Is it possible to sleep less?
Every year, we need the same amount of sleep, and every year we get less. Since the invention of artificial illumination, sleep has been a bear market. There are many reasons we catch fewer Z’s: Round-the-clock workplaces, longer commutes, brighter lights, 24-hour Krispy Kreme stores, the Home Shopping Network—the list goes on. According to University of Pennsylvania professor of psychology David Dinges, Americans probably sleep about six and a half to seven hours per night, compared to the more than eight hours our bodies want.
We have learned to cope with a regular sleep deficit, but we pay a price (and not just $4.05 for the venti latte). Studies by Dinges and military scientists have proved that performance deteriorates when you sleep less than eight hours. People who rest seven or six or five hours a night may not feel tired, but their thinking and dexterity are suffering. We medicate ourselves with caffeine, a drug that raises alertness but at a cost of jitteriness, irregular heartbeat, and addiction. Folks who really need to stay awake dope themselves with amphetamines—stimulants that can ward off sleep for days but cause terrible crashes when they wear off. (And we don’t know what long-term damage they cause.)
Side Effects of Provigil
An Introduction to Provigil Side Effects
As with any medicine, side effects are possible with Provigil® (modafinil); however, not everyone who takes the drug will experience side effects. In fact, most people tolerate it quite well. If side effects do occur, in most cases, they are minor and either require no treatment or can easily be treated by you or your healthcare provider.
Common Side Effects of Provigil
Provigil has been studied thoroughly in clinical trials. In these studies, the side effects that occur in a group of people taking the drug are documented and compared to side effects that occur in another group of people not taking the medicine. This way, it is possible to see what side effects occur, how often they appear, and how they compare to the group not taking the medicine.
Provigil for fatigue in HIV+ patients
Background.
Fatigue is widespread among human immunodeficiency virus-positive (HIV+) patients, yet few studies have assessed effective treatments. The authors conducted a pilot study to evaluate the efficacy of Provigil for fatigue in this clinical population.
Method.
Response was evaluated after a 4-week open-label trial. Data were collected from February 2003 through January 2004. Responders were offered 8 additional weeks of Provigil. Inclusion criteria included written approval from the primary care physician, clinically significant fatigue, current use of anti-retroviral medications, and the absence of treatable medical conditions known to cause fatigue.
The wake-promoting effects of Provigil
Although amphetamine-like stimulants and antidepressants enhance monoaminergic transmission, these compounds are non-selective for each monoamine, and the exact mechanisms mediating how these compounds induce wakefulness and modulate REM sleep are not known.
In order to evaluate the relative importance of dopaminergic and noradrenergic transmission in the mediation of these effects, five dopamine (DA) uptake inhibitors (mazindol, GBR-12909, bupropion, nomifensine and amineptine), two norepinephrine (NE) uptake inhibitors (nisoxetine and desipramine), d-amphetamine, and Provigil, a non-amphetamine stimulant, were tested in control and narcoleptic canines. All stimulants and dopaminergic uptake inhibitors were found to dose-dependently increase wakefulness in control and narcoleptic animals.