Having Trouble Sleeping? New Therapy Suggests Less Is More

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – Everybody sleeps, but some do it better than others.

For those tortured by sleepless nights, there’s a new therapy that uses the motto – if you want to sleep more, try sleeping less.

“When I’d go to bed, I would start and be like, okay, if I go to bed now, I’ve got eight hours. And then, an hour goes by, and it’s like okay, now I only have seven hours, then it’s six hours, and then it’s the morning,” Megan Grant said.

That was the unhappy and unhealthy way Grant slept, or tried to sleep at night.

“I would just sort of lay in my bed trying to sleep,” Grant said.

Dr. Matthew Lorber suggested a new therapy that had the 20-year-old Grant getting up and out of bed if she was lying awake for more than 30 minutes.

“I was like, what do you mean? Like, that doesn’t sound right to me,” Grant said.

It’s called restrictive sleep therapy.

“Once you’re tossing and turning for 30 minutes, get out of bed, and don’t go back into bed until you’re tired again,” Dr. Lorber said.

“The concept of just lying there and like resting in bed felt better like than going and doing something else, so I was very, like, reluctant at first,” Grant said.

But, she liked the idea of drug free therapy even as Dr. Lorber prepared her for the discipline the process required.

“When I suggest to someone that if you’re up to 3 to 3:30 in the morning get out of bed, get out of your bedroom, they do – they look at me like I’m crazy first, but I think rationally; intuitively, it does make sense,” Dr. Lorber said.

“Admittedly, the first few nights of this will probably be terrible,” Dr. Steven Feinsilver said.

Dr. Feinsilver is an expert on sleep disorders.

He said once patients are out of bed they should simply try reading, no TV, or electronics, no food or alcohol.

“It seems very backwards, kind of counterintuitive, that we ask people to sleep less when we’re trying to get them to sleep better,” Dr. Feinsilver said.

The idea is to quiet the mind, staying calm as they wait to get tired again.

Dr. Feinsilver added it can take several weeks to re-learn how to sleep.

“Eventually, you’re going to sleep, and that’s a very simple idea, but it really works. It works very neatly” Dr. Feinsilver said.

“Every night I’m like, love going to bed, it’s the greatest feeling. I get in my bed, and I’m cozy, and like ready to go. It makes such like a world of a difference,” Grant said.

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Cyndi Lauper: Why quality of life can bring equality

How to ensure equality for everyone when we're all so diverse and different? A question for our guest contributor Cyndi Lauper, the singer and co-founder of True Colors, an advocacy group for homeless LGBT youth:

For me equality has always been plain and simple. "You either are or you aren't, Blanche," to kind of quote one of my favorite Bette Davis lines.

I had the opportunity to be on the same planet with a lot of inspiring people who actually did change my life, and the lives of the people I love, through their work for equality.

There were many great civil rights leaders, like Dr. Martin Luther King, Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Harvey Milk. I could go on.  And Maya Angelou -- where would I be without her books?

So today, I was talking to my husband about equality, and he said, "Why don't you just drop the E and emphasize the word quality? Maybe by just concentrating on making the quality of life better for people around you, you might naturally end up with greater equality."

So that got me thinking how right he is -- that he's really just talking about the old Sunday school lesson they beat into you at Catholic school: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Or better still, if you want people to listen, you've got to listen to them.

And let's not forget my favorite: What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

So, I think today I will emphasize the word "quality" rather than discuss the word "equality," because maybe less talk and more quality caring might lead us to do more action.

And everyone knows action speaks louder than words, right? Be it in sports, or in family, hey, even in romance. Like I had to tell my first boyfriend, "You gonna stand around all night, or you gonna do something? 'Cause I got things to do."

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Tips to making yourself look good in a selfie

The selfie stick was possibly the most hated gadget — and with good reason. That slimming photo angle often comes with a price of irritating the people around you whom you've forgotten existed in your Instagram-focused world. Despite growing annoyance, the selfie is likely here to stay, but there are alternatives to the giant "narcissus-stick."

1. Bring a travel tripod. Something lightweight (carbon-fiber is lighter than aluminum alloy) that can fold down to be compact and can handle the weight of your camera is good. Also look into stability — which is essentially why you're buying a tripod in the first place. I personally love my JOBY Gorillapod SLR-Zoom, with bendable legs and the ability to keep even my heavy DSLR sturdy. I pair this with the following item for the perfect hands-free selfie.

2. Use an intervalometer. Despite the sci-fi name, this is just a remote you can set to take a certain amount of photos with a certain amount of seconds between each shot. Choose the intervals, plug the gadget into your camera and it does the rest, even focusing the lens for you. It's better than the built-in camera timer as you never need to press the camera shutter or reset the settings for each shoot.

3. Selfie-focused apps. Don't think your mug is pretty enough for a selfie? There's an app for that. Check out FaceTune, a portrait-editing app that smooths skin, whitens teeth, removes imperfections, highlights your best features and changes lighting, among other options. Another great download is Retrica, showcasing over 100 photo filters and allowing you to adjust your selfie's exposure. Tip: If you're not 100% happy with your selfie, a black and white filter will hide imperfections.

4. A wide-angle lens. While not mandatory, wide-angle lenses capture more of the background scenery to transform the typically egotistical selfie into an actual story of where you are. Because you're in the foreground you'll still be the focus, but the photo is less dominated by your face. I’ve found my GoPro is great for this (it's much lighter than a DSLR), though clip-on smartphone lenses like the SelfieMaster Easy Selfie Lens, Aerb and olloclip are also worth checking out.

5. Cannon's PowerShot G7X. Not only does this lightweight camera perform well in low light, offer image stabilization and feature a quick 4.2x f/1.8-2.8 optical zoom lens, but the screen flips to face you so you can see exactly what you're taking a photo of. It's sort of like using the front face of your smartphone camera, but with a much higher-quality image.

Does using any of the above make selfies any less annoying? Maybe not. But at least you won't impale anyone with a giant stick.

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