Search
Related Links

 

 

Informative Articles

Acne and Green Tea
Green tea is used by the Chinese as a traditional medicine to treat many ailments including acne and to improve general well-being. But does it provide an effective herbal alternative to modern medication? The answer seems to be ‘Yes’. There...

Common Mistakes When Planning & Financing Your Medical Spa
Everything starts with a business plan: If you don’t have one. Write it. A good business plan will help you get a handle on all of the things that get glossed over in the excitement of starting a new business. It’s also a usual requirement for...

History of Plastic Surgery
An Original Article Written By Owner and Webmaster of PlasticSurgeryOrg.com Charles Kassotis When most people use the term Plastic Surgery they more often than not use it in reference to cosmetic surgery. Few people actually stop to think that...

The Governable Person
‘The examination combines the techniques of an observational hierarchy and those of a normalising judgment. It is a normalising gaze, a surveillance that makes it possible to qualify, to classify and to punish. It establishes over individuals a...

Weight Loss: The All Natural way without Gimmicks
Weight Loss: The All Natural way without Gimmicks If you type up Weight Loss in a keyword tracker tool or in a search engine like Google, you will be alarmed to see how many searches in a day are being done on this subject alone....

 
The importance of sleep.

The importance of sleep.

In this day and age it is becoming increasingly likely that you wont get enough sleep at night. Many people have a hectic lifestyle, juggling a high stress job with family life, and don't even think about trying to incorporate a social life in there. Every thing is going on so fast these days that no one is ready to rest since they fear if they sleep someone other may go ahead of him. Many have become so intellectual that they are ready to change the rules of nature. They say that sleeping is nothing but waste of time. But those who try to change the rules of almighty have their own troubles.

The rule of the thumb is that the average adult needs approximately 8 hours of sleep per night. This can vary depending on the person though, some may only need 6 hours and other may need 10. Some people will think they need a lot less sleep than this of course. Margaret Thatcher famously needing only 4 hours' sleep a night during her 11 years as the UK Prime minister. However you may think you only need a few hours of sleep but this will probably have health consequences on your body.

It is reported that over 40 million Americans suffer from sleep disorders, with 60% of Americans having problems sleeping a few nights a week. Psychologists and other scientists who study the causes of sleep disorders have shown that such problems can directly or indirectly be tied to abnormalities in the following systems: · Brain and nervous system · Cardiovascular system · Metabolic functions · Immune system Furthermore, unhealthy conditions, disorders and diseases can also cause sleep problems, including: · Pathological sleepiness, insomnia and accidents · Hypertension and elevated cardiovascular risks (MI, stroke) · Emotional disorders (depression, bipolar disorder) · Obesity; metabolic syndrome and diabetes · Alcohol and drug abuse Groups that are at particular risk for sleep deprivation include night shift workers, physicians (average sleep = 6.5 hours a day; residents = 5 hours a day), truck drivers, parents and teenagers. Stress is the number one cause of short-term sleeping difficulties, according to sleep experts. Common triggers include school or job-related pressures, a family or marriage problem and a serious illness or death in the family. Usually the sleep problem disappears when the stressful situation passes. However, if short-term sleep problems such as insomnia are not managed properly from the beginning, they can persist long after the original stress has passed. Each year the cost of sleep disorders, sleep deprivation and sleepiness, according to the NCSDR, is estimated to be $15.9 million in direct costs and $50 to $100 billion a year in indirect and related costs. And according to the NHSA, falling asleep while driving is responsible for at least 100,000 crashes, 71,000 injuries and 1,550 deaths each year in the United States. Young people in their teens and twenties, who are particularly susceptible to the effects of chronic sleep loss, are involved in more than half of the fall-asleep crashes on the nation's highways each year. Sleep loss also interferes with the learning of young people in our nation's schools, with 60 percent of grade school and high school children reporting that they are tired during the daytime and 15 percent of them admitting to falling asleep in class. The following are some tips on how to try and get the best nights sleep possible. 1) Go to bed and get up about the


same time each night and morning. If at times it becomes late to sleep at night try to recover it by sleeping for some more time in morning. Avoid going early in the bed. Go to bed only after you feel sleepy.

2) Do the exercise regularly in the evening some three to four hours before bed. See that you get at least 30 minutes of sunlight exposure daily. Do yoga, meditation and gym early in the morning. This is will help to give energy to work for the whole day. The strained muscles will undoubtedly ask for rest at night.

3) Have a long, warm bath or shower before bedtime. Follow bedtime rituals. Listening to soft music read a book to calm the body. Avoid reading violent news or watching suspense or horror movies that will have brain thinking about.

4) Have warm milk before bedtime. Have dinner about two hours before sleeping. Have water bottle besides you so that you don't have to walk up to the water pot.

5) The bedroom area should be silent and as far as television is considered should not be in bedroom. The room should have a comfortable atmosphere. Put curtains where the light is piercing in the room. Change the bed sheets regularly. The room should have proper ventilation. Avoid having illuminated clock in bedroom that makes you anxious and keeps you thinking about time.

6) Avoid sleeping in afternoon. Avoid caffeine and nicotine in all forms after lunchtime. Caffeine in coffee, tea, chocolate, colas; other soft drinks should be avoided.

7) If you don't get sleep withinn 10-15 minutes and feel that you can't get sleep leave the bedroom. Get on with some book or watch television until you feel drowsy.

8) Some people have pills for sleeping try to reduce it and continue till you get rid of it. If not controlled it just becomes a habit. Proper care should therefore be taken and physician should be consulted.

9) Recollect all the activities performed during the day. Note down the worries you are facing and possible ways to achieve the solution. This will remove the burden of your shoulders and so you need not think of it as you go to the bed.

10) Main reason for sleep problems is stress. The relief from tensions and anxieties often eliminates sleep problems.

11) Have light meal before bed. Eating heavily can cause adverse effects.

12) Most people you have to travel across the globe through various time zones in such cases they should practice the timetable of that country in advance so that body gets acquainted to the conditions to be faced in another country.

Some Useful Resources.

National Sleep Foundation http://www.sleepfoundation.org

American Academy of Sleep Medicine http://www.aasmnet.org

American Insomnia Association http://www.americaninsomniaassociation.org

Sleep Research Society http://www.sleepresearchsociety.org

NIH National Center for Sleep Disorders Research http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/sleep

Article Written by

James Smythe

Dolphin Design
Blackpool

Learn about treadmills
and ways to exercise at treadmill.com


About the Author

None

 

National Library of Medicine - National Institutes of Health
Part of the National Institutes of Health, the National Library of Medicine offers access to health information for consumer, patient, and physicians ...
www.nlm.nih.gov
 
Health and Medical Information produced by doctors - MedicineNet.com
Doctor-produced health and medical information written for you to make informed decisions about your health concerns.
www.medicinenet.com
 
Medicine in the Yahoo! Directory
Collection of sites for health professionals, with sections on specific disciplines, organizations, continuing education, conferences, publications, ...
dir.yahoo.com
 
MedlinePlus Health Information from the National Library of Medicine
Health information from the National Library of Medicine. Easy access to Medline and Health topics, medical dictionaries, directories and publications.
medlineplus.gov
 
Medicine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Medicine is a branch of health science and the sector of public life ... The practice of medicine combines both science as the evidence base and art in the ...
en.wikipedia.org
 
Journal Home - Nature Medicine
Nature Medicine has a vacancy for a Locum Assistant Editor for six months. The position involves working in all aspects of the editorial process, ...
www.nature.com
 
The New England Journal of Medicine: Research & Review Articles on ...
The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) is a weekly general medical journal that publishes new medical research findings, review articles, and editorial ...
content.nejm.org
 
eMedicine Clinical Knowledge Base
eMedicine features up-to-date, searchable, peer-reviewed medical journals, online physician reference textbooks, and a full-text article database in 62 ...
www.emedicine.com
 
Open Directory - Health: Medicine
the entire directory, only in Health/Medicine. Top: Health: Medicine (11429). Description · Medical Specialties (4888); Surgery (2265) ...
dmoz.org
 
the www virtual library biosciences medicine
www.ohsu.edu/cliniweb/wwwvl/ - Similar pages
 
Medicine - home
Bimonthly journal covering the latest results in clinical investigation relevant to hospital and office practice.
www.md-journal.com
 
Institute of Medicine
The Institute of Medicine serves as adviser to the nation to improve health.
www.iom.edu
 
ScienceDaily: Health & Medicine News
Medical Research News. Health news on everything from cancer to nutrition. Full-text, images, updated daily.
www.sciencedaily.com
 
Google Directory - Health > Medicine
Search only in Medicine Search the Web. Medicine. Health > Medicine, Go to Directory Home. Categories. Alternative Medicine (6308) Basic Sciences (66) ...
www.google.com
 
the world wide web virtual library biosciences medicine
www.mcb.harvard.edu/biopages/medicine.html - Similar pages
 
PLoS Medicine - A Peer-Reviewed Open-Access Journal
PLoS Medicine is a peer-reviewed, international, open-access journal published ... Every issue of PLoS Medicine contains a selection of readers' responses. ...
medicine.plosjournals.org
 
Medicine On-Line - Medicine Online -The International Medical Journal
Medicine Online - independent and peer reviewed journal published by Priory Medical Journals - priory.com.
www.priory.com
 
Entrez PubMed
PubMed is a service of the US National Library of Medicine that includes over 16 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
 
Stanford University School of Medicine
Home Page of the Stanford University School of Medicine.
med.stanford.edu
 
Medicine OnLine
Meds.com offers medical information and education on cancer (lung cancer, colon cancer, breast cancer, leukemia) and HIV / AIDS for patients, ...
www.meds.com