Pain & Sleep Sensitivity

Arianna Huffington speaks up about our national sleep

debt and how making shut-eye a top priority has

changed her life.

AUGUST 2016 | FUTUREOFPERSONALHEALTH.COM | An Independent Supplement by Mediaplanet to USA Today

DISCOVER how a holistic

approach to chronic pain management

could improve your day-to-day

BROWSE more stories online, including how your

mattress might be negatively impacting

your health

The Inside ScoopPeaceful sleep shouldn’t be your only concern with a new mattress. Do you know what’s inside your foam? Page 6

Finding Your RhythmDr. Michael Bruce explains how your sleep cycle could be impacting your life at home and at the office. Page 6

First-Hand FactsThe International Pain Foundation’s Barby Ingle aims for smarter advocacy when it comes to chronic pain. Online

2 | FUTUREOFPERSONALHEALTH.COM | IN THIS ISSUE MEDIAPLANET

Publisher Evan Adamo, Mary Reid Business Developer Jessica Guggenheimer Managing Director Luciana Olson Content and Production Manager Chad Hensley Senior Designer Kathleen Edison Designer Celia Hazard Copy Editor Sean Ryan Production Coordinator Tiffany Kim Contributors Zoe Alexander, Michael Breus, Ronald Chervin, Penney Cowan, Cindy Riley, Sean Ryan Cover Photo Peter Yang All photos are credited to Getty Images unless otherwise credited. This section was created by Mediaplanet and did not involve USA Today.

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to diagnose your sleep disorder and develop a treatment plan for you. You also can find help by contacting an accredited sleep disorders center. Stay ahead of sleep loss, instead of trying to catch up, by sleeping at least seven hours each night. n

ing sleep loss. Make it one of your top health priorities to get the sleep that you need each night.

Start by going to bed early enough to get at least seven hours of nightly sleep. It also is helpful to give your-self a chance to unwind at night. Turn off your electronic devices and take some time to relax before bedtime. Make sure that your bed-room environment is quiet, dark and soothing.

If you get plenty of sleep but still feel tired or fatigued during the day, you may have a sleep disorder such as obstructive sleep apnea. Discuss your sleep with your doctor, who may refer you to a board-certified sleep medicine physician for help. A sleep specialist has the expertise

Why 7 Hours of Sleep Should

Be Your MinimumThe latest figure projects seven or more hours of sleep per night as necessary to promoting optimal

health. However, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that 35 percent of American adults routinely fail to achieve that minimum.

Y ou may be one of the millions of Americans who suffer from a weekly pattern of chronic sleep

restriction. Perhaps you sleep six hours or less each night during the workweek, and then you try to “catch up” with 1 to 2 nights of extra sleep on the weekend?

Our national sleep debtUnfortunately, research shows that catching up on sleep is hard to do. Getting extra sleep can help you recover from a period of sleep loss. However, 1 to 2 nights of extended sleep may not be enough to restore your performance to normal levels.

As a result, you are likely to have ongoing symptoms of insufficient sleep. These include moodiness, irritability, forgetfulness and day-time sleepiness. Your performance at work can suffer, and you are more likely to make mistakes or be involved in an accident. Getting less than seven hours of sleep on a regu-lar basis also is detrimental to your health. Chronic insufficient sleep increases your risk of health prob-lems, such as weight gain, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke and depression.

Healthy habits to followInstead of trying to catch up on sleep during weekends and holi-days, you should focus on prevent-

Ronald D. Chervin, M.D./ M.S.,

President, American Academy of Sleep Medicine

...insufficient sleep increases your risk of health problems, such as weight gain, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke and depression.

4 | FUTUREOFPERSONALHEALTH.COM | HEALTH HACKS MEDIAPLANET

T oday we hear so much about the overuse and abuse of pain medica-t ions a n d the

impact it has on our children, families and society. Some of those tragic instances could be avoided if we all had a better understand-ing of how to manage pain.

More than medicationWe are used to taking a pill to solve so many health problems. But there is no pill that can take away all our pain. There is no silver bullet for relieving pain. When it comes to pain, we need

more than medication. We need a balanced multi-disciplinary approach. Today we have a vari-ety of options, even in the way that a medication is delivered. We can take a pill, we can use topical creams that deliver the medica-tion through the skin and even have implanted devices that can automatically dispense the right amount of medication.

The balanced approach uses an array of therapies in combi-nation to address our pain. Some include—biofeedback, physical therapy, counseling, pacing, nutrition, a support group and a host of medical modalities. Once

pain addressed, we can reduce our suffering, improve our function and enhance our quality of life.

Personalized solutionsImagine that the person with pain is a car with four flat tires. The right medication can reduce his pain, putting air in one of his tires. But unless he finds a way to fill the other three tires, he’ll be stuck on the side of the road. He needs to work with his health care pro-viders using a multi-disciplinary strategy to find what will fill up the other three tires. For each of us, the combination that yields the best results will be different.

What is more, it is never just about the person with pain; the impact on the family is far greater than most realize. The only difference between a person with pain and the family is the family does not feel the physi-cal pain. They struggle with the same fear, anger and stress as a person with pain.

It is possible to live a full life with pain, but we need to use a whole-person approach with the individual and family as part of the team. There is hope for a bet-ter tomorrow. n

By Penney Cowan, Founder & CEO, American Chronic Pain Association

Rethink What You Know About Chronic PainWhen addressing chronic pain, alleviating discomfort requires a thorough understanding of what’s happening under the hood; otherwise, patients will remain rooted in a constant state of immobility.

When it comes to pain, we need more than medication. We need a balanced multi-disciplinary approach.

6 | FUTUREOFPERSONALHEALTH.COM | INSIGHT

By M. Sean Ryan

When it comes to bringing a new mattress home, consumers today are rightly looking beyond its price tag for peace of mind.

Shopping with good intentions today carries a unique set of challenges. According to Michael Crowell, executive director of the CertiPUR-US certification program, those challenges aren’t limited to parsing the fine print on an organic food label at your local grocery store.

“When you go to buy a mattress, you can be the most intelligent, best-educated person in the world, but you might feel clueless,” he explains, “It’s very hard to verify facts. You don’t see what’s inside. It’s a blind product.”

That’s a considerable hurdle given the investment this purchase has become. As a 2016 Home Decorating Survey by Furniture Today indicates, the most common stretch of time consumers plan to own newly bought home furnishings is 5 to 9 years—45 percent for mattresses and 36 percent for sofas.

Do You Know What’s in Your Mattress? Hidden chemicalsAnticipating the degree to which consum-ers should be concerned about exposure to chemicals, the certification process for foam began in 2008. At that time, Crowell notes, “the U.S. polyurethane foam indus-try realized there was a lot of substitution. In some cases—in other countries, they were making foam from certain chemicals, such as ozone depleters, that were banned in this country.”

To keep a few bad seeds from spoiling the applecart, comprehensive guidelines for testing foam had to be established. Consult-ing scientists, consumer advocates and bed-ding experts, the not-for-profit developed a standard capable of holding foam producers accountable and, ultimately, giving shoppers genuine confidence in their purchase. To stay certified, producers must now pass labo-ratory, content and durability analyses twice in the first year, then once a year after that.

“It’s not an easy test to pass,” adds Crow-ell. “We then have verification testing,” he continues. “Even though these foam plants

are sending their samples to independent laboratories to be tested, we go out sepa-rately to take samples of the foam, at our own expense, to be sure everyone is being faithful and compliant.”

Being transparent“CertiPUR-US applies high standards when it certifies polyurethane foams,” affirms Ryan Trainer, president at International Sleep Products Association (ISPA). “This program is designed to help consumers rest assured that the foam in their mattress meets these standards.” Today there are about 30 polyurethane foam suppliers in the U.S. and other countries that carry the seal of approval. To be listed as an approved vendor online, a mattress seller must acquire foam from one of these producers. “Nobody is buying the rights to be associ-ated with our program,” Crowell notes. “It’s really a consumer-oriented program.”

August is the largest sales month for mattresses each year. Those on the hunt for a new mattress are encouraged to visit the

By Zoe Alexander

By taking a closer look at not only your sleep habits, but also your preferred sleep schedule and personality traits, you can actually determine when you should perform certain tasks.

Your circadian rhythm is your internal clock, and we each have our own, unique, particu-lar rhythm. Practicing clinical psychologist Dr. Breus is board certified in chemical sleep disorders. He has taken a unique approach to studying sleep disorders and insomnia. With the use of Cognitive Behavioral Ther-apy (CBT) and sleep restriction therapy, which is limiting the time spent in bed without sleeping, among other techniques, Dr. Breus has seen astonishing results.

 “I started to realize that for the patients I was working with, their sleep is actually really good,” he sums, “but only when they were to sleep at certain times.” After clear-ing with employers, several of his patients put his research to the test by going to work later and then sleeping later. Surprising

to the patients, they realized they felt fine after adjusting their patterns based on con-clusions Dr. Breus was able to draw about their circadian rhythms.

“They didn’t have insomnia,” Dr. Breus explains. “They just wanted to sleep at dif-ferent times.” Hormonal effectsNot only can this new research advise when it’s best for you to sleep and go to work. It can also help determine when to engage in almost all activities, unique to your chro-notype. To discuss the different chronotypes, Dr. Breus presents 200 individual studies in

his new book, “The Power of When,” in an attempt to under-stand the differences in sleep in relation to personality and function in society.

Dr. Breus looks to our prehistoric ances-tors as an example. The “lions,” as he refers to them, are the people that wake up early, get to the office and run the pack. The “bears” are the night owls, and were once security guards to watch over the community while everyone else was asleep. Each person contributes some-thing unique to soci-ety, based on his or her sleep chronotype.

CertiPUR-US website, where they can check out the chemical guidelines, see exactly what a foam producer has to do to certify their foam, or ask questions. And they do: “Dozens of times a week, we are getting emails and phone calls from people who are very concerned about what they bring into their home—what their children sleep on,” Crowell says. “Often it is people who have allergies, or chemical sensitivities. They’re very focused on their indoor air quality.”

Particularly during such a busy season, shopping for a new bed or furniture can become bogged down by vague claims or misinformation. “There’s almost nothing on this earth that is chemical-free, and there’s a lot of things that some bedding companies say that aren’t really true,” Crowell sums. “One of the things we’re really proud of is our transparency. We don’t pretend to be more than we are.”

“We just want to get the truth out there. There are things you just don’t want in something you’re going to spend a third of your life sleeping on.” n

“If I know you’re a lion, then I know when your cortisol, melatonin, epineph-rine, serotonin and blood sugar changes,” Dr. Breus explains. “A lot of what goes on inside gets very predictable because it works on a circadian rhythm.”

Putting it into practiceBy understanding your circadian rhythm, you can determine how to use your sleep schedule to better perform your activities during the day. However, it’s important to note that some people are required to com-mit to a sleep schedule that conflicts with their innate circadian rhythm.

“I wanted to align people with not only what time they go to bed or wake up, but to be even more precise. Because some people have to wake up early, regardless of their chronotype,” says Dr. Breus. One way to determine your chronotype is by taking a short quiz, either online or in Dr. Breus’s book. When it comes to relation-ships, he also provides matrices and com-promises to performing certain activities with a partner. n

Exploring A New Answer for Snoring

Most of us have a snorer in our life. Expiratory positive airway pressure (EPAP) is a new, highly effective answer to snoring and sleep apnea. EPAP works to keep the upper airway fully open and unobstructed, using positive air pressure generated by the sleeper’s exhaling breath. Some products deliver EPAP therapy through a small adhe-sive device placed onto the nostrils at bedtime. With EPAP now available as a therapy, the future of snoring is sounding a lot quieter.

By Michael J. Breus, Ph.D.,The Sleep Doctor

READ MORE ONLINE

When It Comes to Work, It’s All About Your Sleep

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By Cindy Riley

The latest numbers tell us sleep deprivation has become a serious problem. But the founder of The Huffington Post isn’t taking the news lying down.

It’s been almost a decade since author and media mogul Arianna Huffington sank to the floor in her home office. “On my way down, my head had hit the corner of my desk, cutting my eye and breaking my cheekbone,” she recalls. “I had collapsed from exhaustion and lack of sleep.” Huffington under-went multiple tests to rule out

Why Arianna Huffington Is Leading a Sleep Revolution

any underlying medical problem: “There wasn’t, but doctors’ wait-ing rooms, it turns out, were good places for me to ask myself a lot of questions about the kind of life I was living.”

Getting your forty winksHuffington, who detailed her experience in the book, “Thrive,” has traveled the globe talking with people about their struggles in getting the proper amount of slumber. “I found that the subject people wanted to discuss most, by far, was sleep—how difficult it is to get enough, how hard it is to fall asleep and stay asleep, even when we set aside enough time.

According to a recent Gallup poll, 40 percent of all American adults are sleep-deprived, getting significantly less than the recom-mended minimum seven hours each night. Dr. Judith Owens, director of the Center for Pedi-atric Sleep Disorders at Boston Children’s Hospital, says getting enough rest is just as crucial as eating well, being physically active or wearing a seat belt. Dr. Michael Roizen, the chief wellness officer of the Cleveland Clinic, remarks, “Sleep is our most under-rated health habit.” A National Sleep Foundation report also finds two-thirds of us aren’t getting enough shut-eye on weeknights.

Snooze, don’t loseHuffington, who describes her former self as “sleep-deprived, drained and depleted,” explains, “Now, 95 percent of the time, I get eight hours of sleep a night. My life improved in pretty much every way. Now, instead of waking up to the sense that I have to trudge through activities, the ‘new me’ wakes up feeling joyful about the day’s possibilities. And I’m also better able to recognize red flags and rebound from setbacks. It’s like being dialed into a different channel that has less static.

“Our sense of being indis-pensable is central to the sleep crisis we’re facing, so we need to dispense with that as soon as possible,” Huffington cautions. “Remember what we’re told on airplanes: to ‘secure your own mask first, before helping others,’ even your own child,” she adds. “The better we are at taking care of ourselves, the more effective we’ll be in taking care of others.” nC

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