Deep Slumber Difficult for Smokers
11 th February 2008 - Smoking can lead to a rise of number of smoking-related diseases in a smoker. Apart from this, it can also result in loss of deep sleep, says a study.
What do researchers say?
After tracking the brain activity of smokers, researchers found that non-smokers could attain deep sleep more easily than smokers could. It was found that smokers complain four times more about not getting full rest during sleep than non-smokers.
Dr. Naresh Punjabi of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore led a team of researchers to find out more about sleep disturbances in smokers. According to them the nicotine from cigarettes is mainly responsible for this, as it acts as a stimulant making it hard to get to sleep. In addition, minor withdrawal symptoms throughout the night are also responsible for sleep disturbances.
Dr. Punjabi said, “Smokers undoubtedly, when you look at the (medical) literature, have sleep-related difficulties. They have difficulty falling asleep and difficulty maintaining sleep.” He further raised a point and said, “The question is why do they have this.”
Dr. Punjabi also tried to probe the question, whether sleep problems could be attributed to the various health problems also caused by smoking, which include symptoms of lung or heart disease, or whether smoking itself was to be blamed.
Method and results of the study
The researchers observed a group of 40 middle-aged smokers and same number of non-smokers of the same age to establish their sleeping patterns. Smokers as well as non-smokers had none of the medical conditions associated with smoking.
Researchers hooked up EEG (electroencephalogram) machines to these people at their homes to monitor electrical activity in the brain. The results showed that smokers spent less time in deep sleep and more time in light sleep as compared to non-smokers.
The study revealed that the biggest differences took place in the phase soon after falling asleep, which confirms the fact that nicotine's effects might be the most severe in early stages of sleep.
The study also showed that about 23 percent of smokers reported less tranquil sleep in comparison to the 5 percent of non-smokers.
The American College of Chest Physicians published these study findings in the journal Chest. The president of the American College of Chest Physicians ,
Dr. Alvin Thomas said, “This study provides yet one more reason to stop smoking or to never start.” People could easily do this with the help of smoking cessation drugs, which can reduce the impact of withdrawal symptoms that are also responsible for loss of sleep.
Dr. Punjabi said, “This is very critical for smoking cessation because one of the major complaints that smokers tend to have when they start quitting is sleep dysfunction.” | 
