Why electronic screens keep you awake at night and what you can do about it

Read the article here.

It affects a third of us. Around 30 percent of the Swiss population are said to suffer from sleep problems: Difficulties falling and staying asleep, loud snoring and waking during the night, waking up early, struggling to get out of bed in the morning.

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Dr. Ruta Lasauskaite has been awarded by a prestigious Marie-Heim Vögtlin (MHV) grant from the Swiss National Foundation for her project entitled «Lighting and effort-related cardiovascular response». Ruta will soon start her project at the Centre for Chronobiology and we wish her success.

Micheline Maire has been awarded with the prize of the best publication in basic sleep research by the Swiss Society for Sleep Research, Sleep Medicine and Chronobiology (SSSSC), for her work on "Sleep ability mediates individual differences in the vulnerability to sleep loss: evidence from a PER3 polymorphism. Maire M, Reichert CF, Gabel V, Viola AU, Strobel W, Krebs J, Landolt HP, Bachmann V, Cajochen C, Schmidt C. Cortex. 2014 Mar;52:47-59". The award of 5000.- CHF has been handed out at this years annual meeting of the SSSSC 18.05.2014 in Lucerne.
Congratulations!!!

Prof. em. Anna Wirz-Justice has been awarded a honorary membership of the Swiss Society for Sleep Research, Sleep Medicine and Chronobiology (SSSSC) at the annual meeting in Luzern (18.05.2014). Her excellent merits in Chronobiology research on the international level, but also on the national level, where she engaged for Light Therapy in SAD and was a founding member and also president (1994-1997) of the SSSSC, underline her pivotal role in setting up the goals and spirits of the society.

SiRENE: Short and Long Term Effects of Transportation Noise Exposure

The overall goal of this interdisciplinary study is to investigate acute, short- and long-term effects of road, railway and aircraft noise exposure on annoyance, sleep disturbances and cardiometabolic risk. Noise exposure patterns that most strongly affect individuals are identified by means of sleep experiments, surveys and epidemiological research. In addition, the role of individual characteristics such as age and gender, noise sensitivity and genetic predispositions will be elucidated.

Aims: The overall goal of this project is to investigate acute, short- and long-term effects of road, railway and aircraft noise exposure on annoyance, sleep disturbances and cardiometabolic risk. The project aims at identifying noise exposure patterns that most strongly affect individuals during sleep and thus may ultimately result in long-term health consequences.

Methods: A nationwide assessment of road, railway and aircraft noise exposure will be conducted. In addition to average exposure, exposure modelling will be considerably refined to reflect additional exposure characteristics such as the degree of intermittence of noise events or the diurnal distribution of noise. During a one-week period in the sleep-laboratory, volunteers will be randomly exposed to different noise scenarios and effects on sleep as well as cardiometabolic parameters and subsequent cognitive performance will be investigated. Noise annoyance and coping responses in the Swiss population will be evaluated via a representative survey. Taking into account biomarkers and other factors including air pollution, data from two large on-going epidemiological studies (SAPALDIA Biobank and Swiss National Cohort) will be used to explore the exposure-response association for the various traffic noise sources and cardiometabolic morbidity and mortality.

Significance: A key asset of this interdisciplinary study is the mutual combination of human experimental and epidemiological research to address acute, short- and long-term noise effects on sleep and cardiometabolic outcomes. Source-specific exposure-response functions will be determined giving due consideration to the acoustical characteristics of noise, such as the distribution of noise events during the night. This contribution to the understanding of health risks, especially for urban dwellers, and is highly relevant for regulating environmental noise.

Principal Investigators in SiRENE:
-    SwissTPH, University of Basel,  Prof. M. Röösli und Prof. N. Probst-Hensch
-    Psychiatric Hospital of the University of Basel, Ctr for Chronobiology, Prof. C. Cajochen
-    EMPA, Abt. Akustik/Lärmminderung, Dübendorf, Dr. J.M. Wunderli
-    n-Sphere AG, Zürich, Dr. M. Köpfli
-    Bundesamt für Umwelt, Abt. Lärm und NIS, Bern, PD Dr. M. Brink

The release of the new paper about the effects of the lunar cycle on human sleep from Prof. Christian Cajochen and his team caused tons of calls and emails from journalists in the last days. Here are some articles:

• The Economist
• National Geographic
• BBC
• NPR
• NBCNews

Also the russian, chinese and thai press seems to be interested. Go to Google-News to see more of the currently 247 english articles.

The clinican's manual for light and wake therapy has been revised by Prof. em. Anna Wirz-Justice and her colleagues. This second edition has now been released.

You can order a copy here.

Chronotherapeutics for Affective Disorders.
A  Clinician's Manual for Light and Wake Therapy. Anna Wirz-Justice, Francesco Benedetti and Michael Terman.  S.Karger AG, Basel, June 2013

Prof. em. Anna Wirz-Justice received this year's Australian Society for Medical Research medal. She adressed the National Press Club on the topic of chronobiology (watch).

Ammy Appleby on her achievements:

With more than 20 year of research on seasonal affective disorder and light therapy, her outstanding contributions to the field has allowed Anna to introduce light therapy to Europe. Her collaboration with artists, architects and designers, who are inspired by the complexities of neuroscience, has instigated the incorporation of novel lighting regimens in architecture to improve sleep, mood and cognition in Alzheimer’s patients.

Chronotherapeutics for Affective Disorders. A Clinician's manual for light and wake therapy. Wirz-Justice, A, Benedetti, F, Terman, M (2009).
(PDF)