Colds and Sleep

Dr. Steven Horvitz- Reading between the Lines:
Bringing you healthcare information you can trust!

February 17, 2009

I often get asked, "Hey Doc, Why do I always get sick. It seems like I am in here for a cold all the time."

A new study from the Archives of Internal Medicine on Sleep habits and the susceptibility to the common cold may give us a little clue.

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Colds and Sleep

Sleep habits and susceptibility to the common cold.
Arch Intern Med. 2009; 169(1):62-7 (ISSN: 1538-3679)

Cohen S; Doyle WJ; Alper CM; Janicki-Deverts D; Turner RBDepartment of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA. scohen@cmu.edu

BACKGROUND: Sleep quality is thought to be an important predictor of immunity and, in turn, susceptibility to the common cold. This article examines whether sleep duration and efficiency in the weeks preceding viral exposure are associated with cold susceptibility.

METHODS: A total of 153 healthy men and women (age range, 21-55 years) volunteered to participate in the study. For 14 consecutive days, they reported their sleep duration and sleep efficiency (percentage of time in bed actually asleep) for the previous night and whether they felt rested. Average scores for each sleep variable were calculated over the 14-day baseline. Subsequently, participants were quarantined, administered nasal drops containing a rhinovirus, and monitored for the development of a clinical cold (infection in the presence of objective signs of illness) on the day before and for 5 days after exposure.

RESULTS: There was a graded association with average sleep duration: participants with less than 7 hours of sleep were 2.94 times (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.18-7.30) more likely to develop a cold than those with 8 hours or more of sleep. The association with sleep efficiency was also graded: participants with less than 92% efficiency were 5.50 times (95% CI, 2.08-14.48) more likely to develop a cold than those with 98% or more efficiency. These relationships could not be explained by differences in prechallenge virus-specific antibody titers, demographics, season of the year, body mass, socioeconomic status, psychological variables, or health practices. The percentage of days feeling rested was not associated with colds.

CONCLUSION: Poorer sleep efficiency and shorter sleep duration in the weeks preceding exposure to a rhinovirus were associated with lower resistance to illness

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Sorry, sometimes reading medical studies makes me sleepy ; )

To rephrase this study in a language we can all understand, individuals who achieved less than 7 hours of refreshing sleep a night had an almost 3x greater likelihood of "catching a cold".

So in today's rush-rush hectic world, where we do not have time to do all the things we feel are needed, it seems like a good time to adjust our schedules back to include time for a good 8 hours or more of sleep. And sleep should be something we look forward to at the end of the day, not something to dread because " I don't have time for sleep. I am too busy!"










The better we sleep, the better we function during our waking hours, which means better production at work, or at least better than the guy pictured below.










Here are some suggestions to try if you are having issues with sleep:
1) Avoid all products with caffeine after 4 PM.
2) Follow a routine at bedtime-- with consistent adherance to the routine: Example: warm bath and warm decaffeinated drink
3) TV off the same time every night.
4) Save bed for sleep and intimacy. DO NOT read or watch TV in bed.
5) If you are unable to sleep after 30 minutes in bed then get up and do something constructive in another room such as housework, a hobby, or watch TV. The idea is that this will avoid frustration with not being able to get to sleep and tell your brain/body: that if your are going to be awake then you will do "waking hours activities". Should you become sleepy then return to bed.
6) Learn yoga, Tai Chi, or other meditative breathing exercises to help you "turn off your brain" at night. The Mount Laurel Library is offering a one hour class the First Friday of every month, from 7-8 pm, in the ancient healing art of Tai Chi. For more info on this class or Tai Chi please click here.
For further sleep tips, please follow this link to the National Sleep Foundation, http://www.sleepfoundation.org/site/c.huIXKjM0IxF/b.4813227/k.2F67/Sleep_Tips.htm

If you have any sleep tips that you would like to share, please visit my blog at http://drhorvitz.blogspot.com/ and leave your annonymous tips in the comments section. The blog also contains all the previous newsletters with an easier search feature.

Good night and I hope you sleep well !!!

Steven Horvitz, D.O.
Board Certified Family Medicine
Founder of The Institute for Medical Wellness

Cigarette Smoking Causes Sleep Disturbances

February 12, 2008

This medical news about health and wellness is brought to you as a service from Dr Steven Horvitz and The Institute for Medical Wellness.

Below are excerpts from an article in Medscape concerning smoking and your health.

Cigarette Smoking Causes Sleep Disturbances

February 7, 2008 — Smoking cigarettes impairs sleep quality, possibly due to nicotine withdrawal, according to a study in the February issue of Chest, the journal of the American College of Chest Physicians.

• The results of this study could represent "yet another motivating factor" to convince smokers to quit the habit, said Dr. Punjabi. "From a preventive health perspective, I think it's very important that we now add sleep disturbance to the armamentarium of issues related to smoking."
• Smokers spent more time in light sleep and less time in deep sleep than their nonsmoking counterparts.
• The study shows that cigarette smoking "can alter sleep architecture independent of factors such as age, gender, race, anthropometric measures, caffeine and alcohol consumption, medial comorbidity, and mental health status," the authors conclude.
• The direct effects of smoking on sleep seen in this study should provide further ammunition for public health campaigns to reduce smoking. "The people who smoke are not getting a restful sleep, and that has ramifications for them on a daily basis; they're tired, they're going to be tired the next day, and most likely they will have diminished level of alertness," said Dr. Punjabi. "Those are direct effects that poor sleep quality will have on their daily living."

Chest. 2008;133:427-432.

Pauline Anderson is a freelance writer for Medscape.
Medscape Medical News 2008. © 2008 Medscape

We are learning more and more every day that people that do not get restful sleep, have more medical issues than those who get the necessary sleep. Sleep apnea, another medical disorder that causes non restful sleep, has already been linked to high blood pressure and heart disease. We have known for years that cigarette smokers have a higher risks of both these illnesses. Whether cigarette smoking directly causes high blood pressure and heart disease, or whether it may be secondary to poor sleep quality as possibly implied by the article above will stir much future debate.

But we can leave the debating to the scientists and the politicians. What we need to take from this article is that cigarette smoking causes many effects on the body, very few of which are healthy. I will again advise all my patients to refer to my battle plan for quitting smoking. It can be found by clicking here.

Steven Horvitz, D.O.
Board Certified Family Medicine
Founder of The Institute for Medical Wellness