Is Your Work Causing Sleep Deprivation?

Great to see where my articles go!
Today it was fun to find an email from Bert Langdon, CFP and find out that my article was published on the front page of the Raymond James Financial Services newsletter this month.

I met Bert and his wife at Jack Canfield's Breakthrough to Success Workshop in Scottsdale last summer.

I can't insert the PDF newsletter so I'll include the text here so you can also benefit from this information about sleep deprivation.


Is Your Work Causing Sleep Deprivation?
7 Possible Ways

Do you feel drowsy during the day or evening?
Is tiredness affecting your daily activities on a regular basis?
Do you fall asleep often when you sit down to relax?
Are you irritable with others around you?

If you answer yes to a couple of these, most likely you are sleep deprived.

LONG WORK HOURS

Staying at work way beyond the normal eight hours is the biggest determinant of how much sleep Americans get in a typical day. Overtime is a common occurrence in many industries. In the culture of many organizations, to work just eight hours could actually be considered skipping out early. Mathias Basner, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine studied 47,731 Americans. He found that those who worked longer hours found time for other activities by shortening their sleep hours.

INSOMNIA CAUSED BY WORRY

When you have concerns on your mind about work, it can be difficult to sleep at night. In order to combat this sleeplessness, many people have an alcoholic drink or take sleeping medicines to fall asleep. The problem with these is that you have lighter sleep and don't have the REM phase of sleep that is so restorative to the brain.

SHIFT WORK

When you are working at times when you normally would be sleeping, you disrupt your circadian rhythm. This rhythm is the cycle your body repeats day after day. Shift work sleep disorder has effects very similar to jet lag. Shift work affects people in various industries: medicine, production lines, technology, telephone service reps, transportation. We also need light in our days to produce the melatonin needed for quality sleep. Having to sleep in the daytime when you are on a night shift deprives you of sunlight.

LONG COMMUTE

Travel time, including time sitting in traffic, can take up a large portion of your day. It could be considered one of the hidden costs to living out in the suburbs. To make up for the loss of those hours, it's tempting to shorten sleep time. Fatigue caused by the lack of sleep can make the commute dangerous as well as stressful. Sleep-deprived drivers cause more than 100,000 automobile crashes a year (National Sleep Foundation).

LOGGING INTO YOUR OFFICE COMPUTER FROM HOME

What a wonderful technological advancement to be able to log into your work computer from home! Or is it? When does work stop and leisure begin? Working on your sofa with your laptop while trying to participate in family time is not effective for either activity. And how tempting it is to continue work in the quiet of the night to catch up on what you didn't feel complete from your day! To transition from working at the computer to falling asleep can be difficult also, resulting in an even later start to sleep.

UNHEALTHY EATING

Working long hours and not taking breaks during the day can lead to too much time between food intake and poor food choices. Late business dinners or dinners with clients can mean a very full stomach when heading to bed. This can have an adverse effect on the quality of your sleep.

LACK OF EXERCISE

Exercise is often forgotten with not enough time or energy left over after work demands are met. And exercising too late in the evening can also make it difficult to get to sleep. Getting up early enough in the morning to exercise can be a real challenge when you do not have enough sleep during the night.

If some of these factors are influencing your sleep, you may want to look for solutions that can help you move toward taking better care of yourself. Over a period of time, the effects on you from sleep deprivation build up and can cause a multitude of physical, mental, and emotional problems.

If you have employees, be aware that these challenges to their sleep and other self-care can be very detrimental to their productivity and attendance on the job.

Shower the People - James Taylor

Today at Unity of Phoenix Richard Maraj gave another message in his series: The Songs of Life

I loved how he connected James Taylor's "Shower the People" to the many aspects of loving, feeling, and sharing those feelings.

As I listened I found myself seeing parallels with what I've learned from women who have Alzheimer's in the family, whether a parent, spouse, or grandparent.

There are more songs and books about *love* than any other subject...not surprising!

Jesus showed us how to love...unconditionally love...

I was thinking about that in relationship to having a parent with Alzheimer's.
Just as we love our infants unconditionally....just for being, it gets to that point when there is Alzheimer's in the family. No longer is there much response from our parent to what we do or say.

And your parent may not even know who you are anymore...just some nice person who comes to visit.

It's an opportunity to see how pure your love really is...
Are you OK with just "loving" on your parent, even when there doesn't seem to be a positive response?

I am grateful that I truly do believe my Mom still knows me and she usually responds positively to loving touch and smiles. Sometimes not... I just never know from one visit to the next what to expect. I remember one day last year when I visited and she was sitting in the hall and never would wake up the entire time I was there...

She no longer even sits in the hall as far as I know... and I've learned to visit at lunch time when Mom is more alert. I usually sit with Mom while she eats and make certain that they bring her an ice cream sundae. She loves her ice cream!

...and back to James Taylor....
"Show them the way that you feel...."
Expressing your feelings is essential for a successful relationship. The number one reason for dissatisfaction in relationships is not sharing our feelings. We don't tell the truth ... and sometimes don't even FEEL the truth of what is going inside us.

Jesus shared his emotions. Jesus wept. Jesus shared his up feelings, down feeling, angry feelings.

As children we learned that it was much easier and we felt more loved if we said what parents wanted to hear rather than what we were really feeling. Who wants to be the one who's always in trouble for speaking up against their parents?

"You can run but you can't hide"

Don't you LOVE his amazing voice!
I have a special affinity for James Taylor.
His "Greatest Hits" CD was my first...a gift from my son, David.

Yes, you can run from your feelings but you can't hide from them.
There are negative effects when we don't notice and express our feelings.
Suppression of our feelings lowers our immune system.
Not sharing creates separation in relationships.

When a parent is getting older, not hearing well, or is in various stages of Alzheimer's or some other dementia...
After asking over and over again for someone to repeat what they've said, you'll see some older people start faking that they've heard what was said.

Or parents may hide from their children that they are really struggling with keeping up with all the details of their home and life. They feel their children are too busy...don't need to hear about their problems. And parents don't want to lose their independence. If their children think they are not able to be on their own, they'll lose the joy of having their own home and life.

I even saw a story on TV of many homeless people living in tents. People who found themselves without the funds to support a home after losing their jobs...
One couple was talking to the reporter saying they had not told their children...were ashamed to be in the situation....

Think of what's happening to our parents' immune system when they are suppressing their feelings and not sharing their problems with their children...
We need to encourage our parents to share with us.

Gregg Bauer in Real Love says that when we are in fear we can't even be honest with ourselves, much less with others.
With fear, we lie, attack, become a victim, cling, or run.
With love we feel, we're honest, and we're safe.
It all comes down to living in love or living in fear.
Only with honesty and sharing of feelings can there be "Real Love".

Talk to your parent and express your love even if it seems there is no understanding of what you are saying. Just as small children pick up on emotion before they have understanding of language, the same is going on for your parent.

Share what you are going through with someone else who cares about you. Be honest with yourself about the multitude of emotions you are experiencing. It's OK to have negative as well as positive feelings about all that is going on.

Yes, Shower the People....
with your love...
with your concerns...
with your joy...
with your sorrows...
Yes, Show them the way that you feel...

Exelon - the New Alzheimer's Drug

I've been hearing commercials for the Exelon patch on TV lately...

It's for mild to moderate Alzheimer's. My Mom's physician prescribed Aricept for Mom and that is a medication that has to be taken at very precise times.
With Mom's condition at that time, we couldn't trust that she would take any meds at a prescribed time. We employed one of the aides at the retirement community where she was living in an independent living garden home to come in at med times.

This seemed like a good solution for Mom to have the meds she needed to keep her symptoms from preventing her from living on her own.

However, Mom didn't like having someone ring her doorbell when she was sleeping...and she was sleeping more and more.

That was over three years ago...
Mom's behavior got more and more unlike her. Dishes piled up in the sink.
She wasn't going to the retirement community dining room for her nightly meals as she always had.

I took her shopping and bought some frozen dinners. I wondered why she hadn't been
eating those...only the pudding snacks and other snack foods. Mom also always loved making cappuccino from the dry mix.

I realized she had forgotten how to use the microwave oven that she had been using for many years.

I would go to visit her and find her sitting out on the little front porch in her nightgown. This is something she NEVER would have done previously.
She also wasn't taking showers... Mom ALWAYS showered and washed her hair daily before.

So we did have to move her into the care center where she could receive the care and protection she needed. This is something she had seen happen with her younger sister and Mom said never to let that happen to her. She didn't want to be sitting and sleeping and not knowing anyone or doing anything. When there is Alzheimer's in the family, it was difficult not to see herself heading on the same path.

So Mom is still in the Care Center. She moved in July 14, 2006. It's now April 25, 2009. I can't believe she has been there so long.

They placed Mom on hospice several months ago, mostly because her weight had dropped so much as a result of her Alzheimer's disease.

I'm curious how the Exelon medication would have worked.
Would she have been able to be on her own longer?

I am so grateful that there is a lot of research going on to uncover more of the mysteries of Alzheimer's. Mom spoke with pride when they built a research facility right there in Sun City, Arizona that would be researching Alzheimer's.

Mom had an amazing life. Dad died in April 1998. Mom was on her own for 8 years before needing to leave her home.

For many of those years I was very involved in getting her to doctor appointments and grocery and clothing shopping. When she was going through breast cancer, I was with her for the many appointments and surgery.

I feel as though I don't really DO all that much for her now as compared to then. Her care is done by the staff at Royal Oaks Life Care Center. I am her advocate for good care and medical decisions. I am her loving daughter who visits her and takes her for walks outside in the wheelchair.

What is huge is that overshadowing feeling of concern and sadness for Mom and the kind of life she has now.

And guilt...is there something I should be doing for her?
Is there something I should have done differently?

There's anxiety before each visit, wondering if she'll speak at all that visit....whether she'll know who I am....

And sadness as I leave...
Will she know me next time?
Will this be the last time I see her alive?

Every good bye is straight from my heart.
I never know if it will be my last.

What I Hate About Being a Professional Woman With a Parent With Alzheimer's

No one would choose it...
seeing your parent losing their memory, getting more and more confused...
Alzheimer's moves in and reasoning and thinking moves out...

Those times when I was to take her to the doctor's and she was convinced that it was on a different day and would be waiting for me...calling me again and again, leaving me messages that she was waiting for me to get there....sigh..

Mom was always so precise with her punctuality...kept an accurate calendar and followed it precisely. Experiencing her frustration with her confusion was so painful.

I hate seeing Mom losing her once professional brain.


This is a photo of Mom just a few months before her Alzheimer's diagnosis three years ago.


And when I couldn't remember something, I was convinced I was losing my professional brain also.
With Alzheimer's in the family, was I next?
I started to think I was headed down that road right along with her!

I even made an appointment with a neurologist...for ME....to see what he thought about my condition. He took me through some cognitive tests and informed me I scored higher than anyone else had scored...told me that it was the stress of the situation with my mom that was causing me to forget things. Having this Alzheimer's support made a huge difference for me in relaxing about what I'd been feeling.

He reassured me that when Alzheimer's comes along at an advanced age...after 80...that it is not as likely to be an inherited condition. It is early-onset Alzheimer's that is passed on from generation to generation.

I hate that I sometimes have problems focusing on my work. It's easy to let concerns and anxiety about what's coming next cloud my clarity. It takes conscious effort of setting clear intentions and categorizing time segments.

I hate leaving Mom each time I visit her, wondering if she'll know me the next time I see her.

I hate not being able to share my latest projects with Mom.

I hate seeing so many of Mom's friends getting very frail and dying.

I hate seeing Mom's eyes looking so lost and far away.

I hate losing my Mom.