sleep

Sleep — Why You Need It and 50 Ways to Improve It

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– Sleep — Why You Need It and 50 Ways to Improve It:

By Dr. Mercola

While sleep is still a largely neglected area of health, research soundly refutes the idea that sleep is “a waste of time” and can be omitted without major repercussions. On the contrary, without proper sleep, every aspect of your health will suffer adverse consequences. Estimates suggest 1 in 3 Americans gets less than seven hours of sleep a night and more than 83 million adults in the U.S. are sleep-deprived.1

Here, I’ll review some of the most important findings that have emerged in more recent years, answering key questions such as: What happens during sleep that makes it so crucial for optimal health? What are the consequences of sleeping too little or getting poor quality sleep? How much sleep do you actually need? And, how can you improve sleep quality and quantity?

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H/t reader eric.

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Buteyko Method: Correct Your Breathing – The Oxygen Advantage – Shut Your Mouth And Change Your Life | Patrick McKeown | TEDxGalway (Video)

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More videos down below.

22.06.2016

Description:

Decongest your nose, increase your body temperature and activate your bodies relaxation response in three to four minutes by simply altering your breath. Author of The Oxygen Advantage, Patrick McKeown guides a TEDx audience to do just that.

Patrick is a world renowned expert in the Buteyko Breathing Method and author of 8 best selling books including (his latest) The Oxygen Advantage, Close Your Mouth, Asthma Free Naturally, Anxiety Free: Stop Worrying and Quieten Your Mind, Sleep with Buteyko.

Read moreButeyko Method: Correct Your Breathing – The Oxygen Advantage – Shut Your Mouth And Change Your Life | Patrick McKeown | TEDxGalway (Video)

Five Foods That Can Treat Insomnia And Improve Sleep

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(Raw) cashew nuts are very high in tryptophan.

– Five foods that can treat insomnia and improve sleep (Natural News, May 17, 2014):

According to the Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine, nearly 1 in 10 adults in the United States suffers from insomnia. Although most of these people suffer from short-term insomnia, many of them also suffer from chronic insomnia (i.e., difficulty falling or staying asleep for more than six months). Such sleep deprivation can significantly decrease the quality of one’s life.

While stress related to work and family remains the number one cause of insomnia, eating the wrong foods — such as those rich in sugar, caffeine, gluten or polyunsaturated fat — can also contribute to insomnia. Therefore, improving one’s diet is an important first step toward ending insomnia, especially if one favors foods that are known to improve sleep.

Read moreFive Foods That Can Treat Insomnia And Improve Sleep

Nearly 9 Million Americans Take Prescription Sleeping Pills

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Nearly 9 million Americans are destroying their health.

– Sleepless in the states: Nearly 9 million pop pills for shut-eye (NBC News, Aug 29, 2013):

Desperate for rest in a frenzied world, at least 8.6 million Americans take prescription sleeping pills to catch some Zzzs, according to the first federal health study to focus on actual use.

Between 2005 and 2010, about 4 percent of U.S. adults aged 20 and older popped popular prescription drugs such as Lunesta and Ambien in the previous month, say government researchers who tracked 17,000 people to their homes and peered into their medicine cabinets.

Read moreNearly 9 Million Americans Take Prescription Sleeping Pills

Alcohol Reduces Amount Of Time Spent In Deep Sleep

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– How booze plays havoc with your rest: Alcohol reduces amount of time spent in deep sleep (Daily Mail, Jan 23, 2013):

Alcohol may help you fall asleep but it leads to a disrupted night’s rest, scientists reported yesterday.

Drinking was found to increase tiredness by reducing the length of time in deep sleep, which is important in allowing the body and mind to relax.

Irshaad Ebrahim, of the London Sleep Centre and co-author of the report, found the higher the consumption of alcohol the less deep – or REM – sleep takes place.

Lack of it can have a detrimental effect on concentration, motor skills and memory.

Read moreAlcohol Reduces Amount Of Time Spent In Deep Sleep

Neuroscientists Successfully Control The Dreams Of Rats. Could Humans Be Next?

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Flashback:

– ‘Brain’ in a dish flies flight simulator (CNN):

A Florida scientist has developed a “brain” in a glass dish that is capable of flying a virtual fighter plane and could enhance medical understanding of neural disorders such as epilepsy.

The “living computer” was grown from 25,000 neurons extracted from a rat’s brain and arranged over a grid of 60 electrodes in a Petri dish.

– Neuroscientists successfully control the dreams of rats. Could humans be next? (io9, Sep 3, 2012):

Researchers working at MIT have successfully manipulated the content of a rat’s dream by replaying an audio cue that was associated with the previous day’s events, namely running through a maze (what else). The breakthrough furthers our understanding of how memory gets consolidated during sleep — but it also holds potential for the prospect of “dream engineering.”Working at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, neuroscientist Matt Wilson was able to accomplish this feat by exploiting the way the brain’s hippocampus encodes self-experienced events into memory. Scientists know that our hippocampus is busy at work replaying a number of the day’s events while we sleep — a process that’s crucial for memory consolidation. But what they did not know was whether or not these “replays” could be influenced by environmental cues.

Read moreNeuroscientists Successfully Control The Dreams Of Rats. Could Humans Be Next?

Scientists plan to record people’s dreams: Report

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Scientists think it will be possible to record people’s dreams and then interpret them, according to a new report.


Scientists think it will be possible to record people’s dreams and then interpret them, according to a new report. Photo: ALAMY

They claim to have developed a system which allows them to record higher level brain activity.

Dr Moran Cerf told the journal Nature: “We would like to read people’s dreams.”

Previously the only way to access people’s dreams is for psychologists to ask about them after the event and try to interpret them.

Dr Cerf hopes to eventually compare people’s memories of their dreams with an electronic visualisation of their brain activity.

He told the BBC: “There’s no clear answer as to why humans dream. And one of the questions we would like to answer is when do we actually create this dream?”

The scientist believes his latest research shows that certain neurons or individual brain cells are linked with specific objects or concepts.

He found that a particular neuron lit up when a volunteer thought about Marilyn Monroe.

Read moreScientists plan to record people’s dreams: Report

Sleep Better by Turning Off Electronic Accessories

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(NaturalNews) Nowadays most people sleep in a room that is lit up like a Christmas tree. The alarm clock shows the time in bright red. The cell phone is charging. The Computer is still running. The DVD clock is flickering 12:00. The answering machine has more lights than R2D2.

Are people so afraid of the dark that they prefer this many night lights? Each and every energy source takes a small toll on the sleep pattern of people nearby, bombarding them with various forms of radiation as they sleep. The following are some devices to be wary of:

Read moreSleep Better by Turning Off Electronic Accessories

PTSD leaves physical footprints on the brain

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At a recent conference for some of the area’s leading neurologists, San Francisco physicist Norbert Schuff captured his colleagues’ attention when he presented colorful brain images of U.S. soldiers who had returned from Iraq and Afghanistan and were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

The yellow areas, Schuff explained during his presentation at the city’s Veterans Affairs Medical Center, showed where the hippocampus, which plays major roles in short-term memory and emotions, had atrophied. The red swatches marked hyperfusion – increased blood flow – in the prefrontal cortex, the region responsible for conflict resolution and decision-making. Compared with a soldier without the affliction, the PTSD brain had lost 5 to 10 percent of its gray matter volume, indicating yet more neuron damage.

Read morePTSD leaves physical footprints on the brain

Mobile phone radiation wrecks your sleep

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Phone makers own scientists discover that bedtime use can lead to headaches, confusion and depressionRadiation from mobile phones delays and reduces sleep, and causes headaches and confusion, according to a new study.

The research, sponsored by the mobile phone companies themselves, shows that using the handsets before bed causes people to take longer to reach the deeper stages of sleep and to spend less time in them, interfering with the body’s ability to repair damage suffered during the day.

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Read moreMobile phone radiation wrecks your sleep