October 2001 | Monitor on Psychology | Vol. 32 No. 9
COVER: Sleep Research and Practice
Can't get your 40 winks? Here's what the sleep experts advise.
Often people have chronic insomnia because of learned behaviors and patterns that are getting in the way of good sleep.
Further reading on sleep
Learn more about behavioral and medical therapies for insomnia, as well as the field of behavioral sleep medicine.
As many as 18 million Americans have sleep apnea — brief interruptions of breathing during sleep.
Factors that contribute to insomnia
Medical or psychiatric illness, sleep disorders, medications, environmental factors and poor sleep habits can all contribute to insomnia.
Sleep psychologists in demand
The success of cognitive behavioral therapy has made behavioral sleep medicine a fast-growing field.
Sleep psychology in practice
Sleep psychologist Paul Saskin helps Las Vegans sleep more soundly, day and night.
Sleep deprivation may be undermining teen health
Lack of sufficient sleep--a rampant problem among teens--appears to put adolescents at risk for cognitive and emotional difficulties, poor school performance, accidents and psychopathology, research suggests.
How does the brain catch up?
After sleep deprivation, as activity wanes in prefrontal and temporal lobe areas, other brain areas pick up the slack, new research indicates.
Animal sleep studies offer hope for humans
A genetic link for narcolepsy, sleeping with one eye open and fear conditioning are all investigated in animal research.
Research confirms the virtues of 'sleeping on it'
Recent studies show that both slow-wave and REM sleep are important for consolidating learning and memory--and perhaps even for solving intractable problems.
- Biology determines handedness in chimps, study finds
- Multitasking undermines our efficiency, study suggests
- Postdocs get the green light as specialties
- Congressional briefing puts psychology at forefront of end-of-life issues
- Therapy that counters weight concerns helps women quit smoking, new study indicates
- The melody behind mental illness?
- Croissants and counseling?
- Taming the Wild West of the information age
Some women are better off economically, but poverty and psychosocial problems still plague many who are on, and newly off, welfare.
A Capitol Hill briefing calls attention to eating disorders.
APA leaders are among those invited to lend their expertise at a summit on early childhood cognitive development.
As the nation continues to heal after the tragedies in New York and Washington, D.C., take a look at how one psychologist is still learning to cope with the changes in himself that began the day of the Oklahoma City bombing, and the hope he feels for the future.
After living through a nightmare, a psychologist warns colleagues not to take their safety for granted.
How might new technologies influence the judicial process? Behavioral scientists, legal experts and others say research is needed.
Recent conference is the first step in examining ethical issues for federally funded mental health research with ethnic-minority children.
The Pinnacle Project brought together students, budding scholars and experts in seven fields to mentor talented teens.
Talented high school students with a penchant for behavioral science offer a glimpse of psychology's next generation.
A new consortium will pool the resources of many to meet the growing demand for internship and residency opportunities.
2001 legislative sessions create new laws on mobility, licensing, parity and other issues.
When psychologists join their state and national psychological associations, the field's voice is stronger.
A joint effort by APA and a federal agency is gathering information on substance abuse treatment by psychologists.
Though more data are needed, children of mothers newly off welfare appear to fare well under a few experimental programs that provide cash assistance to working moms.
At particular risk are people with 'invisible' disabilities.
Psychologists' research is probing why the more money you have, the better health you enjoy.
The work of concerned APA groups results in new ideas about the origins of poverty and psychologists' responsibilities in fighting it.
New research suggests that we underestimate our abilities to weather emotional storms--undermining our satisfaction in the process.
Information about the shape of one's environment gets special treatment in the brain, indicates a new study in rats.
PUBLIC POLICY UPDATE
APA's Public Policy Office continues its efforts to increase opportunities for psychologists and bring important psychological research to bear in the education debate.