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Beating Depression
Depression hits many of us at different times during our lives. The symptoms are commonly known: being tired all the time, low self-esteem, no self-confidence, disturbed sleep, concentration impaired and no interest in life. Depression is not just...
Diabetes
Meal planning includes choosing healthy foods, eating the right amount of food, and eating meals at the right time. The American Diabetes Association and the American Dietetic Association developed 6 food exchange lists for the purpose of meal...
Factors That Will Affect Sperm Health
The Sperm DNA Integrity assay (SDIA) like the Sperm Chromatin Structure Assay (SCSA) is a tool for measuring clinically important properties of sperm nuclear chromatin integrity. Chromatin is that portion of the cell nucleus which contains the...
How To Choose Good Fats And Avoid Heart Disease
For years we heard that a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet would keep us healthy and help us lose weight. Many of us jumped on the bandwagon, eliminating fat and high-cholesterol foods from our diets.
Well, unfortunately, we were misinformed to...
Snack Ideas for Kids That Won't Wreck Mom's Diet
If you are a mom at home on a diet, you will probably related to a frequent situation I encounter as a weight loss consultant. Many of my clients with children are able to keep to a healthy eating plan through most circumstances except two. It...
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Are You Getting Too Much Sleep?
Too much sleep? are you kidding? There's no such thing these days is there? With today's fast paced lifestyle there's barely enough time to grab enough sleep let alone too much.
However if you sleep eight hours a night or more and still awake less than refreshed, chances are you're getting too much sleep. What you need is not more sleep it's quality sleep.
Quality sleep allows us to awake feeling refreshed and full of energy, ready to power through the day. It also allows us to sleep less hours, freeing up more time for us to do the things we want.
A lot of people assume that because they're feeling tired all day or have a mid afternoon 'slump' that they need more sleep. Not true!
A lot of people believe because they may have had a couple of late nights, they have to 'catch up' by having extra sleep. Also not true!
Sleeping for too long can damage your circadian rhythm. The circadian rhythm is your 24 hour 'clock' controlled by a central part of the brain. This clock tells us when we are sleepy by altering the body temperature by a few degrees. When the body temperature is lowered, we feel sleepy. Conversely when it is raised, we feel awake and alert.
When we sleep for a longer time, our body temperature does not rise as fast. This is why we feel sleepy and sluggish in the mornings. The more tired we feel, the less exercise we do. Inactivity keeps the body temperature down so
creating a vicious cycle.
The more sleep we have, the less time we stay awake to create our sleep quality for the following night. Our body does not get exposed to sufficient sunlight to lower our melatonin levels, so we stay sleepy throughout the day.
The deeper stages of sleep (stages 3 and 4) are the most restorative. This is where the body regenerates. Most of stage 3 and 4 sleep takes place in the first 4 hours of our sleep. The rest of the night is spent in REM (dreaming) sleep and the lighter stages. Stages 3 and 4 are also where the immune system repairs and strengthens itself. It is vital to get this type of quality sleep.
A good start is to make sure we get enough exercise during the day, this gives us a three-fold benefit. It gets us out into the sunlight which reduces our melatonin levels, it raises our body temperature so we feel energized and it tires us in a healthy way so we can have more deep sleep at night.
So when you come home from work feeling worn out and weary, don't veg out in front of the TV. Put on those sneakers and go for a brisk walk around the block instead!
About the Author
Want to know how to have better sleep? Find out how. Check out http://www.insomnia-connection.com your resource for detailed information on sleep and curing stress. The author, Wendy Owen, has had a lifetime interest in general and alternative health as well as being an ex insomniac!
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