy dust. Suddenly they had a sleeping child. It was right away. 

Researchers from the Departments of Sociology and Criminal Justice at Old Dominion University at Norfolk, Virginia, examined the impact of a structured meditation program intervention on female detainees, comparing an experimental group and a control group for medical symptoms, emotions, and behaviors before and after the intervention.

A 2 1/2-hour meditation session was held once a week for 7 weeks. Study participants completed a medical symptoms checklist before the program began and after it ended.

This exquisitely written note was so moving and so heartfelt, it brought tears to the eyes of everyone on our staff.  We all say thank you for thanking us. 

Researchers from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in The Netherlands explored whether self-help could offer an inexpensive and more accessible alternative to face-to-face treatment, comparing non-pharmacological therapies only.

Ten studies with a total of 1000 subjects were included. The self-help style of intervention was found to improve sleep efficiency (d=0.42; p<0.05), sleep onset latency (d=0.29; p<0.05), waking after sleep onset (d=0.44; p<0.05) and sleep quality (d=0.33; p<0.05) but not total sleep time (d=0.02; p>0.05).

Researchers R. Bruce Lydiard, Ph.D., M.D., and Mark Hammer MD from the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center in Charleston SC , are embarking on some important research that targets sleep disturbance in posttraumatic stress.  Their premise is that the first-line treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder - medication (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) and cognitive behavior therapy – do not adequately treat nightmares and insomnia. Nor do they feel that there is sufficient awareness in the mental health community of the critical role sleep disturbance plays in PTSD.

Researchers from Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, examined whether a self-help intervention might offer an inexpensive and more accessible alternative to face-to-face therapy for the non-pharmacologic treatment of insomnia. 

They conducted a meta-analysis of randomized controlled studies examining the effects of self-help interventions for insomnia, identified through extensive searches of bibliographical databases.  They examined the effects of self-help on different sleep outcomes, in comparison with both wait list controls and face-to-face treatments.

Dear BR and Health Journeys,

My brother witnessed the violence at Virginia Tech.  Since then, when there is news of a mass shooting his mental health suffers.  He gets insomnia, anxiety, short temper and jumpiness during these times. He also gets an anniversary reaction each April that lasts 2-3 weeks.