Do you want the secret to health and wellness?

Sure you do, everyone does. Everyone is looking for the miracle supplement, workout or tip that can change their lives seemingly overnight. Well such a thing does exist, is available to you anytime, and will cost you nothing.

It’s sleep — specifically deep sleep.

The Epidemic of Chronic Sleep Deprivation

If you’re like the majority of the population, you are probably depriving yourself of it on a nightly basis.

Sleep has been called the “force multiplier” in that it has the ability to enhance, or worsen, whatever state that you’re in.

If you are eating well, controlling stress, and exercising often, then getting good sleep on top of all that will help enhance the benefits of all those healthy things that you’re doing.

On the other hand, if you are eating poorly, not exercising, are constantly stressed, and overdoing it with medications or other substances, a lack of sleep is going to compound and multiply everything.

It’s like being kicked while you’re down

And when you are chronically sleep deprived, it really does a number on you. A lack of sleep can keep your body in a constant state of stress and over time this can get pretty ugly. Elevated stress hormones can be involved in creating a bunch of pretty nasty conditions including the following^[1]:

• Anxiety
• Headaches and dizziness
• Weight gain
• Depression
• Stroke
• Hypertension
• Digestive disorders
• Immune system dysfunction
• Irritability

How to Get the Best Deep Sleep

Deep sleep is so important for not only your body, but your mind. Here are 10 ways to get the best deep sleep possible:

1. Start Going to Bed Earlier

You’re going to bed too late each night. I get it though, there are too many distractions that can keep you up late.

First among all those is entertainment. The amount of programming through cable and streaming services could sink a battleship. It’s like there isn’t enough hours in the day to consume it all.

And let me tell you, there isn’t. When you combine this with the distraction of social media, you can find yourself still scrolling at 2 am.

You would be doing yourself a favor by putting off all those shows for another time and allow yourself to get to bed earlier. Trust me, those shows aren’t going anywhere and we’ve become content consumers, thinking it’s like an assignment to finish that next series on Netflix.

There is no assignment, those things are there for your enjoyment. So enjoy them on your on terms and don’t let them interfere with getting deep, consistent sleep.

2. Create a Wind Down Routine

This is key in getting deep sleep. Your body craves routine and responds favorably to it.

You want to create a wind down routine that you start at the same time each night and follow the order of. This wind down routine will allow your body to know that sleep is coming. This is going to allow you to fall asleep sooner and get that valuable deep sleep.

It doesn’t matter really what type of routine it is, but find out what works best for you and stick with it. It may be taking a shower and then reading or it may be some yoga and then listening to music. The key thing is that its important to create some structure for your body to help unwind with to eventually get that deep sleep.

3. Turn down the Light

Remember all that entertainment all around you? It may be seriously degrading your ability to get deep sleep.

We live in a 24/7 artificially lit world. As the sun sets, the opposite happens and your house springs into action. Lights are blaring, T.V’s are on, screens are being fully used. All this artificial light is disrupting your circadian rhythms and throwing off your ability to get deep sleep. The blue light emitted from electronics has the ability to prevent melatonin release from the brain which is crucial in your sleep cycles.^[2]

So turn off those electronics 1 to 2 hours beforehand and you’ll be surprised at the positive impact this can have.

4. If You Really Have to Use Those Electronics, Make Use of These Tools

There are going to be times when being on your laptop is required or you do have to use your phone. Fortunately, along with your modern technology, comes some ways to make them have a less harsh impact.

The first one is a tool for if you need to be on your lap top doing work. It’s called F.lux. This takes away that blue light from your lap top screen and gives it a more natural warm and orange glow. It can replicate the brightness all the way down to candle light and embers from a fire. Reducing the blue light is going to help you avoid the sleep disruption it causes.

I’m actually using it right now as I write this.

If you use an iPhone, you can switch on the night shift mode which also takes away from some of that harsh blue light. If you have to be up watching T.V, at least switch it into “movie” mode on your picture settings. Most T.V’s have “standard”, “dynamic”, and “movie” mode. Movie mode will give it a bit of warmer glow and cause less of that blue light disruption.

5. Keep Your Room Dark

This goes along with all this melatonin/blue light we’ve been talking about.

Just as blue light prevents your brain from secreting melatonin, darkness helps to produce it. When it gets dark, your body realizes the cycle of the day is ending and your sleep cycles should match up with that. Your sleep cycle involves this melatonin secretion so you want to help encourage it by keeping your room as dark as possible.

This can be tough in our modern world but your best friend in this situation are black out curtains. These are available most everywhere from Walmart to Amazon. They help to eliminate all that outside light to keep your environment as dark as possible. These are what hotels use and you may have noticed how dark those rooms can be compared to the amount of light that is usually prevalent outside.

6. Keep Your Room Cooler

Again, our modern environments create overly bright, overly warm living situations. This warmth is great but is not the most conducive to sleep.

Sure, warmth may make you drowsy but doesn’t promote that deep sleep you’re looking for. You want things to be a touch on the cool side to promote better sleep.

When you’re asleep, your body temperature actually drops and by creating a cool environment you can actually speed up the process of getting to sleep. Your body senses the coolness and can transition easier into sleep while also engaging in deeper sleep.

If you can control your room temperature, the sweet spot seems to be at around 5-10 degrees cooler than your average daytime temperature. At the very least, your sheets should feel cool to the touch, then you’ll know you’re in the right range.

7. Don’t Eat Too Much Before Bed

It’s hard to go to bed hungry and a little snack can be o.k, but you want to avoid heavy meals later in the night. This keeps your body up digesting and doesn’t allow you to naturally wind down and get that deep sleep.

Also, just the discomfort and bloating makes it tough to get settled. At the same time, your body can think it’s in the middle of the day as the focus appears to be on digestion and absorption as opposed to sleep. This can cause some more havoc with your body clock which hasn’t been allowed to naturally do it’s thing.

If you’re up all night eating and exposed to bright lights from screens, in your bodies mind, is like being outside in the middle of a bright sunny day. Sleep is the furthest thing from its mind in this situation and it doesn’t know the difference between it being noon or three in the morning.

8. Check out What You’re Sleeping On

There’s a bit of a science to your bed and mattress and getting it just right is pretty crucial.

If you think about the majority of purchases in your life; house, car, schooling, etc your mattress needs to be right up there. Seems kind of ridiculous but it’s where you spend 1/3 of your life – or 1/2 of it if you have teenagers – so it should be considered a significant purchase.

The usual idea is going for the softest mattress possible. There are a lot of options for that now with memory foam mattresses and super soft mattress toppers. To get the best deep sleep possible, you’re going to want to go for more of a medium-firm one. The same way I like my steaks…

If you like the softer pillow top mattresses at least go for a firm mattress underneath for better support. A firmer support will give more support and cushioning to your spine and this is important for helping you sleep.

When things are too soft there is a lack of support for you spine and body and even slight movements can be disruptive to your sleep.

9. Watch out for the Caffeine

No surprise here that caffeine can keep you up but you might not know how long it can cause this to happen.

Caffeine can kick in around 10 to 20 minutes on average, and the noticeable effects can last for 2 to 3 hours in your body. If you over consume caffeine, it can take more and more of it to feel its effects to the point you’re injecting espresso.

It would seem to make sense that you want to cut caffeine out 2 to 3 hours before bed but this probably won’t do the trick. Caffeine has what’s called a “half-life” meaning its existence, and effects in the blood stream, can last longer. This half life can last around 5-6 hours,^[3] so you might have to do some new math as to when it will be best to have your last coffee of the day.

10. Easy on the Alcohol

It seems like I’m taking all the fun away but caffeine and alcohol can really disrupt your sleeping patterns.

Alcohol may knock you out quick but it prevents you from getting that deep quality of sleep you are looking for. We’re looking at that body clock getting screwed up again with alcohol.

Alcohol turns on a brain pattern called “alpha activity”. This type of brain pattern doesn’t usually happen when you’re asleep but when you’re awake and alert. This now disrupts your circadian rhythms and in turn can block your REM sleep.^[4]

Add this all up and you may pass out after all those Jager bombs but your body is not going to get any benefit or deep sleep from it. All you’ll have to show for it is the inevitable hangover the next day.

Final Thoughts

In society today, many people seem to wear their lack of sleep like a badge of honor. There’s this sense of “sleep being for the weak” and the desire to burn the candle at both ends.

Not only is this not a sustainable way to live, you may be causing a lot of damage to yourself while you’re at it. The ability to get deep sleep on a continuous basis is critical for your body and mind to be at their best.

In this article, you’ve seen some things that you can start doing tonight to start getting better sleep. From making a more suitable environment, to watching out for the things that you consume, hopefully you have a better idea now of how your body responds to all these.

The best part is that most of these tips are easy and won’t cost you anything but are only going to enhance your health and wellness.

 

The post The Importance of Deep Sleep and 10 Tips on How to Get It first appeared on Healthy Gab.

The post The Importance of Deep Sleep and 10 Tips on How to Get It appeared first on Healthy Gab.

 

About a third of US adults don’t get enough sleep.

And sleep deprivation has serious consequences for your brain and body.

Many people think they can get by on less than seven to nine hours a night — the amount of sleep doctors recommend for most adults — or say they need to sleep less because of work or family obligations.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently acknowledged in an interview with The New York Times that his long work hours were taking a toll on his well-being and raising concerns among his friends.

That prompted Arianna Huffington to post an open letter to Musk about his sleep schedule, telling him that he was “demonstrating a wildly outdated, anti-scientific and horribly inefficient way of using human energy.”

Musk posted his response on Twitter at 2:30 a.m. ET. “I just got home from the factory,” he said. “You think this is an option. It is not.”

Musk seems to understand that working 120-hour weeks is harmful. As Matthew Walker, a neuroscientist who’s an expert on sleep,previously told Business Insider, “The shorter your sleep, the shorter your life.”

Most adults need seven to nine hours of sleep, and kids have to get even more, though needs do vary from person to person. Some incredibly rare people can actually get by on a few hours of sleep per night, while others on the opposite end of the spectrum are sometimes called “long sleepers” because they need 11 hours nightly.

But regardless of your body’s clock, a lack of sleep will cause your physical and mental health to suffer.

Here are 30 health consequences of sleep deprivation.

Sleep deprivation is linked to a higher risk for certain cancers

Skin doesn’t heal as well from damage when you are tired, leading to skin aging

Poor sleep quality is strongly correlated with chronic skin problems, according to research from the University of Wisconsin. Studies have also found that when skin is damaged by the sun or other factors, it doesn’t heal as well in poor sleepers, so those people wind up showing more signs of skin aging.

Tired people have a harder time controlling their impulses, potentially leading to unhealthy behavior and weight gain

People feel lonelier after sleepless nights — and being lonely makes it harder to sleep well

Being sleepy makes it harder to learn and disrupts short-term memory

Sleepiness has long been a problem for students. Delaying school start times an hour for middle-school kids has been found to significantly increase standardized test scores, and it may have an even bigger effect on teens, who naturally tend to be night owls.

But it’s not just kids — sleep deprivation also wrecks adults’ short-term memory. Several studies have found that sleep-deprived adults have more difficulty remembering words they’ve learned and have a harder time improving newly learned skills.

Long-term sleep deprivation also seems to damage long-term memory

Sleep disruptions for elderly people can lead to structural changes in the brain associated with impaired long-term memory. Sleep-related memory deficits have been observed in the general adult population as well — as early as 1924, researchers noticed that people who slept more forgot less.

A growing body of evidence links bad sleep with signs of Alzheimer’s in the brain

Heart disease risk rises with sleep deprivation

There’s plenty of evidence that sleep deprivation has a negative effect on the heart. When researchers kept people awake for 88 hours, their blood pressure went up (no big surprise there). Even participants who were allowed to sleep for four hours a night showed an elevated heart rate when compared with those who got eight hours. Concentrations of C-reactive protein, a marker of heart-disease risk, also increase in people who are fully or partially deprived of sleep.

Sleepiness leads to irritability

Sleep-deprived people have slower reactions

Thats not all! Here is a list of more problems derived from sleep deprivation:

At any given time, people who haven’t gotten the right amount of sleep are more likely to die

Many health problems are associated with sleep deprivation and poor sleep, but here’s the big one: People who consistently do not get seven or eight hours of sleep a night are more likely to die during a given period.

Put more simply: We all die eventually, but sleeping too little— or even too much— is associated with a higher risk of dying sooner than you might otherwise.

original/complete article can be found on https://www.businessinsider.com/sleep-deprivation-effects-on-your-body-brain-2018-8

 

The post Sleep deprivation can kill you — here’s 10 things that sleeping less than 7 hours per night does to your body and brain first appeared on Healthy Gab.

The post Sleep deprivation can kill you — here’s 10 things that sleeping less than 7 hours per night does to your body and brain appeared first on Healthy Gab.

 

A recent survey found that more people are sleeping less than six hours a night, and sleep difficulties visit 75% of us at least a few nights per week. A short-lived bout of insomnia is generally nothing to worry about. The bigger concern is chronic sleep loss, which can contribute to health problems such as weight gain, high blood pressure, and a decrease in the immune system’s power, reports the Harvard Women’s Health Watch.

While more research is needed to explore the links between chronic sleep loss and health, it’s safe to say that sleep is too important to shortchange.

The Harvard Women’s Health Watch suggests six reasons to get enough sleep:

1. Learning and memory: Sleep helps the brain commit new information to memory through a process called memory consolidation. In studies, people who’d slept after learning a task did better on tests later.
2. Metabolism and weight: Chronic sleep deprivation may cause weight gain by affecting the way our bodies process and store carbohydrates, and by altering levels of hormones that affect our appetite.
3. Safety: Sleep debt contributes to a greater tendency to fall asleep during the daytime. These lapses may cause falls and mistakes such as medical errors, air traffic mishaps, and road accidents.
4. Mood: Sleep loss may result in irritability, impatience, inability to concentrate, and moodiness. Too little sleep can also leave you too tired to do the things you like to do.
5. Cardiovascular health: Serious sleep disorders have been linked to hypertension, increased stress hormone levels, and irregular heartbeat.
6. Disease: Sleep deprivation alters immune function, including the activity of the body’s killer cells. Keeping up with sleep may also help fight cancer.

 

The post You Need To Sleep! Six reasons not to cut back on sleep first appeared on Healthy Gab.

The post You Need To Sleep! Six reasons not to cut back on sleep appeared first on Healthy Gab.

 

Stress has been identified as one of the most destructive forces when it comes to getting enough shut eye and it appears that more and more people are suffering from chronic insomnia.

For many people artificial, chemical based sleep aids are becoming popular, but these often come with a host of unpleasant side effects. An alternative is the practice of reflexology which is a natural way to relax. It is actually possible for people to enjoy the benefits of self-administered reflexology to aid in drifting off to sleep at night.

By stimulating reflex points on your feet, hands and face, reflexology can impact the entire body. A simple reflexology routine that involves just the feet can help you or another get to sleep naturally. There are about 15,000 nerves in your feet alone, one of many reasons that foot reflexology is so effective.

Reflexologists use a map of the feet where all the organs, glands, and corresponding parts of the body are mapped. The toes represent the head. The ridge beneath the toes on the top part of the ball of the foot is the shoulder or neck line. The ball of the foot reflects the chest. The arch mirrors the digestive organs, and the heel and ankles represent the reproductive system. The inside curve of each foot (where we find the spinal reflex) corresponds to the curves of the spine.

Below is a 15-minute routine in four practical steps that you can incorporate into your pre sleep routine.

1. Relax the feet

Deal with each foot one at a time. Using a simple relaxation technique: pressing and squeezing, lightly slapping or gently kneading — whatever length of time feels good. Finish by pressing and holding your thumb on the solar plexus point of each foot for up to 10 seconds each.

2. Bottom of the feet

“Walk” your thumb up from the base of the heel to each toe (imagine your thumb is a caterpillar inching its way up your foot), then press these reflex points with the outer edge of your thumb or tip of your forefinger.

Each part of the foot provides the following effects:

• Head/brain (top of each toe) promotes clarity and positive thinking.
• Pituitary or “master gland” (centre of big toe) stimulates/balances hormone secretions of all other glands.
• Pineal gland (outer side of big toe) secretes melatonin which controls our circadian rhythm/sleep cycle.
• Thyroid (base of big toe) balances metabolism.
• Neck/shoulders (ridge of toes) releases tension
• Chest/lungs (ball of foot) calms breathing.
• Solar plexus/diaphragm (under ball of foot in the centre) encourages profound relaxation and peacefulness.

Repeat these movements until you begin to feel more relaxed. At the end of your session finish with another thumb press on the solar plexus point on both feet.

3. ‘Breeze Strokes’

Close off with “breeze strokes” — lightly running your fingertips down the tops, bottoms and sides of each foot in a light motion, barely touching the skin. Repeat this several times. It is very soothing to the nervous system.

Reflexology is a way to encourage deep relaxation where you are open to internal, mental suggestions. This is a great time for a pre-sleep affirmation, for example “The world is a better place than it was yesterday and nurtures me towards a peaceful night’s sleep’.

This is also the ideal time to appreciate those around you and the small moments of joy during the day. Use positive thinking to set yourself up for a great new day

 

The post Enjoy More Sleep With DIY Reflexology first appeared on Healthy Gab.

The post Enjoy More Sleep With DIY Reflexology appeared first on Healthy Gab.