Perhaps, then, this isn't measuring sleep in any different place (a hotel room, a friend's house), just sleep in a weird, inhospitable place like a lab with weird stuff strapped to your cranium to measure your brain activity.
I've taken part in a number of sleep studies and I can say from experience that sleeping with electrodes strapped to your head does make it very difficult to get any sleep.
The worst part was the feedback loop of feeling that I have to sleep, or else this study will be useless; then those feelings contributing to more sleeplessness.
I've done some sleep studies too, and had the opposite experience. I was suffering from sleep apnea, which makes it impossible to sleep well. The electrodes during the sleep study were weird, but for much of the night (especially after the first night of study) they were running a CPAP at various levels to determine what I needed to keep my airways open. I slept better than I had in months.
I've been using the CPAP ever since, and now I sleep very well most of the time. I fall asleep in just a few minutes (used to lie awake for hours) I sleep all night through, and I often wake up a few minutes before my alarm goes off.
An ENT may be able to help if it's a physical problem. Tongue placement at the roof of your mouth is paramount though. It will help open the nasal sinus. If you can't put your tongue up there, you may be tongue tied, and can look into a frenectomy to untie it. A myofunctional therapist will then help you learn how to properly strengthen and hold your tongue in the right place, as well as swallow properly.
It might sound crazy, but mouth breathing is linked to ADHD and all kinds of issues, likely due to lower nitric oxide levels and less stimulation of the pituitary gland. Expect the field to grow in the next decade. Lots of us are now having problems because of the reduction of breast feeding, amongst other things.
Thanks for the info - seeing an ENT is also on my todo list. I never realized this was an issue until recently, but looking back I've always been a mouth breather.
One night a few weeks ago I tried the method of taping my mouth shut before going to sleep. I woke up the next day feeling super sick and lightheaded, presumably due to lack of oxygen. There definitely seems to be an issue with my nose breathing.
Yes, taping is a great strategy but if you have bad tongue placement or just a physical nasal airway restriction, you might not be ready. ENT is your first stop, in my experience. Schedule it up!
It's not even a question of IF for those who are into this stuff. It's really a question of WHY for the researchers. But for those in the field, the solution is simple and you don't need to know the why, you just work around it (by nasal breathing!)
Here's some more that are more about the sleep apnea side of things:
Point being: before you think you (or your kid) is "ADHD", see to it that they are breathing and sleeping properly. They're just so tired they become irritably unstable and unfocused. Lack of sleep = kids are a mess
I find that changing my orientation on the bed results in a significant improvement. I suspect that it might have something to do with the location of the window.
I don't know if there's research backing this up, but sleeping in a bed that isn't aligned with a wall is incredibly nerve-racking. I was moving furniture around late at night and decided to just go to sleep with my bed askew. Terrible night sleep.
