With the Fourth of July rapidly approaching, we’re all looking forward to a delicious backyard barbeque, celebrating with friends and family, and especially the nighttime fireworks display. What we might not be anticipating is the late-night cacophony that these explosions and celebrations cause. Learn here how to enjoy the festivities without the fidgety night!

Summer has come, which means we can look forward to longer evenings, warmer days, and midsummer festivities. However, summertime changes in weather and scheduling can make it challenging to maintain sleep patterns. With 15 to 20 percent of adults experiencing short-term insomnia, seasonal sleep disturbances are a legitimate concern.  So how can you make sure you are rested and refreshed to enjoy all that the coming months have to offer?

Just about every sleep disorder that afflicts humans is Youtube-worthy when it affects our dogs! (You have to watch the whole video, the last one's the best). The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of restless leg syndrome is my childhood lab sound asleep under the dining room table blissfully chasing rabbits in his sleep. But I know, all too well, that restless leg syndrome is not that funny or cute- especially during pregnancy.

Every parent knows that a toddler who misses her nap wreaks havoc until bedtime. A new study from the University of Colorado shows that the effects of missing naps may be greater than we realize.

Toddlers who miss naps show decreases in joy, interest and understanding when asked to work picture puzzles. 

Winter holidays are a time of great fun for kids, when looser schedules can translate to looser rules around the house, and things like bedtimes are more negotiable. What’s tough on the whole family is readjusting to the school routine of early bedtimes and early mornings.

To help transition smoothly from hectic holidays and into a new year, we laid out nine tips for getting your family back on school-year sleep schedules:

If you're like many Americans, you started 2014 off with at least a couple of New Year's resolutions. I don't want to be a downer, but most people give up on their noble attempts to improve their lives sometime in the third week of January. (Here are some really depressing stats about how many people keep their resolutions.)

There are many tips for avoiding this fate: 

• Share your goals with a friend who will hold you accountable
• Put your goals in writing
• Keep it simple, or work on only one thing at a time.

My favorite is "Keep it Simple," so I was thrilled to come across this article this morning. Can you guess the answer to this question posed by Sarah Klein in the Healthy Living section of the Huffington Post: 

The Most Important Thing You Can Do In The New Year To Lose Weight, Get Sharper And Live Longer

I was mentally preparing for the zombie apocalypse all night last night. I went to bed at my usual bed time- my alarm set for 5:30AM. There was nothing out of the ordinary, except that season premiere of AMC's The Walking Dead was on TV last night.

What is it about zombies that keeps me from sleeping? I have much more real problems to worry about like writing blog posts, raising three kids and the government shut down, so why do zombies keep me up at night?? Does watching my favorite TV characters slaughtering zombies trigger a primal survival instinct that pushes my brain into overdrive all night?