#33 - Vices and Devices

Vices

At the time of writing, 600,000+ people have died in 2020 from complications arising from the COVID-19 virus.

In comparison, the year 2020 has seen 1.4 million+ people dead due to alcohol-related complications (eg, digestive diseases, unintentional injuries, cardiovascular disease, etc.).

That makes alcohol twice as deadly as COVID-19.

Unfortunately, this happens every year.

Whilst treatment programs like AA, CBT and motivational enhancement therapy are effective, these interventions do not work for everyone.

This has seen the launching of various online programs to help people make a change to their drinking.

So how does sleep fit in?

When people reduce their intake of ethanol … (*cough, cough*) … I mean, alcohol, the brain goes through withdrawal - and one of these temporary symptoms is insomnia.

A lot of people do not realise that this insomnia can be temporary. That eventually, the body’s natural bioregulation of sleep kicks in and helps us sleep better.

Hyperarousal can push sleep late during the first few nights of making a change to drinking - BUT - in the background Sleep Pressure is building up and eventually helps to bring the onset of sleep earlier as the brain adjusts to a new norm.

But sometimes people unknowingly learn bad sleep habits - which actually maintain this insomnia. Fortunately, there are a bunch of techniques that can help.

This week I had the true privilege to be able to talk to people experiencing sleep issues when making a change to their drinking in Laura McKowen’s Q&A Masterclass. And it was great to be able to answer their specific questions about sleep.

At the same time, Honours student - Carissa Barclay - has been working hard to collect sleep and drinking data from participants in another popular online coaching program - This Naked Mind. Carissa’s research is going to examine whether ‘good sleep’ helps people make a change to their drinking. And conversely, do people turn back to drinking alcohol if they experience persistent insomnia when they try to abstain from alcohol.

Carissa’s research may hold the key to us understanding more about what helps people break away from this silent killer - and thus, provides the potential for sleep experts to - literally - save lives.

Devices

2020 has also seen many people say they’re experiencing vivid dreams.

Yet virtually nothing has been said about what’s happening to children.

Nightmares can be common in children - and if persistent - turn into a diagnosis of Nightmare Disorder. this can not only be incredibly unpleasant for children, but also very disruptive to the sleep of their parents.

One such parent in the USA took charge of such a situation and devised a device to help her child control her nightmares. Soon after, her child no longer had nightmares.

Right now, Honours student Stephanie Bourboulis is testing this device in Australia children. She’s been talking to parents from around the country and sending out these devices for their children to use.

Steph is going to find out how helpful this new device - called the DreamChanger - is. Does it reduce children’s nightmares? Do parents sleep better through the night. We will see.

Places are limited due to the number of DreamChangers - so if you know someone with a child, chances are they have been experiencing vivid dreams and may need some help. Let them know about this study and get in touch with us directly - or sending us a quick email (casc.enquiries@flinders.edu.au).

A couple of years ago I took a week off and was doing the ‘school run’ (ie, dropping off my son to school in the morning - and picking him up from school in the afternoon).

One day I almost had 2 car accidents - and both of them would not have been my fault as I was stationery.

And in both situations - after the driver managed to brake in time - they looked into the back of their car - at their baby.

Last month I wrote a blog about our research seeing if it was safe to drive when undergoing therapy for insomnia.

And a lot of research has investigated the driving of people diagnosed with Obstructive Sleep Apnea.

But when I looked at the research to see whether anyone has studied the driving of mothers of an infant, there was only 1 study. And this study asked mothers about their driving - rather than actually testing them.

With the help of PhD students Hannah Whittall and Meg Pillion, as well as Postdoc Researcher Dr Michal Kahn, another Honours student from this year - Rebecca Fry - is getting mothers of infants into one of our big devices - our driving simulator.

Bec is going to find out if driving performance differs between mums - and whether this is due to their infant waking them up frequently during the night.

Stay tuned (and in the meantime, know that your car’s horn can prevent accidents).

VICE AND DEVICE Partnerships

On top of our Partnership with This Naked Mind and Nanit (another cool sleep device that was announced as one of Time magazine’s inventions of the year in 2018) - we’re stoked (Australian for really happy) to formally partner with Goldilocks Suit.

Shem Richards and Jamin Richards have invented a Smart Singlet to monitor various aspects of an infant’s wellbeing - including their sleep.

The Singlet can detect when an infant is having trouble sleeping, will notify the parent, and give them the option to contact the team at WINK to improve their baby’s sleep health.

Thus, proving Goldilocks Suit’s ethos of making parenting easier.

And the WINK Team are in negotiations with other exciting companies - so that we can adhere to our ethos of educating the world about the science of sleep.

So on that note, I’ll leave you with a final sleep fact from today’s thumb-scrolling on LinkedIn.

Sleep and Death

Friday mornings used to see me treating half-a-dozen people who were experiencing insomnia.

Sometimes one of them would say that they heard something on the TV about the ill effects of not getting enough sleep. This only served to make their insomnia worse.

I would then spend some time with them, deconstructing the sensationalism and looking at the scientific facts.

Whilst it is true that there can be a lot of consequences from not getting enough sleep - it’s important to research these for yourself.

Today on LinkedIn their was a post by ‘the sleep doctor’ - which began by saying”

“Not getting enough sleep can take real time of your life”

I’m sure that statement was written with the intent of holding people’s attention and to keep reading his post.

So I shared the sleep doctor’s post, but added a scientific fact.

That fact was a study - that analysed the data of ~37 million people - and found no link between insomnia and mortality.

Enjoy your weekend !

• Prof Mike Gradisar