Archive for the 'Sleep Info' Category

While traveling to different places, we often try to push ourselves to our physical limits, almost to the point of overtiredness and deprive ourselves from sleep due to which you can experience many symptoms of sleep deprivation including headaches, inability to focus, irritability, decreased concentration.

So, it is always reasonable to give enough rest and relaxation to our body every night while traveling.

If you are a frequent traveler to various places or if you are suffering with abnormal sleep patterns while traveling to different places, here are certain tips which can help you to keep your sleep patterns on right track.

Avoid heavy food or drinks!

Try to prefer light food and if you are more prone to heartburns, avoid spicy or fatty food that can make your heartburn flare and put off your restful sleep during journey. So, try to avoid heavy spicy foods during your journeys. Even, drinking more amounts of liquids can make you to wake up frequently during nights.

Avoid early morning flights!

Early morning flights can deprive you from sleep. So, try to schedule your flight in such a way that you can reach your destination in a time for a full night’s rest. This can help you to get more relaxation for your body and mind.

Exercise is essential for each and everyone of you to make your body fit.

Not only the physical health, even your mental health will also improve a lot by practicing exercises regularly for certain period of time i.e. for 30 minutes to 90 minutes.

The recent studies say that sleep is as essential as the exercise, which is responsible for physical fitness.

Practicing exercises is not useful if the person is not able to sleep for required time even though he practices exercises regularly [Exercise for good night sleep].

Exercise makes the body fit by burning the extra fats and calories stored in it. In the similar way, sleep is also necessary for the person to attain rest for all parts of the body, including brain. Both physical and mental health of the person will be disturbed if he is not able to attain proper sleep required for him at night times.

You have to maintain sleep and practice exercises equally if you like to stay fit and fine. Exercise is the physical workout where as sleep is mental workout. Physical workout is essential to make your body fit where as the mental workout is essential to make your mind active. Both the things are essential for the body and imbalance of these two things will certainly lead to health problems.

Many people face stressful situations at work due to the extended work hours and increased demands of productivity from you.

Life was simpler few years ago. But, now there is a competition and therefore, creativity and productivity has increased.

Due to increased productivity, working hours also increased, leaving less time for relaxation.

Due to the increased responsibilities and work, you may work for maximum hours, cancel your vacations and cut back your sleep.

How stress affects your sleep?

Your brain needs time to shift from working environment to peaceful environment, as the events of the day sit in your brain and need to be erased.

If you come few hours before going to bed, you can get sometime to relax your mind by erasing the events of the day. Otherwise, night time is the only time to relax your brain and reduce stress.

Therefore, instead of sleeping, your brain recollects the events that happened during daytime. You have to find time and effective methods to relieve from job stress and improve your sleep.

As you grow older, your sleep patterns change. You find difficult to sleep, wake more often and take long time to go back to sleep as you grow older.

You doze off easily while reading newspaper or while watching television. You easily wake up with slight noise and small disturbances.

Advanced sleep phase syndrome (ASPS) is a disorder in which the sleep episode is advanced in relation to the desired clock time which results in evening sleepiness. Due to the early sleep onset, the awakening is earlier than desired.

Symptoms of Advanced sleep phase syndrome:

The symptoms of advanced sleep phase syndrome (ASPS) are inability to stay awake until the desired bedtime, inability to remain asleep until the desired time of awakening, awaken spontaneously and the sleep episode phase will be advance in relation to the desired time for sleep.

Causes of Advanced sleep phase syndrome:

Advanced sleep phase syndrome (ASPS) occurs more common as people grow older. The other causes are medical illness, psychiatric illness, pain or depression.

As you grow older, you need less sleep. Actually, older people need same amount of sleep, but at a stretch they cannot sleep for that many hours.

Depression is a disorder described by sadness or having unhappiness.

Everyone in their life feels depressed from time to time.

But for some people, the depression continues and cannot lead a normal life.

If you have depression, you may experience symptoms such as short of energy, feeling desperate or useless, you may feel nervous, sad, or irritable, your concentration may be decreased, you may lose interest in things which you have enjoyed before, changes in appetite which changes your weight, your decision taking may become difficult, and you may have increase or decrease in the need of sleep.

If you are facing more than four or five problems, then you must consult a specialist and explain about your problems. If you have difficulty in falling asleep or insomnia, then it is the symptom of depression.

Poor sleep is not the only cause for depression but it plays a major role in depression. Difficulty falling asleep for long period of time is an important sign that you may be depressed.

The causes of depression include chemical disproportions in the brain, family history with mental disorders, stress, medications, physical disorders, no support from family, relatives or friends, drug abuse, or alcohol.

We spend one third of our life in sleep, but surprising we know a little about it.

Only recently has science started to investigate why sleep is good for us and why we feel miserable if we don’t sleep well.

All living creatures function in alternating rhythms of activity and sleep; in humans, one sleep-wake cycle lasts about twenty-five hours.

There seems to be an internal clock that’s set to make us sleepy at particular points during this cycle. The major “down- time” for most adults occurs naturally between 11:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m., with a minor energy dip between 2:00 and 4:00 P.M.

New research shows that the need for sleep is a biological drive, just like the need for food and water. While we snooze, the brain busily produces chemical changes to repair injured and worn-out body cells.

Some scientists think dreaming also plays a therapeutic role by bolstering memory and learning. Dreams help us process new information and connect it to what we already know. Resting while we are awake may feel good, but it’s not the same.

Sleep diary is one very valuable sleep disorder solution tool that many people have used. Sleep diaries have many great effects.

It helps you to discover your sleep cycle patterns that a doctor can then analyze and treat.

A section for a dream journal should also include in your sleep diary.

This section will help you remember your dreams and in some cases people have been known to learn to entirely control their dreams.

The dream section may be used by a psychologist to help analyze any psychological problems that may be affecting your sleep. Sometimes sleeping disorders are not all physical.

Sometime the mind can be the cause of sleep disorders and a psychologist is the best option. Interpreting your dreams may hold the key to you getting a good night’s sleep. The following information should be included in your sleep diary:

What you had to eat that day

Sometimes, your sleep cycle gets affected by the foods you eat. Some foods are known to have chemicals that cause dreams, cramps, insomnia, and other things.

There are some foods that cause the exact opposite and are good sleep inducers. Knowing what you ate that day can help you see patterns that you can try changing.

Many changes occur in our body as we age. Parts of our body and mind begin to deteriorate and other parts slow down.

But how many of these changes are due to the normal aging process and how many of these are due to pathologic conditions?

In the area of sleep, some changes that occur are a result of normal aging and there are many others that are pathologic.

Sleep Requirement for People in Different Ages

When it comes to determining sleep norms, there seems to be a correlation between age, body development, and sleep requirements. The scale is roughly as follows.

• Babies up to two months old require about 16 to 17 hours of sleep each night.
• Babies four months up to one year need about 10 hours of sleep each night, plus two long naps and one short nap during the day.
• Children one year up to 5 years of age generally need 11 hours of sleep each night plus three hours of short and long naps.
• Children between 5 and 15 years of age require 9 to 10 hours of sleep each night.
• Adolescents need about 10 hours sleep each night.