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

Sleep is vital for good health, and in our busy lives we sometimes forget just how important it is. On this blog, we rabbit on about all things sleep, but maybe it is time we go back and revisit the basics.

I found a great article that covers what happens during sleep and looks at all the different stages of sleep without all the scientific mumbo jumbo. Check out the article at http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/excessive-sleepiness-10/sleep-101. Essentially, you need to get all stages of sleep to get a good night’s sleep and most adults need 7 to 8 hours sleep per night. When you are deprived of sleep there can be impacts on your health, for example, impaired memory, depression, decreased immune response, fatigue, and increased pain are just of few of the potential consequences.

So if you are sleeping poorly, or you would like to find out more about getting a better, healthier night’s sleep, Wenatex runs free ‘Healthy Sleep for a Better Life’ seminars all over Australia. To find one at a location near you, you can register online at http://www.wenatex.com.au/seminars_registration.asp

Here is the proof - Wenatex has always argued that turning off the bedside lamp will help you get a better sleep. Now science has taken this thinking a step further and a new study links leaving the light on with depression.

I read an article this morning that discussed a recent study which exposed hamsters to artificial light and found that after four weeks, they were disinterested in things that they previously enjoyed, when compared with a control group.

However, the positive that came out of the study is that these effects can be reversed by simply turning the light off!

To read the article from New York Daily News which inspired this blog entry, go to http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/dim-lighting-sleep-linked-depression-article-1.1122322

To learn more about how to get a healthy night’s sleep, you should consider attending a free Wenatex ‘Healthy Sleep for a Better Life’ seminar. They are held all over Australia. To register your interest, go to http://www.wenatex.com.au/seminars_registration.asp

An article I read recently appeared in Brisbane’s Courier Mail. It discussed new research conducted by the Jackson Hole Centre for Preventive Medicine in the USA which found that adults taking between 18 and 132 sleeping tablet doses per year were 4.6 times more likely to die early. What a scary statistic! They even ruled out the factor that people taking the pills may have other health problems, by matching with a control group of patients of similar ages, gender, lifestyle and health. The test group still had a higher mortality rate. The results of this research provide a clear picture for those who experience poor sleep. Our advice - minimise your use of sleeping tablets and address the underlying problem affecting your sleep.

You can read the article at http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/breaking-news/sleeping-tablets-linked-to-early-death-us-study-finds/story-e6freonf-1226284428246

If you have problems sleeping and you want to learn more about getting a healthy night’s sleep, you should consider attending a Wenatex “Healthy Sleep for a Better Life” seminar. They are free to attend and are conducted in venues all around Australia. To register your interest, fill in the form at http://www.wenatex.com.au/seminars_registration.asp

Do you feel on some days that everyone and everything is irritating? Next time it happens to you, you should step back and consider how you have been sleeping. An article that I read recently from the Body Odd on msnbc.com in the USA talked about some research conducted in 2011 by David Mastin, Associate Professor at the University of Arkansas. It is believed that his research is the first to explore how people actually think when they are sleepy. It showed that sleepy people consider events and that when they go badly, they blame others and sometimes even take revenge. He describes this thinking as “counterfactual”.

Can you reflect on a time when you were feeling agitated with the whole world? Can you attribute it to a lack of sleep? I would love to hear your thoughts.

Read the article that inspired this blog entry at http://bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/07/19/7106894-sleepy-people-blame-others-for-everything

Wenatex conducts free seminars on how to get a better night’s sleep all over Australia. If you are interested in finding out more, you can register your interest at http://www.wenatex.com.au/seminars_registration.asp

An article I read this morning online from Reuters really caught my attention. The article talked about the decline in kids’ sleep and focused on three key points:

1. All the way back to the 1800’s, scientists’ recommendations on how long kids should sleep for has always been higher than the actual amount of sleep reported.
2. Doctors’ and scientists’ recommendations for the amount of time kids should sleep have also declined.
3. The actual amount of sleep that kids are getting is also declining. It has fallen by 73 minutes over the last century.

Our modern 24 hour society has meant changing societal expectations.Societal pressures on experts have meant their recommendations for sleep time has decreased. Combine this with the societal pressures on parents which has meant that kids are getting less sleep. Dr David Gozal, expert in child sleep problems, from the University of Chicago sums it up nicely and blames our shorter nights on the accelerated pace of modern society with its 24-7 demands on parents and kids alike.

Does anyone else think that this is a concern? What does this mean for the future of our children? What about their future health? If you are a parent, this article will no doubt make you consider how your kids are sleeping.

At Wenatex, our advice to parents is put your kids to bed early and maintain a regular sleep routine. We agree with the National Institutes of Health in the USA, quoted in the article, for the current recommendations on sleep time. They state that “newborns should get 16 to 18 hours a day. Children fall in between, with preschoolers needing 11 to 12 hours of slumber and older kids and adolescents 10 hours.

Read the full article at http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/13/us-sleep-science-idUSTRE81C0IS20120213 and let us know what you think.

If you are interested in finding out more about how to get a better night’s sleep, come along to a free Wenatex seminar on the subject. We offer seminars all over Australia. You can register your interest at http://www.wenatex.com.au/seminars_registration.asp

While researching sleep subjects this morning, I came across this article on the 11 alive website and was gobsmacked! People sending text messages while asleep… what is the world coming to?

We pay the price for staying connected with the world. The mobile phone has meant that we can receive emails and notifications at any time of night or day and now it is affecting our sleep. Sleep specialist Dr Cunningham has the last say in this article when he states, “(With smart phones), it becomes more difficult to separate our waking from our sleeping lives.”

Wenatex has always taught that for a number of reasons, all electronic devices (including mobile phones) should be kept out of the bedroom. This article provides yet another reason.

If you would like to read the article, go to http://www.11alive.com/news/article/225193/40/Expert-claims-sleep-texting-as-new-phenomenon-

Please let us know what you think.

If you would like to find out more about how to get a healthy night’s sleep, Wenatex conducts free seminars all over Australia on the subject. To register your interest, go to the Wenatex website 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

Check out this article I read recently http://www.kansascity.com/2011/03/14/2725490/texting-tweets-rob-us-of-sleep.html. It comes from the USA, but it is very relevant to Australia as well. The article talks about social networking, computer gaming, web surfing, texting, etc, and how when we are on these late at night, they are robbing us of sleep. It also talks about the problem getting worse and how adolescents between the ages of 13 and 18 are the worst affected. These are all stimulants and The Hackensack University Medical Center representative stated “The stimulation makes it much harder to fall asleep.”

So the bottom line is that we should create a sleep routine which doesn’t have to completely eliminate but rather limits our computer and phone time, particularly late at night. Let me know what you think.

Wenatex conducts free healthy sleep seminars all over Australia. They can give you good tips on how to create a good sleep routine. If you want to find out more, you should register your interest in attending at http://www.wenatex.com.au/seminars_registration.asp.

Tokyo business people get the least sleep compared with their peers in all other major cities. They have a culture of working late, drinking after work, and long commutes home. They only get just under six hours of sleep per night on average.

The lesson to be learnt from the japanese - stay busy but make sure you give yourself every opportunity to get a good night’s sleep.

If you would like to read the article, go to http://www.timescolonist.com/Tokyo+business+people+least+sleep+survey+finds/3949984/story.html

If you are interested in finding out more about how to get a good night’s sleep, you should attend a FREE Wenatex ‘Healthy Sleep for a Better Life’ seminar. They are held all around Australia and New Zealand. To register, go to http://www.wenatex.com.au/seminars_registration.asp.

Please make a comment and let me know your thoughts.

Image courtesy of Tinou Bao