The Truth Behind 7 Common Sleep Myths

When it comes to sleep, everyone has their own ideas on how to get a good night's rest. Some people swear by drinking a glass of milk, while others say you should never eat cheese before bed time.

How can you parse out fact from fiction? We delved into seven common sleep myths, and now we're here to tell you why they're flat-out wrong.

1 Myth: Everyone Needs 8 Hours of Sleep
Reality: The amount of sleep someone needs depends on variety of factors, including genetics.

“Sleep need is like height, we are all different and how much we need is to a large degree, genetically determined,” sleep expert Dr. Neil Stanley explained to The Independent. Tracking your bed time, how many hours you sleep a night, and how well rested you feel each day can help you find the ideal amount of sleep for your body, according to sleep experts at Harvard.

5 Scientific Reasons to Sleep Butt Naked

Only 12 percent of Americans sleep naked, according to a recent poll from the National Sleep Foundation. But that’s a damn shame. Not only does nighttime nudity feel awesome, it’s also good for your health. Here are 5 great reasons to let it all hang out tonight.

You’ll sleep better
Shedding your threads before tucking in will help you snooze more soundly, says Men’s Health sleep advisor W. Christopher Winter, M.D. Your body temperature declines as you doze and climbs before you wake up, but clothing can interfere with this natural fluctuation, Dr. Winter says. The extra insulation can make you too hot as your temperature drops, leading to tossing and turning and waking up sweaty in the middle of the night. Nix the PJs and allow your body temperature to ebb and flow uninterrupted, Dr. Winter says.

​How Staying Up Late Might Be Tanking Your Mood

If you’ve made a habit of staying up too late and sleeping in every morning, you might be at a greater risk for depression, especially if you have type-2 diabetes, according to a new study presented at the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in Orlando.

Researchers surveyed nearly 500 people suffering from diabetes in Chicago and Thailand. They included vastly different geographic areas in the study because sleep cycles vary by location. In both groups, night owls—or people who preferred to stay up late—reported experiencing more symptoms of depression than those who fell asleep earlier, regardless of their age, sex, or sleep quality (Having trouble snoozing peacefully? Here are five ways to sleep better every night).

The Scary Health Condition Sleeping Too Long Can Signal

There’s nothing better than sleeping in, right? But sleeping for too long might be signaling something serious about your brain health, researchers from Boston University School of Medicine suggest.

In the study, people who slept for more than 9 hours a night were twice as likely to develop dementia of any kind over a 10-year follow up than those who snoozed between 6 to 9 hours nightly. They were also 71 percent more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease.

5 Body Odors You Should Never Ignore

Whether you’ve just completed a grueling workout or chowed down on an onion-packed burger, chances are, at one time or another, you’ve been that guy who stunk up the room. In most cases, a simple shower, swipe of deodorant, or line of minty-fresh toothpaste could remedy the situation. But in other cases, it’s not so simple.

That’s because your body odor can actually speak volumes about your health. In fact, some diseases can actually produce a unique, distinguished odor, according to a recent Swedish study.

So which funky fumes should you take note of? Here are 5 common body odors that might signal a serious problem—and what you should do if the stench arises.

BODY ODOR: FRUITY BREATH IS A SYMPTOM OF DIABETES
Credit a complication of diabetes called diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA), which occurs when your body runs low on insulin and your blood sugar spikes, says Robert Gabbay, M.D., Ph.D., chief medical officer at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston. People with type 1 diabetes generally experience it more than those with type 2 diabetes do.

Always Exhausted? You Might Have One Of These Conditions

When your immune system is grappling with a disease, that fight requires energy.

So it’s probably not surprising that almost any disease you can name has fatigue listed among its symptoms.

“Fatigue may be the most common symptom people report, and in and of itself it can’t point you toward a diagnosis,” says Roxanne Sukol, M.D., a preventive medicine specialist at Cleveland Clinic.

Also complicating matters: “There are so many different ways to measure fatigue,” says Anne Cappola, M.D., of the University of Pennsylvania’s Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism.

Science Just Discovered a Strange Link Between Naps and Diabetes

Pull your head out from under the covers: Taking long naps might increase your risk of heart problems and diabetes, a new meta-analysis presented at the American College of Cardiology’s (ACC) Annual Scientific Session suggests.

After analyzing data on more than 300,000 people from 21 different studies, the researchers concluded that people who napped more than 60 minutes a day—and who reported high levels of daytime fatigue—were about 50 percent more likely to develop diabetes than those who napped for less than an hour a day.

5 Amazing Things Your Brain Does While You Sleep

We spend a third of our lives sleeping, an activity as crucial to our health and well-being as eating. But exactly why we need sleep hasn't always been clear. We know that sleep makes us feel more energized and improves our mood, but what's really happening in the brain and body when we're at rest?

Research has identified a number of reasons that sleep is critical to our health. When we're sleeping, the brain is anything but inactive. In fact, during sleep, neurons in the brain fire nearly as much as they do during waking hours -- so it should come as no surprise that what happens during our resting hours is extremely important to a number brain and cognitive functions.

Here are five incredible things your brain does while you're asleep -- and good reason to get some shuteye tonight:

7 Sleep Doctors Reveal Their Favorite Tricks for Falling Asleep Fast

Sleep doctors toss and turn sometimes—but it’s never for long. That’s because they use scientifically-sound methods to lull themselves into dreamland. Steal their techniques so you can finally get a good night’s rest.

Blow bubbles
It sounds ridiculous, but blowing a few bubbles—like the kind that comes in a plastic bottle that you played with as a kid—right before bed can help you fall asleep faster, says Rachel Marie E. Salas, M.D., a professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

It’s like a deep breathing exercise, which helps calm your body and mind, she says. And since it’s such a silly activity, it can also take your mind off of any potential sleep-thwarting thoughts.

Drink This, Sleep 90 More Minutes A Night

No, it's not whiskey. New research from Louisiana State University finds that drinking tart cherry juice twice a day can help you sleep nearly 90 more minutes a night.

Researchers had seven older adults with insomnia drink eight ounces of Montmorency tart cherry juice twice a day for two weeks, followed by two weeks of no juice, and then two more weeks of drinking a placebo beverage. Compared to the placebo, drinking the cherry juice resulted in an average of 84 more minutes of sleep time each night.

Cherry juice is a natural source of the sleep-wake cycle hormone melatonin and the amino acid tryptophan, says study coauthor Frank L. Greenway, director of the outpatient research clinic at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center at LSU.

4 Things to Do Today to Sleep Better Tonight

In a perfect world, your dozing hours look something like this: As you kill the lights, receptors in your eyes signal your body to prep for the sandman. Your brain releases the snooze-inducing hormone melatonin, slows your heart rate, reduces your body temp, and puts a stop order on stimulating stress hormones like cortisol. After you fall asleep, you oscillate between light and deep slumber every 60 to 90 minutes; it's in the latter stage that your cells may fight off illness and recover from injury.

But if you had a hectic day, stress can trigger your brain to pump out excess cortisol, which may hurt your ability to power down, says Natalie Dautovich, Ph.D., an environmental scholar at the National Sleep Foundation (NSF). That means tossing and turning and a racing mind (Is my bank account overdrawn? Is my relationship on the rocks?). It also means you won't reach the deeper, restorative phases of sleep. Come morning, you feel like a vengeful member of The Walking Dead.

3 Reasons to Get More Sleep During the Holidays

Late-night gift shopping, seasonal cocktails, and party after party can wreak havoc on your sleep schedule this time of year. But it's especially important to stick as closely as you can to a regular snooze schedule in the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day. Here's why you need enough pillow time:

1. Your waistline
People with inconsistent to-bed and wake-up times (as well as those who sleep too much or too little) are more likely to be overweight, reports a new Brigham Young University study. A previous study, from McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., found that sleepy people have less activity in the parts of the brain that regulate willpower, making it tougher to resist the cookies, cakes, and booze that's everywhere you turn this month.

5 Surprising Sleep Myths & the Truths You Need to Know

It's as much a part of your daily existence as your diet and exercise routine, and yet, even those who prioritize movement and nutrition are a bit misled when it comes to sleep. Much of this in-the-dark behavior stems from a misunderstanding of some of the most important factors affecting your sleep (which, by the way, affects your waistline as well as your performance at work and in the gym). To set the record straight, we asked Equinox advisory board member and sleep expert James B. Maas, Ph.D., author of Sleep for Success!, to dispel five of the most common falsehoods.