Following are excerpts from two reports (scroll down) from the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research, and also descriptions of the guided meditation sleep CD entitled Yoga Nidra Meditation: Extreme Relaxation of Conscious Deep Sleep CD.

Research Reports (click or scroll down): 
2003 National Sleep Disorders Research Plan 
2004 Frontiers of Knowledge in Sleep & Sleep Disorders 

Summary Info from the reports:

• Some 50 to 70 million Americans experience sleep problems.
• Comprehensive, multidimensional, cost-effective approaches should be used, and these should be directly communicated to the population, not requiring implementation through a health care provider.
• Need to explain the nature of wakefulness and the individual stages of sleep.
• New treatments for sleep disorders are needed, adapted to the needs of individual patients.
• Complementary and alternative methods are to be considered and assessed.
• Education about sleep is also recommended, and this education should be directed towards the public and all relevant health care professionals, including physicians, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, nutritionists, psychologists and other mental health practitioners.

Yoga Nidra or Yogic Sleep is a deep relaxation in which you enter deep sleep, yet remain fully conscious. It is extremely beneficial for releasing stress, improving sleep, calming the mind, promoting health and healing, and touching the joy of subtler inner experiences.

After listening to the Yoga Nidra Sleep CD it is much easier to have a natural deep sleep, or to calmly go on with your daily activities.

The Yoga Nidra Sleep CD has five tracks. The first track of the Sleep CD is an introduction (8:02 minutes), describing the state of Yoga Nidra and the practices on the Sleep CD. The next four tracks move through four sequential practices that are listened to together, so as to form a complete practice of 57:24 minutes (Sleep CD is 65:36 minutes in total). These four tracks of the Sleep CD can also be listened to individually, as complete practices unto themselves, which allows you to still have many of the benefits of Yoga Nidra practice even when less time is available.

The depth of experience from authentic Yoga Nidra does not come by diverting the mind into music or inner fantasies (as enjoyable as these may be), but from systematic self-awareness, where your attention is gently led inward through the body, breath, and mind in a particular sequence, which needs to be personally experienced to be fully understood. The voice on the Sleep CD will systematically guide you to explore your physical body, then move through 61 specific points within the body, and then practice ascending breath awareness along the body and spine. Your attention will be brought to the space between your eyebrows, then to your throat, and finally to your heart, where you will go deep into stillness and silence, beyond the activities of the otherwise active mind.

The Yoga Nidra Sleep CD method brings you to a place of conscious awareness where you are able to completely let go of any words, thoughts, images, impressions, or pictures in the mind. You are guided to allow your mind to "empty, empty, empty" though you remain fully awake and clear of mind. From that place of inner peace, you can then choose to either go on with your daily activities in a more relaxed, more focused way, or have a natural sleep.

2003 National Sleep Disorders Research Plan
National Center on Sleep Disorders Research
U. S. Department of Health and Human Services
National Institute of Health
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
(To read the 152 page report, click here)
(Online videocasts)

Preface excerpts (p. 7):

"The 1996 National Sleep Disorders Research Plan, developed under the leadership of the NCSDR [National Center on Sleep Disorders Research] and the Trans-NIH Sleep Research Coordinating Committee (SRCC), has been an important resource and stimulus for progressive expansion of sleep-related programs within NHLBI and NIH. Indeed, since 1996 sleep-related initiatives totaling more than $110 million have been funded, and the total for all sleep-related research grants within NIH [National Institute of Health] has doubled.

"To build on the achievements of the past 6 years and identify new opportunities for progress, we embarked on a comprehensive revision of the 1996 Plan, reviewing accomplishments, remaining knowledge gaps, promising new scientific directions, and unforeseen new challenges. A Task Force, consisting of 14 basic science and clinical research scientists representing a broad interdisciplinary range of biomedical expertise, was appointed to undertake this task....

"The 2003 Revised Sleep Disorders Research Plan, submitted by this Task Force and approved by the Sleep Disorders Research Advisory Board (SDRAB), summarizes the dramatic expansion in interdisciplinary sleep-related research and resulting new knowledge achieved since the original 1996 Plan."

Introduction excerpts (p. 9):

"Sleep related problems affect 50 to 70 million Americans of all ages. Sleep related problems have the same clinical relevance in women as men, and some sleep problems are more common in women.... Sleep problems and disorders have major impacts on society, but have not received sufficient attention in clinical practice, in the education of health care providers, and future biomedical researchers, or in public health education and intervention programs.

Executive Summary excerpts:

"The years since release of the original National Sleep Disorders Research Plan in 1996 have been remarkably eventful not only in terms of progress in the sleep sciences but also in terms of lifestyle and activities of daily life that impact on sleep habits and behaviors. America is increasingly becoming a 24-hour per day society with constantly escalating expectations for around-the-clock services, information, and entertainment. After the events of September 11, 2001, we have also become a much more vigilant society. All these lifestyle changes directly impact not only the number of hours Americans sleep each day but also when during the 24 hours that sleep occurs." (p. 14)

"We are now beginning to understand the impact of chronic sleep loss or sleeping at adverse circadian times on our ability to function optimally and on our physical and mental health. How sleep loss, sleep displacement (e.g., shift work, jet lag), and a wide range of sleep disorders affect one's ability to maintain health and healthy functioning, however, remains relatively poorly understood. Despite the scientific progress since 1996 in both clinical and basic science related to sleep and its disorders, there remains the challenge and the need to discover the functions of sleep, to understand and develop better treatments for the many disorders affecting sleep, and to explain the nature of human physiology during wakefulness and the individual stages of sleep. Without progress in these areas, countless millions will continue to suffer the consequences of dysfunction and abuse of this most regulatory process." (p. 14)

"New treatments for sleep disorders are needed. Adapting these therapies to individual patients, using pharmacogenetic and other approaches, is an important research priority. The outcomes of such treatments, including complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies, need to be assessed at all levels including adherence, effectiveness, morbidity, quality of life, health care costs, safety, and performance/productivity." (p. 18)

"The education of health care providers and the public about the role of healthy sleep habits as an important lifestyle behavior and about sleep disorders is important. Current evidence suggests minimal learning opportunities at all levels (undergraduate, postgraduate, and continuing education). The development and implementation of sleep educational programs needs to encompass all relevant health professionals, including physicians, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, nutritionists, psychologists and other mental health practitioners). (p.20)

Conference Report, March 29-30, 2004
Frontiers of Knowledge in Sleep & Sleep Disorders:
Opportunities for Improving Health and Quality of Life
(National Institute of Health Campus, Bethesda, Maryland)
(To read the 34 page report and abstract, click here)

"Chronic sleep loss and untreated sleep disorders have a profound and diverse impact on health, behavior, and quality of life. The health consequences of sleep disorders, sleep deprivation and excessive daytime sleepiness annually affect 50 to 70 million Americans, add approximately $15 billion to our national health care bill, and cost industry $50 billion in lost productivity."

This extensive report includes the following:

• Daniel Buysse, MD: Insomnia is very prevalent. Most population surveys suggest a prevalence of approximately 30-40 percent in the adult population. (p. 5)
• Robert Stickgold, PhD: We are a sleep deprived society. This chronic sleep restriction may lead to accidents, cardiovascular dysfunction, obesity and diabetes, mood disorders, cognitive in attention and alertness, and the failure of sleep-dependent learning and memory consolidation. (p. 11)
• David F. Dinges, PhD: Millions of people are exposed to sleepiness and fatigue in the cognitive deficits and risks that they impose.... Adults, adolescents, and children with lifestyles that involve having limited sleep and sleep debt accumulation, night shift workers, aviation travelers crossing multiple time zones, as well as military personnel engaged in sustained operations are all examples of people who can be exposed to the performance risks posed by sleepiness and fatigue. (p. 12)
• Virend Somers, MD: Cardiovascular disease pathophysiology may be closely linked to state changes related to sleep. Autonomic and hemodynamic measures are strikingly affected by normal sleep, by arousal, and by disordered sleep. (p. 14)
• Eve Van Cauter, PhD: Sleep curtailment is a hallmark of modern society. In the United States, "normal" duration has decreased from approximately 9 hours in 1910 to an average of 7 hours in 2002.... we will discuss evidence indicating that sleep curtailment in young adults is associated with a constellation of metabolic and endocrine alterations, including decreased glucose tolerance, decreased insulin sensitivity, elevated sympatho-vagal balance, increased concentrations of evening cortisol, abnormal profiles of leptin and growth hormone secretion, reduced response to influenza vaccination and increases in markers of metabolic and cardiovascular risk. (p. 15)
• Phyllis Zee, MD, PhD: Sleep disturbance is one of the major health complaints in the elderly, with an estimated prevalence of over 50% in community dwelling older adults. (p. 20)
• W. Vaughn McCall, MD, MS: Insomnia is such a concomitant of depression (>60-80% of cases) that physicians must resist the temptation to assume that all chronic insomnia is indicative of depression. (p. 23)
• Timothy Roehrs, PhD (speaking on Substance Abuse, Alcoholism, and Sleep/Wake State): Most central nervous system (CNS)-active drugs have profound effects on sleep and alertness. (p. 24)
• Conrad Iber, MD: Many medical disorders are associated with an increased risk of sleep complaints including insomnia, sleep fragmentation and daytime sleepiness. Pain and arthritis may be associated with sleep fragmentation, difficulty initiating sleep, and daytime sleepiness. (p. 27)
• Mark R. Rosekind, PhD (Speaking on occupational groups, including shift-work, transportation, health care, and military): Addressing the physiological challenges posed by modern work schedules can be a complex and contentious endeavor. (p. 28)

Here are some of the suggestions in the report:

• Mark R. Rosekind, PhD: Given these challenges, a single or simple solution to managing sleep and circadian disruption in occupational settings is not possible. Instead, a comprehensive alertness management approach offers the best opportunity to address the diverse challenges outlined. (p. 28)
• Hector Balcazar, PhD: Translation of SD [sleep disorders] from the medical model of clinical services to the population-based model using public health requires a multidimensional approach. No "one size fits all" approach can be used to address the complexity of SD [sleep disorders], from awareness to behavioral change. Tailoring messages and/or interventions (clinical population-based) to meet the needs of diverse audiences (with different socioeconomic, social, cultural and racial/ethnic profiles) requires a cost-effective plan of action. (p. 30)
• Richard J. Schuster, MD, MMM: Translation is the process of effecting change in health care practice by implementing new research findings into the active care of patients.... The Institute of Medicine (IOM) in its sentinel report, Crossing the Quality Chasm, reported in 2001 that it often takes 15 to 20 years for a successful research discovery to be put into practice. Translation can... be effective when executed on a population based level [i.e., more quickly and directly]. Some aspects of best practices in health care can be communicated directly from the research establishment to the population; they don't require digestion, education, and implementation through a health care provider.... Population based approaches to translation and dissemination are effective. (p. 33)