how watching the clock affects insomnia, the use of sleep aids — ScienceDaily

Featured Sponsor

Store	Link	Sample Product
UK Artful Impressions	Premiere Etsy Store

The research, led by Spencer Dawson, a clinical assistant professor and associate director of clinical training in the Department of Psychology and Brain Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences, focuses on a sample of nearly 5,000 patients presenting for care at a sleep clinic.

Insomnia affects between 4 and 22% of adults and is associated with long-term health problems such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and depression.

The participants filled out questionnaires about the severity of their insomnia, the use of sleep medications, and the time they spent monitoring their own behavior while trying to fall asleep. They were also asked to report any psychiatric diagnoses. The researchers performed mediation analyzes to determine how the factors influenced each other.

“We found that time-monitoring behavior has an effect primarily on sleep medication use because it exacerbates symptoms of insomnia,” Dawson said. “People worry about not getting enough sleep, so they start to estimate how long it will take them to go back to sleep and when to get up. That’s not the kind of activity that’s helpful in facilitating the ability to fall asleep.” asleep: the more stressed you are, the harder it will be to fall asleep.

As frustration with insomnia grows, people are more likely to use sleep aids in an attempt to control their sleep.

The results are published in The Primary Care Companion for CNS Disorders. Other coauthors are Dr. Barry Krakow, professor of psychiatry and behavioral health at the Mercer University School of Medicine; Patricia Haynes, an associate professor at the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman School of Public Health; and Darlynn Rojo-Wissar, a postdoctoral fellow at the Brown University Alpert School of Medicine.

Dawson said the research indicates that a simple behavioral intervention could help those struggling with insomnia. Give the same advice to each new patient the first time they meet.

“One thing that people could do would be to flip or cover their watch, get rid of the smartwatch, remove the phone so they’re just not looking at the time,” Dawson said. “There is no place where looking at the clock is particularly useful.”

With 15 years of research and clinical experience in the field of sleep, Dawson is interested in comparing people’s sleep experiences with what is happening simultaneously in their brains. He trains and supervises doctoral students in the Clinical Sciences Program in the Department of Psychology and Brain Sciences.