According to Dr. Joseph Mercola in his article, The Top 5 Natural Sleep Aid Tips, the number of Americans getting eight or more hours of sleep per night has dropped 34% between 1942 and 2013. Dr. Mercola goes on to say that number of people getting less than five hours of sleep per night increased from 3% to 14% in that same time period. These stats are alarming.
Continue reading “Need Better Sleep? Pills Are Not the Answer” »
How a lack of sleep can affect your body and your health is something I don’t need research to tell me. I have always been acutely aware of this and make sure I get enough sleep to stay as healthy as possible.
The article, What Happens to Your Body When You Don’t Get Enough Sleep , written by the Brain and Spine Team of the Cleveland Clinic, points out the following things that can happen if you don’t get enough sleep, including, but not limited to, lack of alertness, impaired memory, relationship stress, impacted quality of life, and an increased likelihood of car accidents. Even missing as much as 1.5 hours of sleep can have an impact. Chronic or continued lack of sleep can also lead to serious health problems like high blood pressure, diabetes, heart attack, heart failure or stroke. Obesity, depression and a lower sex drive are also potential problems.
Years ago, I read an article entitled, Tips to a Better Sleep, which offered common sense sleep tips that, unfortunately for many people, are not common knowledge.
Here are some sleep tips that the article offered, along with some updates for today’s world –
1. Consistency – Go to bed and wake up around the same time every day.
As a person with a sleep disorder, the article Myths – and Facts – About Sleep caught my attention. The article complied a list of myths about sleep that are from the National Sleep Foundation. For each myth listed below you can read more details by clicking on the above link.
There are some things most of us may know are “no-nos” before bed if you want to get a good night’s sleep. Some things that immediately come to mind include exercising before bed and eating a large meal in the evening. Did you know there are some other less obvious (but important) things that you shouldn’t do before bed or have as part of your bedroom and nighttime routine?
Continue reading “Things NOT to do to Get a Good Night’s Sleep” »
At this point and time, I think that most of us know that we, as a society, are surviving on less sleep than we were even just a few years back. The proliferation of electronic devices, 24/7 email, everything coming at us on “smart” phones, and even 24/7 television has affected how much sleep we are getting.
At this point and time, I think that most of us know that we, as a society, are surviving on less sleep than we were even just a few years back. The proliferation of electronic devices, 24/7 email, everything coming at us on “smart” phones, and even 24/7 television has affected how much sleep we are getting. If you are “of a certain age,” you remember when most TV stations were completely off by a certain time of night. The static that showed up once a TV station was off the air became famously scary in the 1982 movie, Poltergeist. What is scary now is how little sleep many people are getting and how it is negatively affecting us.
Continue reading “Want to be Productive? Why Being Sleep Deprived is NOT the Way to Go” »
Just when I was enjoying the convenience of easily checked out or purchased books on my iPad for my bedtime reading routine, a study out from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA, is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that has another type of light going off in my head — a light bulb, that is! Yes, a light bulb has now gone off in my head… the kind of light bulb that makes one say, “Ahhh! Now I get it!”
Continue reading “Sleep Disturbed: Tablets and Lighted eReaders Can Disrupt Sleep” »
According to a recent study cited by PainMed.org, a significant number of people are experiencing pain that is great enough to interfere with business and society. Leading causes of this pain include headaches, back pain, and neck pain. About four in 10 Americans say pain interferes with their mood, activities, sleep, ability to do work or enjoyment of life. Two-thirds report interference with any one of these.
Most people know that sleep deficit is bad for their health and dangerous on the road, but did you know it is bad for business and bad for any type of physical or cognitive performance? Dr. Charles A. Czeisler, Baldino Professor of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School, is an expert on sleep and how it affects us.
Continue reading “Sleep Deficit: Bad for Health and Bad for Business” »
I found some great tips off of the website www.helpguide.org, involving some self-help cures for reducing mild snoring. If you do snore, one or two of these might just do the trick for you. Remember, however, that snoring can also have serious health implications, such as sleep apnea, and chronic snorers who are often middle age or who are overweight, might indicate a serious health problem. So, check with your physician if you have these issues to rule out any serious health problems.
