Wenatex Blog | Healthy Sleep for a Better Life

Grandma’s recipe of a warm glass of milk to get you off to sleep isn’t just an old wives’ tale, it is absolutely true. Dairy foods contain tryptophan which is an amino acid which promotes sleep. Other carbohydrate-rich foods such as a few crackers complement dairy foods by increasing the level of tryptophan in the blood. So tonight if you can’t sleep, enjoy some cheese and crackers with a glass of warm milk, that will do the trick!

There are other food related things you can do to help you sleep. These can be found in a great slideshow at Foods that Help or Harm your Sleep.

If you would like to learn more about getting a healthy night’s sleep, Wenatex conducts free healthy sleep seminars all over Australia. Register your interest in attending at http://www.wenatex.com.au/seminars_registration.asp

There are some foods that will help you sleep, for example, dairy contains tryptophan which aids sleep. However, there are some foods (and drinks) that you should avoid close to bedtime in order to get a good night’s sleep. WebMD has produced a great slideshow that gives you some really good hints of what to have and what to avoid before bed. View the sideshow at http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/slideshow-sleep-foods?ecd=wnl_slw_052611

What tips do you have to make you sleep well? Please share them, I would love to hear from you.

If you would like to find out more about how to get a healthy night’s sleep, Wenatex runs free seminars on the subject all around Australia. To register your interest in attending an event local to you, please fill in the form at http://www.wenatex.com.au/seminars_registration.asp

It is called the “silly season” for a reason. People are flat out celebrating Christmas parties, so they are staying up later, drinking and eating more, spending more time socialising. Christmas shopping needs to be done.  People are running around busy shops, looking for parks, thinking about what to buy. People stress about money, racking up big credit card bills.

 

How do these factors and changes in habit change people’s ability to sleep?

 

Stress, diet, and alcohol are some of the major factors that decrease the quality and quantity of sleep.  It doesn’t take long before Christmas catch-ups and hectic shopping in the summer heat take their toll. 

 

Tips:

 

Stress and Shopping – Avoid unnecessary stress by shopping early so you have time to budget properly, avoid the crowds and have time to find what you’re looking for. You also might consider doing some of your gift shopping online.

 

Diet - Ladies might be tempted to cut carbs to curb the effect of indulging in too much party eating and drinking. To get a good night’s sleep, don’t cut carbs altogether but rather, eat a combination of carbs and small amounts of proteins that contain the amino acid tryptophan. 

 

Alcohol - Drinking alcohol makes you sleepy but it will affect the type of sleep you get.  You will wake up more, dream less in the initial hours of sleep then dream more later on.  So you will wake up feeling vague and irritable.  One glass of wine is okay but rethink that second or third!

 

Temperature - Body temperature is one of the mechanisms for the body to produce the feelings of being awake or tired.  We feel sleepy when our body temperature falls. Make sure your bedroom is cool and comfortable to allow your body temperature to fall rapidly which will help you fall asleep quickly.

If you wish to find out more about how to get a good night’s sleep, come along to a free healthy sleep seminar. Wenatex conducts these seminars all over Australia and New Zealand. To register your interest, fill in the form at http://www.wenatex.com.au/seminars_registration.asp.

How do you stay sane and get a good night’s sleep at this time of the year? Please share your thoughts.

 

Over time, we have put up a few blog entries about sleep and how it can help with weight loss. I believe this article is one of the best I have read on the subject so far. The article (and study it is based on) comes from Canada but it is absolutely still relevant to Aussies. Read the article at http://www.canada.com/health/Dozing+diet+Sleep+diet+works+research+shows/2009252/story.html

Please feel free to share your personal experiences on the subject.

If you are like me and prone to the odd snack or two particularly at night, and you are looking for ways to cut down, you might want to get more sleep. This is the message that comes out of a recent study conducted in the USA.

 

To read more, go to the article at http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20090109/light-on-sleep-heavy-on-snacks?ecd=wnl_day_040109.

 

So, get more sleep, your body will thank you in more ways than one.

Sleep has been connected with weight loss and a couple of articles on the subject have appeared on a number of credible sites recently. If you are interested in sleeping well and losing weight, you should check them out. Let us know what you think.

http://www.weightwatchers.com.au/util/art/index_art.aspx?tabnum=1&art_id=31701&sc=3045

http://womansday.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=82188

Wenatex has also produced an article on a similar subject, check it out at

http://www.wenatex.com.au/article_dreamdiet.asp

Let me know what you think.

Be wise and have fun

Juan

We know that, in the USA, over 100.000 road traffic accidents a year are due to fatigue. We also know that after two days of sleeping less then five hours each night, our coordination capacity is equal to when we experience a blood alcohol limit that will see us losing our driver’s licence. If we already know these facts, why don’t have laws regulating fatigued drivers? We do not tolerate workers impaired by alcohol, but we have no legal recourse if the impairment is due to sleep deprivation. Will we soon be asked by police officers to “blink” at a machine to find out how many hours we slept and if we are driving “under the limit”?

One of the major restrictions for law makers is the lack of scientific evidence to demonstrate poor coordination skills when we drive and the relationship with the hours we did not sleep. However, good news is on the way.  A scientific study performed by M. Chattington of Manchester Metropolitan University demonstrated that: “…driving a vehicle requires coordination of horizontal eye movements and steering. Recent research has found that even a single night of sleep deprivation can impact a person’s ability to coordinate eye movements with steering.” This study is extremely important because it may allow law makers to start thinking about ways to introduce measurable parameters to regulate people driving under the effects of sleep deprivation.

Did you know that 20 to 30% of truck drivers’ accidents are due to sleep deprivation?

Would you like to know more? One of our Wenatex Sales Consultants, Rachelle from Victoria sent us a fantastic link where you can find excellent information and film in relation to sleep. Here it is and thank you Rachelle!

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20070813/sleep/default.htm

Until tomorrow, be wise and have fun… and watch out for those “sleepwalking” trucks!

Following this newspaper article , a team from the Centre for Community Child Health at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne Australia studied almost 4500 children twice, the first time at age 4 – 5, then again at age 6 – 7. Their sleep behaviour was recorded and analysed.

About one-third of the children in the trial reported poor sleep habits.

Children suffering from poor sleep habits may suffer strong detrimental effects

on their health, behaviour, and learning ability.

A simple check on the ABS website showed that in 2002, there were 4 million children in Australia. This means that there are at least 1.3 million children with poor sleep habits…

Hello… is anybody listening!!!???

Until tomorrow be wise and have fun!

Information provided in this blog is to be used for educational purposes only. It should NOT be used as a substitute for seeking professional diagnosis or treatment of any disorder.

Browsing the net this evening, I found a company that sells dolls with the faces of Down Syndrome(DS) children. The company is called Downi Creation and their website is http://www.downicreations.com/. I didn’t know how I felt about this, so I sent the article to a Mexican friend of mine who has a son with Down Syndrome… I will let you know her answer.

Nevertheless, I realised that I had absolutely no idea about the sleep patterns of children wth DS, so decided to do further research. This is what I have found out. At SLEEP 2008, the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies in Baltimore USA, Dr. Nicole N. Phillips presented a study that she performed comparing the sleep patterns of 38 children with DS with 38 normally developing children.

The results are as follows:

1. Children with DS sleep poorly and have more fragmented sleep compared with normally developing children
2. Children with DS may also have an altered sleep architecture characterized by less total sleep time, more stage 1 sleep, and less REM sleep
3. Poor sleep quality and decreased amounts of REM sleep may further impair cognitive, behavioural, and physical growth. This is important to recognise as it is not only valid for children with DS, but for everybody.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Until tomorrow be wise and have fun

Information provided in this blog is to be used for educational purposes only. It should NOT be used as a substitute for seeking professional diagnosis or treatment of any disorder.