4 Sleep Disorders That Can Be Treated With the Power of Technology

We’ve heard many times that technology is bad for our sleep. We definitely agree that this is sometimes the case. For example, using your laptop or smartphone right before bedtime can affect the quality of sleep because of the blue light emitted by these devices.

Sadly, research shows that around 95% of people use technology within an hour before bed.

However, technology can also help us improve both the quantity and the quality of our sleep. Scientists around the world work tirelessly night and day to develop intelligent technological solutions that can combat common sleep disorders.

Here is a list of the most incredible ones we have found. If you suffer from any of these sleep problems, make sure to test the solutions.

Please include attribution to disturbmenot.co with this graphic.

Jul232018

Should You Use Sleeping Pills?

It depends! That is one of the most common answers in the health, wellness and fitness industries. Why? Every single person is unique and reacts differently to various stimuli. That is why there is not a universal training program that works for everyone. That is why there is not a certain diet that works for everyone. In this situation, it really depends first and foremost on whether you’re having trouble sleeping or not. There are countless sleep-based research studies that have been conducted. Private companies trying to promote their revolutionary, or not so revolutionary, products often conduct their own studies. Universities and wellness institutes do the same since sleep is often considered the most crucial way to recover, and recovery is seen as one of the three core competencies when it comes to your general health. (The other two are physical activity and what you consume.)

In college, I operated at an extremely high level while sleeping four hours or so a night. At the time, I did take a mid-day nap for about an hour. I was training nearly six hours a day and consuming well over 12,000 calories a day. While I was completely drug free, I would take a multi-vitamin everyday and also took some supplements, including fish oils, glucosamine and even melatonin. Melatonin is the most common sleep aid on the market. It is made by many companies and its single ingredient nature makes it less intimidating to most consumers. First, will melatonin make a difference in your sleep and second, how much do you personally need to take?

Even after you find the right amount, any supplement to your health routine might not necessarily maintain its effectiveness over time. You can often build tolerances and find that you need a higher dosage to feel the same outcome. Even if you find it to make a positive difference, the cost over time might outweigh how much better you’re sleeping. It becomes a question of whether you’re willing to make a small investment at first, in order to see if you can sleep better. Those investments can come in many forms, other than pills or tablets. I’ve tried buying expensive pillows, fancy sheets, using a fan at night to stay cool, sleeping with ice packs under my lower back and shoulders, playing sleep music throughout the room, using blackout curtains and more. I’ve tried Neuro’s sleep drink and also Ronnie Coleman’s Resurrection supplement. Why? Because I understand the importance of optimizing recovery.

Most people aim for 6-8 hours of sleep a night. Those are the recommended numbers, according to most sleep research studies. I don’t care as much about the number of hours that I lay in bed at night. My focus is getting in bed, immediately falling asleep, not waking up in the middle of the night and waking up fresh enough that I can instantly roll out of bed at 5:30 in the morning and get right to work. My goal, with my current life schedule, is to be in bed from 10:30 pm-5:30 am and do nothing other than get quality recovery time. Right now, in an effort to do so, with the blistering temperatures and lack of air conditioning in our LA apartment, as well as my insanely, unimaginably impossible schedule, I’ve started using a new product called Sleep Complex by ORB. They reached out to us to see if we would like to try out their product. For honesty purposes, we were paid for this post, but that won’t stop us from giving our honest opinion.

Jun282017

How Does Exercise Impact Sleep?

Being in the fitness industry, we know how important sleep is for the body. Getting fit doesn’t just happen in the gym, it also happens at home in your bed. Recovery is a huge part of fitness and if you just work out with no recovery, you can only get so far. Your body needs to recover, rebuild muscle proteins, and get proper rest. Good recovery tools include foam rolling sore muscles, icing and heating, proper nutrition intake, massage, and SLEEP. Want to build muscle? Get a good night’s rest. Exercise and sleep affect each other.

We would like to share an awesome resource and article with you guys to underline our point of how sleep can help you get fitter. The scientists behind the Casper mattress created a sleep blog called Van Winkle’s to share their science, health, and cultural discoveries with health communities like ours. If you haven’t already heard of Van Winkle’s, you should check them out here. They recently posted this article “7 Things to Know About the Sleep-Exercise Connection.” Did you know the reason “why” you workout also contributes to your sleep quality? Who would have thunk it? See below. Check out the article and tell us if any of these points resonate with you. And as always, stay hungry and fit!

“In one study, participants who got the best sleep reported getting (a lot of) exercise from leisure activities. People who were active for other reasons, e.g., due to occupational demands, reported worse sleep, as did people who didn’t exercise at all.”

Sep222016

I Didn’t Hit Snooze for a Week and Here’s What Happened

I found myself hitting the snooze button more and more often. Maybe it was a hard workout the night before, stress, or just not hitting the hay early enough. Usually, I wake up pretty early and get stuff done in the morning whether that’s a workout or whatever. But for a time, I just kept snoozing and snoozing until it was last alarm time, gotta-get-up-or-you’ll-be-late type of deal.

So, I made a vow to myself for a week that I would NOT press the snooze button for a week and see how it felt. See what more I could or couldn’t get done and so on and so forth. So, each morning even if I really really wanted to hit that snooze button and get a few more minutes of sleep, I got my butt up outta bed. Even if Hungry stayed in bed and Noke was slow to wake up, we got up (yep, if I’m up, Noke’s up–she’s my precious little shadow).

About what you would expect happened….

Jun242016

Cures For a Few Sleep Problems

If there’s one problem in America, it’s a serious sleep problem! How many people have you talked to just in one day that complain about a bad night’s sleep or complain that they’re tired? I feel like it’s rampant, especially in Los Angeles and other big cities. It can be little things to a busy mind that won’t quit or big things like insomnia. Any little or big thing can seriously detract from your sleep which then detracts from your life in its entirety! Lack of sleep can cause irritability which can cause stress in your relationships which can cause major unhappiness. Lack of sleep can be a root problem of many other seemingly larger problems. I’m sharing this graphic on behalf of Casper, an online company that sells a new latex foam mattress, to give you some simple cures to frustrating sleep problems.