Wenatex Blog | Healthy Sleep for a Better Life

Do you wake in the middle of the night? In an article I read recently, new research has highlighted that what you might be experiencing is a throwback to your ancestors prior to the introduction of artificial light.

In olden times, people slept in two four hour blocks, then rested and relaxed for a period in between. This may have “played an important part in the human capacity to regulate stress naturally”, says Sleep psychologist Gregg Jacobs. He also suggested that in today’s modern world, we don’t get much time to rest and relax and he believes that “It’s not a coincidence that the number of people who report anxiety, stress, depression, alcoholism and drug abuse has gone up.”

So next time you are wake up in the middle of the night, don’t stress, take the time to just rest and relax. Lie back and think of your ancestors… you will get back to sleep in no time.

If you would like to read the full article that was the inspiration for this blog entry, it appeared on BBC News Online, go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16964783

Please let me know your thoughts and experiences.

If you would like to learn more about how to get a healthy night’s sleep, Wenatex conducts free seminars all over Australia on the subjects. You can register your interest in attending a free seminar near you at 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 presumption that 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

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

An article in the Wall Street Journal caught my eye this morning. It discussed how scientists from the University of Pennsylvania are researching biomarkers, which are characteristics or substances in the body, to measure sleepiness.

Initially, when reading the article, I was excited about the possibilities of this research, for example, looking at sleepiness as a measure for the potential risk of diseases such as diabetes. Measuring people’s levels of sleepiness has the potential to improve overall health.

However, I can see a more negative potential for this research. It is one thing to measure how “sleepy” a person is but it is another to measure the ability of someone to cope with it. Dr Dinges raises the debate when he states “The ability to pinpoint who handles sleep loss poorly brings up ethical issues. For example, for positions that involve a lot of travel or long hours, what companies want to screen candidates for their natural ability to weather sleep loss?” Take an example, say you are applying for a job. Sleeping six hours per night is normal for you. As part of the interview process, you are required to go through a test which measures how “sleepy” you are, and based on the results of the test, you fail to get the job. In the example, the test failed to measure how well you cope with your level of sleepiness.

On the flipside, some companies appear to be using this technology in a positive way. The company in Melbourne that was raised in the article has developed special eyeglasses that can give truckdrivers a “sleepiness” score in real time.

I think in the end that Dr Shaw, also from the University of Pennsylvania, has the final say. He believes that there is no one single biomarker that can measure sleepiness. He states in the article that “we are going to need a panel of markers, each of which is going to be imprecise on its own.”

We can only wait and see further outcomes from this research.

You can read the article at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204369404577206952841644944.html?mod=googlenews_wsj. Please let me know what you think.

If you are one of those people who doesn’t need to measure, you know you are not getting enough sleep, Wenatex holds free seminars all over Australia educating people on how to get a better night’s sleep. If you are interested, you can register your interest at http://www.wenatex.com.au/seminars_registration.asp.

Every now and then, Catalyst on ABC TV features an excellent story on a sleep related subject. One of the most important stories featured on Catalyst looked at what happens to us when the “body clock”, also referred to as “circadian rhythms” is “out of sync”. Circadian rhythms make up your internal timekeeper linking your body to time, for example, daily, weekly, monthly etc.

If you are interested in seeing the video, go to the ABC Catalyst Story Archive at http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2351893.htm

Let us know what you think.

If you would like to find out more about the body clock or more about healthy sleep in general, Wenatex conducts free seminars all over Australia. If you are interested in finding out about a seminar close to you, you can register your interest at http://www.wenatex.com.au/seminars_registration.asp.

We were recently contacted by the author of an excellent website based in the States. We recommend you visit the website at http://www.everydayhealth.com/sleep/expert-answers-on-sleep.aspxs. It features a panel of sleep experts who contribute to a multitude of discussions on sleep subjects. The content is relevant and supports the views of this blog.

Please let us know what are your views on the website.

If you have any questions with regard to sleep that you would like answered, please feel free to post them on our blog.  We would love to hear from you.

Wenatex conducts free seminars on the subject of healthy sleep all over Australia. If you are interested in finding out more about a seminar in your area, please register your interest on our 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

This fantastic article http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sleep-t.html?_r=2 which appeared on the New York Times website, talks about some fantastic new research on restriction of sleep over a period of time and the effects (conscious or otherwise) on its subjects.

The key finding from the research - “…after just a few days, the four- and six-hour group reported that, yes, they were slightly sleepy. But they insisted they had adjusted to their new state. Even 14 days into the study, they said sleepiness was not affecting them. In fact, their performance had tanked. In other words, the sleep-deprived among us are lousy judges of our own sleep needs. We are not nearly as sharp as we think we are.”

What this means is that not only are we depriving ourselves of sleep, but we are deceiving ourselves as well. We think we are fine but we are unaware that our sleep deprivation is affecting us or by how much.

Think about it and let me know your thoughts.

If you would like to get some tips on how to get a better night’s sleep, you should consider attending a free Wenatex “Healthy Sleep for a Better Life” seminar. They are free to attend and conducted all over Australia. To register your interest, go to 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.

Chinese medicine is very different from western medicine but they are similar in their views on sleep. We agree with the Chinese view in this article that suggests that “a good sleeping position can ensure blood and energy flows to relieve fatigue and restore energy.”

It is an excellent article that looks at the different sleeping positions and the pros and cons of each for good health. You can find the article at http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-03/01/c_13755480.htm. 

If you would like to learn more about how to get a good night’s sleep including the ideal sleeping position, Wenatex conducts free seminars on the subject all over Australia. If you are interested in attending a seminar near you, you can register your interest at http://www.wenatex.com.au/seminars_registration.asp.

Please share your thoughts.