Learn healthy sleep habits to improve insomnia from Dr. Megan as she teaches fellow pharmacists at a pharmacy convention how to help their patients suffering from drug-induced insomnia. Dr. Megan is teaching about a patient taking prednisone who has trouble sleeping and is gaining weight.
These are all patient counseling tips that you can use for somebody who might be experiencing insomnia so to limit daytime naps we need to have them to only be 30 minutes or shorter and earlier in the day not right before bedtime next we need to avoid stimulants so this means caffeinated beverages or like the adhd medications especially closer to bedtime exercise
Is really important it it has two great benefits first of all it tires the body out so that it needs to fall it feels more likely to fall asleep at night and second exercise that doesn’t increase the heart rate so yoga stretching breathing techniques those can all help relax the body right before bedtime as long as the heart rate doesn’t increase then natural
Lighting again this has two sides to it first of all is exposure to morning sunlight so if somebody’s having issues with insomnia if they go out right when the sun rises and get sunlight exposure to their eyes for at least 10 minutes then that can really help to set their circadian rhythm their clock get it set in the right way so that their body knows that it’s
Falling asleep time 12 hours later that right now this is wake time this bright blue light is wave time the other side of lighting is our phones so our phones our computer screens our tablets they all can emit blue lighting like i said that’s that’s sunrise lighting we don’t want to be telling our brain through the blue light that it’s a waking time when we’re
Doing computer work or facebook or checking email right before bed because not only does that stimulate our emotional work ethic but it also affects the blue light stimulation in our brain and if there’s an option on phones these days to turn off the blue light at a certain time so i suggest all of you do that and tell your patients to do that as well next is a
Pleasant sleep environment so turning down the temperature – as cool as as you can tolerate only using the room for two purposes as they said in pharmacy school sleep and sex and and to have it cool and then if it’s not dark wear an eye mask if it’s not quiet turn on the sound machine there are lots of free sound machine ah apps so making it as pleasant as possible
Then we already talked about screen time finally deep breathing so back to the heart rate it’s important to have a slowed heart rate to be able to fall asleep so you can tell your patients to do this technique that sleep doctor recommended it’s called the four six seven or technique so they breathe in on four so in and then hold it for six counts and then out two
Three four five six seven and by doing that it’s slowing the respiratory rate which forces the heart rate to slow as well that allows them to fall asleep more restfully
Transcribed from video
PREDNISONE| Healthy Sleep Habits – RxSideFx® By Dr. Megan – Prednisone Pharmacist
