Julian Center

7 Tips and Tricks for Helping Your Child Fall Asleep –

Sleep is as important as eating and drinking in the life of children. However, some kids are not getting enough quality sleep that they need to develop and function properly. Two in three children experience at least one sleep problem several times in a week such as going to sleep, snoring, and awakening.

Kids require more sleep than adults, but a lot of them resist going to sleep especially during school nights. Parents have to deal with the difficulty of putting their child to sleep.

How do you get your child go to sleep at night? Here are 7 tips on getting your child have a better sleep.

Set Bed and Wake-up Time

Making sleep a top priority for your child by setting up regular bed and wake-up times as well as making sure that he follows it even on weekends is important. You can tell that your child is getting enough sleep when he falls asleep within 15 to 30 minutes of lying in bed, waking up easily in the morning, and not feeling sleepy during the day.

Making sleep a priority by setting up a schedule can improve your child’s sleep.

Make Bedtime a Routine

Making bedtime a routine can take the stress out of bedtime for you and your child. Creating a bedtime routine eases the transition from being awake up to being asleep by helping your child feel more secured and more comfortable about what they can expect at the end of the day.

Getting your child in a bedtime routine helps him to develop sleep association that helps him prepare for bedtime. The study A Nightly Bedtime Routine: Impact on Sleep in Young Children and Maternal Mood concluded that having a consistent nightly bedtime routine for kids can help improve their sleep, especially wakefulness after sleep, and sleep continuity.

It is a good idea to begin the bedtime ritual with a wind-down period that begins at least 15 to 30 minutes before the actual bedtime schedule. Playing relaxing music, dimming the lights, talking softer, and moving slower are good starting routines. Follow it up with other bedtime routines such as brushing teeth, washing up, and putting on pajamas. You may also read a book, talk about what happened during the day or hear their stories.

Bedtime routines can be cues that your child can pick up as signs that bedtime is already approaching.

Create an Ideal Sleeping Environment

Creating your child’s room as an ideal sleeping environment can help promote sleep. It is best to keep the room dark, quiet, and cool. Some children, especially the younger ones, prefer to sleep with a little light in the room so using a dim light or nightlight as a light source is acceptable.

If your child cannot sleep in silence or you want to draw out some of the noise, you can use a noise machine, a humidifier or a fan to create a rhythmic and steady sound.

Your child’s sleep cycle is also sensitive to temperature. The melatonin levels help in regulating the drop of internal body temperature needed for sleep but regulating the external temperature can also promote deep sleep.

Creating an ideal sleep environment by making sure that the bedroom is dark, quiet, and cool can help your child sleep faster and better.

Turn off Electronics

Turning off or taking away electronics before bedtime can help your child sleep. Electronic devices promote wakefulness. Too much light before bedtime may prevent your child from getting a good night’s sleep.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, even a small electronic device can emit sufficient light to miscue the brain. This can trick the brain into thinking that it needs to stay awake.

Electronic devices should turn off or taken away at least 1 hour before the scheduled bedtime. Remove the televisions, computers, game consoles, and other electronic devices from your child’s room to avoid providing them with possible distractions that you cannot control once you are out of the room.

The light coming from electronic devices negatively impacts the sleep time, sleep quality, as well as the daytime alertness of your child. Taking electronic gadgets before bedtime is necessary to promote sleep.

Reduce Stress and Anxiety

Reducing your child’s stress can help him sleep faster and better. Anxiety symptoms are common in children. 10 to 20% of school-aged children are experiencing anxiety symptoms. Another hormone that plays an important role in sleep is cortisol or the “stress hormone.” When your child’s cortisol levels are high, the body cannot shut down and go to sleep.

Encourage your child to express his anxiety before sleeping. If your child says that he is worried or scared, encourage him. Validate your child’s experience by discussing his emotions and fears. After listening to your child’s experience, help him to solve the problem.

Practicing relaxation exercises with your child can also help reduce stress and anxiety. Take a few slow and deep breaths. Ask your child to imagine himself somewhere relaxing, like a beach or relaxing in a hammock. Listen to the sound of the water, wind or the seagulls flying off in the distance.

Encouraging your child to do these relaxation exercises and to talk about his anxiety and problems can help reduce stress.

Avoid Food and Caffeine

Avoid food and drinks that affect sleep before bedtime is a must. Foods high in sugar and fat increase your child’s energy keeping him more awake and alert. Caffeine is also a stimulant and is not very good for children. However, if you allow your child to drink soft drinks occasionally, make sure that he doesn’t drink any beverages containing sugar and caffeine 3 hours before bedtime.

Snacks are acceptable before sleeping as long as they are healthy and not very filling. If your child asks for a snack or drink before the scheduled bedtime, give him yogurt, grapes, bananas or hard-boiled eggs. These foods are good bedtime snacks to enjoy because they provide the body with melatonin or tryptophan, the natural sleep-aids.

Avoid giving your child foods rich in fat and sugar as well as drinks with caffeine. If snacks cannot be avoided, given them healthier options that promote sleep.

Perform Exercise Routines

Performing exercise routines can stimulate sleep. It is important that your child gets exercise during the day that can help him wind down easier during the night. However, keep the child’s playtime at least 3 hours before he goes to bed or he will feel too stimulated for sleep.

Instead, encourage your child to have at least 15 minutes or more of physical activity throughout the day. Exercise promotes your child’s emotional well-being. Physical activities release brain chemicals that are natural stress fighters. Your child feels happier and more relaxed, helping him sleep better.

Exercising helps your child manage his mood and stress better, making it easier to sleep and stay asleep.

Conclusion

If you already established a consistent bedtime routine and your child is still having difficulties in falling asleep, your child may have a sleep disorder. If your child feels tired easily, experiences difficulties concentrating or have behavioral problems, it could be a sign of an underlying sleep disorder. Talk to a medical professional specializing in sleep disorders immediately to know what the problem is.

5 Fascinating Ways on How Children Can Actually Benefit from Sleep –

Sleep is a very important part of a child’s life. It is vital in the physical and mental health of a child because it allows the mind and the body to rest and recover.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, every child is slightly different when it comes to the number of sleep that he needs. Insufficient sleep may affect the child’s well-being, health, mood, and growth.

Why do kids need sleep? Here are 5 surprising benefits of sleep for children.

Promotes Growth

Sleep fuels the physical growth of a child. As a child sleep, the body releases human growth hormones. This human growth hormone is released in the brain and into the bloodstream as a child sleep. This release is a part of the repair and restoration function of sleep.

The human growth hormones are not only promoting growth for a child. It also helps in maintaining the healthy body tissues that promote metabolism and enhances physical performance.

Sleep helps produce human growth hormones that are necessary to keep a child growing and going strong.

Maintain a Healthy Weight

Sleep helps regulate the ideal weight for height and age of a child. According to Sleep for Kids of the National Sleep Foundation, 13% of children aged 6 to 11 and 14% of adolescents within the age of 12 to 19 are overweight.

The Chronic Insufficient Sleep and Diet Quality: Contributors to Childhood Obesity study showed that insufficient sleep is one of the risk factors for obesity. The duration of sleep, together with diet quality, is necessary to prevent obesity in children.

Sleep helps create leptin in the brain. Once a child ate enough to be satisfied, the fat cells create leptin, the hormone that signals the brain that the body is full. Sleep helps maintain a child’s healthy weight by signaling the brain that it is already full, limiting the intake of food in the body.

Boosts Learning

Sleep can also boost learning in children. As a child sleeps, the brain processes and consolidates memories, helping the child remember important things.

If the child is tired, it is harder for him to remember basic learning such as spelling, calculating, and even information research. During sleep, the brain stores everything that you learn during the process. As a child sleeps, his brain transforms everything that he learned during the day into active knowledge.

Sleep helps boosts a child’s learning ability by consolidating the memory he learns within the day and turning it into active knowledge.

Boosts the Immune System

Sleep is one of the ways on how to build a strong immune system. Sleep boosts the main function of the immune system where the body produces cytokines, the chemicals that fight stress, illness, and infections. Cytokines also reduce inflammation in the child’s body.

Getting enough sleep for children also decreases their risks of acquiring diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and cardiovascular problems.

Having a good night’s sleep helps produce cytokines in the body, helping children stay away from diseases and infections.

Sharpens Attention

Getting enough sleep can sharpen a child’s attention. Children who sleep less than eight hours a night are impulsive, hyperactive, and inattentive.

Sleep helps a child manage his mood and impulses. It helps him focus his attention. The study Impact of Sleep Extension and Restriction on Children’s Emotional Lability and Impulsivity showed that adding 27.36 minutes extra sleep for children every night can significantly improve their alertness and how they manage their moods.

Sleep sharpens a child’s attention, preventing him from being impulsive, hyperactive, and inattentive. It also helps him in managing his moods.

Conclusion

Making sure that your child gets enough sleep that he needs is important. Putting sleep as a priority for your child can make a big difference especially in his growth, attention, and health.

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5 Healthy Ways Sleep Heals Your Body –

Why do people sleep? It is obvious that people sleep, but nobody knows the idea why. However, what is clear to everyone is that sufficient and quality sleep is important for the health.

You might think that your body shuts down during the night as you sleep. Your body actually heals itself as you nod off. Giving your body at least 7 to 9 hours of sleep every night gives it time to take care of you.

Here are five important things how sleep heals the body.

Regulates Hunger Hormones

Sleeping helps protect your waistline. A study conducted in the University of Chicago concluded that short sleep duration could result in increased hunger and appetite. With only a few hours of sleep, most people reach for high-calorie foods that can lead to weight gain.

Short sleep results in decreased leptin levels and increased ghrelin levels. Leptin functions as the appetite-suppressant. When you are full, it signals your brain that you already had enough to it. It is the hormone responsible for helping you resist foods that are high in calories. Meanwhile, ghrelin is the appetite-inducing hormone. In contrast to Leptin, it increases your hunger and cravings. It is also linked to anxiety and depression, giving you the tendency to eat emotionally.

Having a proper sleep helps regulate your body’s leptin and ghrelin levels, giving you the extra willpower to resist reaching out to a bag of chips or cookies.

Strengthens Your Memories

Sleep triggers changes in the brain that help solidify your memories. According to The National Sleep Foundation, having a healthy sleep puts you in the right state of mind to process, absorb, and retain the information you get during the day.

As you sleep, the brain replays through the brain activity patterns that occurred during the day. This does not only help organize your memory but also strengthens the microscopic connection between the nerve cells in your hippocampus.

Sleep does not only help you remember information long-term, but it also helps you to synthesize new ideas from the previous memories that you have.

Cleanses the Brain

Sleep helps restore the different parts of the brain by flushing out harmful proteins and toxins that build-up during waking hours, reducing the risks of diseases such as Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease. The brain has a drainage system that is based on the clear cerebrospinal fluid’s movement through the channels surrounding the blood vessels.

The result of a research published on July 10 showed that subjects with disrupted sleep had higher levels of beta-amyloid proteins in their brains. Sleeping less than five hours every night can lead to the build-up of beta-amyloid in the brain.Beta-amyloid is a toxic protein that forms harmful plaques in the brain that is associated with Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease.

Sleep detoxes the brain and flushes out the toxins including beta-amyloid proteins to reduce the risks of Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease. People with these diseases have high concentrations of beta-amyloid proteins, inflammation in the brain and damaged brain cells.

Heals From the Inside Out

During sleep, the brain triggers the release of hormones that promote tissue growth. This helps you in recovering from injuries or sore muscles from working out.

A research conducted by the University of California in San Francisco showed that people who sleep for 5 to 6 hours a night have 30% more chances of catching a cold when exposed to the virus while those who sleep for more than 7 hours have reduced risks of up to 17%.

Getting quality sleep also helps your body defend itself. While you sleep, your body makes more white blood cells that attack bacteria and viruses.

Guards the Heart

As you sleep, your blood pressure drops as well, giving your heart a break.

According to a study by Prather, Epel, Cohen, Neylan, and Whooley, poor quality of sleep increases your risk of high blood pressure that is a potential cause of heart diseases. Lack of sleep also increases your insulin resistance, a risk factor for the development of heart diseases and type 2 diabetes.

Sleep decreases your stress hormones and lowers your blood pressure and blood sugar levels, reducing your risks of acquiring heart diseases.

Sleep plays an important role in your physical health. It is involved not only in healing but also repairing your body. If you are experiencing problems with sleeping, seek professional help from a sleep expert, like a dentist specializing in sleep disorders, to help you.

Beware of Stress: What Stress Can Do To Your Sleep –

Sleep is important for you to function right. It recharges your brain while it allows your body to rest. However, not everyone is getting enough sleep at night. According to a survey conducted by Gallup News, 40% of Americans get less than seven hours of sleep at night.

Lack of sleep can result in health problems and complications. But why do you usually lack sleep? The survey of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America shows that seven out of ten adults in the United States have trouble sleeping because of stress.

How are stress and sleep-related to each other? This article talks about the relationship between stress and sleep.

Increases Insomnia Risk

Stress increases insomnia risk.

Stress may not just affect your health, but it can also rob you of your sleep. People who experience ongoing stress are more prone to insomnia. This is due to the emotions and anxiety that are in their mind.

A person who is stressed has elevated levels of cortisol in their blood. Cortisol, also known as the stress hormone, makes the brain send signals to your body that it needs to respond to stress. As your cortisol levels increase, you have a lesser drive to sleep and a higher level of hyperarousal that can cause insomnia. An article also posits that cortisol increases your blood’s sugar and disrupts your body’s processes, making you at risk of numerous health problems.

Stress creates a vicious cycle in your sleep: When you are stressed, you cannot sleep. Your lack of sleep can make you feel more stressed. If you are under stress, your cortisol level increases, causing unsleepiness leading to insomnia.

Decreases Sleep Quality

Stress does not only decrease the number of hours you sleep, but it also reduces your sleep quality.

According to the Stress in America survey, about 42% adults get fair or poor sleep quality whenever they are stressed. When you are stressed, the brain releases more cortisol, increasing the stress hormone levels in your body. When you wake up in the morning, you feel more stressed. The more exhausted you feel, the more you will not be able to focus on your work, school or home which can make you feel more stressed.

When you are stressed, your body continuously releases stress hormones that make you feel more stressed and exhausted the morning you wake up.

Creates a Cycle

People who have prolonged levels of stress creates a cycle: when you are stressed, you cannot sleep. When you do not have sleep, your stress levels increases.

You need to have at least 7 to 9 hours of sleep at night but stress can limit these numbers. Lack of sleep at night causing increased stress levels can make it hard for you to follow even your healthy sleep routine. This can lead to lower stress energy, decreased efficiency and lessen productivity level during the day.

Lack of sleep due to stress creates a vicious cycle that can affect not only your sleep but also your day. The more stressed you are, the more it can be hard for you to sleep.

Stress is dangerous. It can affect you emotionally and physically, especially your sleep. It can increase your insomnia risks, decrease your sleep quality, and higher the possibility of getting diseases. If you are experiencing sleep problems because you are stressed out, talk to your doctor or a dentist specializing in sleep disorders to diagnose you immediately.

Being overweight or obese is strongly linked to airway obstruction, leading to numerous other health disorders. People that are overweight have extra tissue in the back of their throat, which can fall down over the airway and block the flow of air into the lungs while they sleep. How do you know if this is an issue for you? You can measure your neck circumference. For men, it should be less than 16 inches and for women less than 15 inches.

While we recommend a well-rounded treatment plan as a solution to Obstructive Sleep Apnea, it’s essential to focus on lifestyle changes that help with weight loss. Losing weight can have a major impact on the airway and therefore oxygen consumption while sleeping.

A weight loss plan should be customized for each individual depending on their lifestyle and health goals, however here are a few basic tips:

• Drink Water – You should drink at least half your body weight in ounces of water. For example, if you weigh 150 pounds, you need at least 75 ounces of water daily. Quite often we mistake thirst for hunger. When you feel hungry, drink a glass of water and wait 20 minutes to see if you’re actually hungry.
• Practice Time-Restricted Feeding – Keep your feeding time window to 12 hours or less each daily. For example, if you finish dinner at 7:30PM, don’t eat breakfast until after 7:30AM the next day. Your body needs at least 12 hours each day to rest and rejuvenate so it shouldn’t be digesting food during this time. This simple trick can have a positive effect on weight loss.
• Move More – It’s not just about intense exercise sessions at the gym every day, but simply moving more throughout the day. If you sit at a desk most of the day, set an alarm on your phone for every 30 minutes as a reminder to get up and walk around for 2-3 minutes. Other tips include taking the stairs and parking your car far away when possible.
• Work With a Nutrition Practitioner – As we mentioned previously, it’s best to have a personalized nutrition plan. A short-term ketogenic diet is often helpful for boosting initial weight loss, however this should be done under supervision. Please check out ReneeBelz.com to work with our Certified Nutritional Consultant.

Since being overweight can cause poor sleep and poor sleep can cause weight gain, this tends to be a vicious cycle. One of biggest reasons why poor sleep can cause weight gain has to do with the hormones leptin and ghrelin. Leptin is responsible for turning off the hunger signal, while ghrelin is responsible for making you feel hungry. To help maintain weight, you need these hormones to work optimally, however when you don’t sleep well these hormones get switched. Ghrelin rapidly increases causing more hunger, while leptin practically shuts off never signaling your brain that meal time is over. This may be why research finds sleep can have a greater impact on weight loss than exercise. So next time you think about missing out on a little bit of sleep to squeeze that early morning workout in, you may want to think again.

Therefore, it’s best to focus on a lifestyle and nutrition plan while simultaneously working with your Dentist trained in Dental Sleep Medicine.

While it may not seem like an obvious connection, nutrition and airway health are strongly connected and can have a major impact on someone’s overall health.

The importance of nutrition starts with prenatal nutrition and breastfeeding. This helps with the development of a person’s jaw structure and airway and will have a lifelong impact. As infants we should learn how to suck and chew properly and if we don’t we end up with compromised dental arches and poor breathing mechanisms. By introducing the wrong foods at the wrong time, we are setting up children for a lifelong struggle to breathe properly. The human body is intelligent and will find a way to compromise for a narrow airway, such as grinding teeth at night to open the airway slightly allowing more oxygen through. But long-term, this is not an ideal situation.

A dietary regimen should be personalized based on numerous factors including age, genetics and metabolism, however there are some basic nutrition principles everyone should follow.

• Eat whole foods – How do you know if it’s a “whole food?” It should have one ingredient. Examples are fruits (like apples), vegetables (like spinach) and animal protein (like chicken). There shouldn’t be a list of ingredients attached to the food.
• Follow a plant-based diet – This doesn’t mean vegan or vegetarian, but simply that half your plate at each meal should be plants. The more vegetables you include every day, the better. You also need healthy protein and fats to balance out each meal.
• Eat organic – Non-organic foods can be loaded with pesticides, heavy metals, chemicals and genetically-modified organisms, which can compromise sleep.
• Support digestion – Get adequate fiber daily and eat foods that don’t irritate the digestive tract. Digestive issues such as bloating and indigestion can negatively impact sleep.

Unfortunately, there is a tricky component to nutrition and airway health — they both have an effect on one another. Poor nutrition causes poor breathing, and poor breathing causes poor nutrition. Have you ever noticed a difference in your eating habits throughout the day after a poor night’s sleep? You typically eat more calories in the form of carbohydrates and sugar to help compensate for the lack of energy, and this leads to a downward spiral of weight gain and subsequently even worse sleep quality.

Therefore, it’s extremely important to focus on optimal nutrition at the same time that you work with a qualified Dentist who practices dental sleep medicine.

There has been a lot of discussion about food allergies, sensitivities, and intolerances lately. It seems like everyone is giving up gluten and dairy in an attempt to resolve all of their health issues. There is an enormous benefit to discovering which foods affect you personally, but let’s take a deeper dive into what that may look like.

First of all, a true food allergy is easy to spot due to the immediate reaction after eating a certain food. Someone’s allergic response may include hives, mucus production, or itching and it is quite obvious. You most likely already know if you have a food allergy, such as a peanut allergy.

Unfortunately, food sensitivity or intolerance isn’t as easy to pinpoint due to the delayed reaction. Some of the common offenders include gluten (mainly from wheat), dairy (lactose or casein), high-histamine foods (such as smoked meats), and soy (especially genetically modified and processed soy). The best way to determine which foods are causing a reaction, ranging from fatigue and headaches to digestive upset and skin issues, is to follow an elimination diet and keep a food journal. By minimizing the main offenders and tracking every food consumed with a timeline of any symptoms, you can see over time which foods may be causing this negative immune reaction in the body. For example, if you ate two pieces of whole wheat toast for breakfast Monday morning and then noticed a headache Wednesday morning, it could be linked. It’s best to work with a trained practitioner to get the best results throughout the elimination diet process.

This immune response in the body also causes a large inflammatory response, leading to numerous health issues including a compromised airway. When the nasal pathway and airway are inhibited by inflammation it makes it very difficult to breathe properly and this is how these food reactions can ultimately affect your sleep quality.

We recommend working with your Dentist trained in Dental Sleep Medicine to determine whether you could have food triggers causing airway and sleep issues for you.

Do you feel groggy in the morning? Like a lot of people, you are probably not getting enough sleep. You don’t have to suffer from insomnia to feel the effects of sleep deprivation.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that the United States is in the middle of a sleep-loss epidemic. Eight out of ten Americans reveal that they would feel better if they had at least one more hour of sleep. Over the past years, sleep quantity and quality have declined.

If you want to optimize your health as well as your well-being, you need to get a good night’s sleep. Here are 15 tips to get better sleep.video link=”https://youtu.be/SVQlcxiQlzI”]

Keep a Schedule

A University of Alabama study showed that maintaining a daily schedule leads to better sleep. It didn’t matter what time of day the activities were scheduled, as long as they occurred at a regular time.

You can easily make eight hours of quality sleep part of your daily routine by scheduling it. Make sleep a part of your to-do list.

Plan your bedtime the same way you plan other appointments. Be strict about your sleep schedule. Go to bed and get up on time each day to keep your body clock on track. It will also promote your natural drive to sleep.

Maintaining a consistent healthy sleep schedule for hitting the bed and waking up should be a part of your routine.

Find the Perfect Pillow

There are factors to consider before you buy the perfect pillow. This includes your sleep position, size, and personal preferences. If you wake up with a headache or arm pain, perhaps you should try using latex pillows instead of feather pillows. A study conducted by Gordon, Grimmer-Somers, and Trott recommend latex pillows due to its consistent good performance in reducing the frequency of getting scapular or arm pain as well as headache upon waking up.

A back-sleeper with great posture needs a thinner pillow to maintain head to body alignment. Meanwhile, a large side-sleeper may need two to three firm pillows for ample distance between the outside shoulder and the ear. A stomach sleeper needs a very thin, almost flat pillow to avoid lower back pain.

Finding the perfect pillow can eliminate headaches, neck and should pain, and discomfort as well as promote healthy sleep.

Create a Haven

If your bedroom is not a relaxing and comfortable place, you are not going to spend a lot of time there. Your bedroom should be dark, cool, uncluttered, and quiet to make it comfortable for sleeping. Maintain a temperature of 60 to 65 degrees.

Start dimming the lights around your house a few hours before you hit the bed. Consider investing in blackout blinds. Try earplugs if the noise disturbs you. Keep your bedroom neat and tidy and avoid working in the same place where you sleep.

The key factor in making your bedroom comfortable is the bed itself. Jacobson, Boolani, and Smith found that compared to beds that are five years or older, new bedding systems provided better sleep quality and reduced back discomfort. The beds used in the study were described as having these attributes: “contained a medium-firm sleep surface, foam-encased bonnell spring unit, densified fiber pad, super-soft foam, damask cover, semiflex foundation, and slick fiber.”

Creating a haven will help you keep calm, relax, and sleep well.

Eat Snooze Foods

The food that you eat can dramatically affect the amount and quality of sleep. Some foods can keep you up at night. Eating food which are good sources of serotonin and melatonin can set the sleep-wake cycles.

Honey contains orexin which reduces alertness. Warm milk and chia seeds contain tryptophan which provides natural calming effects. Bananas contain magnesium and potassium to help you relax your muscles and lower blood pressure while you sleep. Foods that can boost melatonin production include rice, oats, barley and pineapples. Salmon, tofu, nuts, and turkey contain tryptophan which is an amino acid required to synthesize serotonin.

Never go to bed hungry. Try and eat an early evening meal and get a sleep-inducing bedtime snack before you hit the sack.

Eating sleep-inducing foods not only creates a natural calming effect, but also lowers your blood pressure and heart rate.

Start a Sleep Journal

Sometimes, you are not aware of your bad sleeping habits. The National Sleep Foundation showed that a sleep journal can help you in uncovering several factors leading to poor sleep.

Write in your journal before going to sleep and after waking up the next morning. List each complete hour you were able to sleep in bed. Take note of the activities you did before going to sleep. Keep the journal for at least two weeks.

Look back over the past days and nights. Check the factors that may have influenced your sleep: Drinking alcohol or caffeine, exercising, taking sleeping pills, or eating for example.

Keeping a sleep journal can help you determine the activities that you need to avoid because they affect your sleep.

Follow the 20-Minute Rule

If you cannot fall asleep within 15 to 20 minutes of lying in bed, don’t stay in bed trying harder to drift off. The University of Glasgow revealed that the longer you toss and turn in bed, the more anxious and frustrated you will become. Tossing and turning in bed will take you longer to unwind, relax, and eventually sleep.

Get out of bed, leave the bedroom, and do something unstimulating, such as reading a book or knitting. These activities can help you feel sleepy again.

Following the 20-Minute rule diverts your mind from anxiety and stress.

Avoid Alcohol Before Going to Sleep

Alcohol has two effects. It can put you to sleep due to the production of adenosine, the sleep-inducing chemical in the brain. However, it will subside once you have enough sleep, and can wake you up after three to four hours.

As a depressant, alcohol reverses its sleep-inducing effects after a few hours. The reversal may cause you to miss out on valuable REM rest, where vivid dreams occur. With less REM, you will wake up feeling unfocused, groggy, and tired.

Steer clear of alcohol before you sleep. A few drinks may help you get to sleep, but you will most likely pay for it in the morning.

Use Guided Imagery

Instead of focusing on fearful images, visualizations, and anxiousness, focus on calm and restful images. A study shows that guided imagery is a relaxation and stress-relieving technique that can help you effectively address your stress, fatigue, and sleep disturbances. It also lessens the tension in your body.

Imagine yourself in your favorite location, climbing the mountains, or walking by the ocean. Notice the sensory details: The color of the sky, the texture of the sand, and the warmth of the sun as it touches your skin. Visualize this place for a few minutes before you go to sleep.

Using guided imagery can help you unwind, relieve stress, and fall asleep.

Keep the Clock, Just Don’t Look at It

Alarm clocks are helpful in keeping your sleep schedules regular. Waking up the same day every day is beneficial for your internal biological clock. A study reveals that alarms can provide peace of mind. It gives you a safer feeling during the night.

The act of checking the time throughout the night can disrupt your sleep. If this is a habit you have, turn the clock around or cover it so that you cannot see the time. You will feel better if you are not worrying about the time. Let the alarm tell you when it is time to get up.

Use an alarm clock to keep your schedule consistent. Keep a regular bed and wake time. Do not set your alarm early and keep hitting the snooze button as it disrupts sleep.

Keeping an alarm clock normalizes your sleep pattern.

Take a Bath Before Going to Bed

Taking a relaxing bath or shower can help you sleep better. A study suggests that bathing before sleeping may improve sleep quality particularly in seniors. Take a hot bath or shower before going to bed. If you do not want to take a full bath at night, you can dip your feet in hot water to help you relax. Using Epsom salt helps flush toxins and heavy metals from your cells. It eases stress and muscle pain to promote relaxation.

Taking a hot bath or shower may enhance the quality of your sleep.

Exercise Regularly

Exercise improves your health as well as your quality of sleep. You may remember at some point in your life when you had a good night sleep after a spirited workout. Science backs up the connection between regular exercise and improved sleep quality. A study conducted on 2,600 participants revealed that 2 and a half hours of moderate to vigorous activity per week resulted in 65 percent enhancement in sleep quality. The participants also reported that they were less sleepy during the day in comparison to those with less physical movement.

Although daily exercise is the key to a good night’s sleep, performing it late in the day can also cause problems falling asleep for some people. That’s because exercise increases your adrenaline, epinephrine, and alertness.

Exercise during daylight hours to ensure a good night’s sleep. You can also practice low-intensity yoga, tai-chi, and stretching which can calm your mind.

Regular exercise is a safe and effective activity to help improve the quality of your sleep.

Eliminate Caffeine

About 90% of the population of the United States consumes caffeine on a daily basis. One dose of caffeine can enhance your energy and focus. Athletes drink caffeine before their games to improve game performance.

However, when you consume caffeine late in the day, it stimulates your nervous system and stops your body from naturally relaxing during the night. A study shows that consuming any form of caffeine up to six hours before going to bed can worsen your sleep quality.

Do not drink coffee, tea or soda six hours or less before bedtime. Caffeine can stay elevated in your blood for 6 to 8 hours.

Eliminating caffeine can improve your sleep quality.

Reduce Time of Naps

Short power naps are proven to be beneficial. They can boost your memory and enhance your creativity. However, long and irregular naps can negatively affect your sleep.

Sleeping during the day can confuse your internal body clock. Consequently, you may struggle to sleep during the night. One study reported that people feel sleepier during the day after taking multiple daytime naps.

Minimize your naps to less than 30 minutes. Taking a nap for less than 30 minutes can enhance your daytime brain function, but taking longer ones can affect your health.

Reducing the frequency and length of naps will minimize your risks of suffering from disrupted and poor-quality sleep.

Reduce Blue Light Exposure

Prolonged blue light exposure at night has detrimental effects on sleep. According to a study, nighttime light tricks your brain into thinking that it is still daylight. Light exposure, especially blue light, reduces hormones such as melatonin that help you relax and get more quality sleep.

Electronic devices such as computers, tablets, and smartphones emit blue light. Stop watching TV and using your electronic devices before going to bed. Turn off any bright light at least 2 hours before you sleep. Download an app like the flux to help block the blue light from your computer. There are also special eyeglasses you can use called blue-blockers.

Reducing blue light at night regulates your circadian rhythms that are responsible for brain activity, cell regeneration, and hormone production

Forget Your Stress and Worries

If you are bringing all the causes of stress from your job and daily life to bed with you, you will not sleep well. A survey reveals that stress may interfere with sleep, keeping people from getting the required sleep to stay healthy.

Minimize stress by maintaining the bedroom conducive to rest. Do not take your work materials or your phone. As much as you can, keep yourself from thinking about anything connected to your work or school while you are in your bedroom.

You can control your stress, worries, and anxieties by keeping a worry journal. Outside of the bedroom, write down the things that are bothering you so you can work on them and sleep better, instead of bringing them to bed.

Forgetting your stress and worries helps you sleep faster, improves sleep quality, and sleep better at night.

7 Ways To Minimize the Effects of Allergies and Help You Sleep Better at Night –

Allergies can be common, but it should be treated seriously. Other than causing itchy skin, runny nose, and sneezing, allergies can result in a sleep disorder like insomnia.

People with allergies are experiencing difficulties falling and staying asleep. 36% of people with allergic rhinitis are also reporting to have insomnia.

Do not let allergies interfere with you getting a good night’s sleep. Here are 7 ways you can follow to ensure that you can avoid allergies.

Have an Allergy Screening

Getting your skin tested for allergies is one of the best ways to identify both your allergies and your sensitivities.

According to the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology, over 50 million people in America have allergies. Knowing what your allergies are is an important first step to avoid allergies and insomnia. This test can be done either through a skin or blood testing.

An allergy test may result in redness, itching or swelling of the skin but the symptoms often last for a few hours or days. This test can help determine quickly if your allergies to pollen, food, drinks, medicine, dust mites, molds, animals or insect bites.

An allergy screening test can help you determine which objects cause you allergies and sensitivities that you should avoid immediately.

Eliminate Trigger Foods in Your Diet

Preventing to eat trigger foods in your diet is a way to prevent getting possible allergies and insomnia.

Once the allergy screening test identifies the foods and drinks that your body cannot tolerate, take them out of your diet. Start being attentive and read the labels of all the foods that you are about to consume to see if they contain ingredients that can trigger your allergy.

Getting rid of trigger foods in your daily meals can help prevent allergies that can result in insomnia.

Perform Nasal Irrigation

Nasal irrigation can help reduce the symptoms of allergies and other nasal problems that can hinder you from falling asleep.

Nasal irrigation can clear your nasal passages without making it dry or congested. The Nasal Saline Irrigation Facilities Control of Allergic Rhinitis by Topical Steroid in Children study showed that performing nasal irrigation at home made of mild saline solution regularly can help ease the symptoms of allergic rhinitis. It also helped reduce the usage of steroid nasal sprays.

Another study conducted by Rabago, Guerard, and Bukstein concluded that patients with rhinosinusitis and are experiencing symptoms of daily sinus, allergic rhinitis, polyposis or asthma can improve by adopting the use of hypertonic saline nasal irrigation into their routine.

Nasal irrigation cleans the membrane of your nasal passages which helps in reducing dust and molds in your nose. A swollen and clogged nose can develop sinus congestion that can lead to insomnia.

Use Steam Inhalation

Using steam inhalation can be an old-school solution, but it can cure clogged sinuses due to allergies.

Inhaling steam through your nose can clean the allergen build-ups that trigger the symptoms of allergies. Breathing in steam can also remove irritants such as dust, pollen, and fur that can cause the inflammation of the nasal passages.

A steam inhalation is an all-natural solution that can relieve allergy symptoms without worrying about the side-effects that you can get from other medicines. Using steam inhalation can help you breathe freely, reducing the risks of insomnia.

Use Essential Oils

Incorporating essential oils into your daily routine can minimize allergy symptoms. Pure essential oils are one of the natural allergy treatments that can fight inflammation and can also boost your immune system.

Shower with eucalyptus oil before you go to sleep by sprinkling a few drops of this oil into a washcloth with unscented soap to wash your entire body can help clear your sinuses. It can also soothe your throat.

A research by Juergens, Stober, and Vetter showed that mint oil contains anti-inflammatory effects that can reduce the symptoms of chronic inflammatory disorders like bronchial asthma and allergic rhinitis. Diffusing five to ten drops of peppermint oil can unclog your sinuses and soothe your itchy throat. It can also relax your nasal muscles.

Essential oils can detoxify the body. It also fights bacteria and infections that cause allergies. These oils can also relax your mind, helping you sleep faster.

Change Your Pet’s Sleeping Area

Relocate the sleeping area of your pets to avoid getting an allergic reaction.

There are people who are allergic to their pet’s fur, dead skin, and saliva without them even knowing. You might think that sneezing and itchy nose are just symptoms of colds instead of allergies.

Let your dog or cat have their own bed in the living room or a few rooms away from your bedroom. Do not hug or kiss your pet or if you do, always wash your hands with soapy water. Give your dog or cat a bath once a week to reduce airborne allergen.

Keeping your pet out of your room can limit allergens from causing allergies.

Cover The Mattress and Pillows

Keep your mattress and pillows covered to reduce your exposure to dust, dander, and allergens that can trigger your allergy.

Dust mites settle in carpets, upholstered furniture, pillows, mattresses, and soft bedding. A study showed that using covers made of microfine fibers can reduce a person’s exposure to dust mite allergens.

Bed linens, mattresses, and pillows should also be replaced regularly to prevent dust mites. The covers must be washed in hot water to kill insects, fungi, and bacteria.

Covering your mattresses and pillows can prevent dust mites and other allergens from getting into your airways and skin resulting in allergies.

A Sleep Expert Can Help With Your Allergies

Following these steps can help you deal with your allergy and insomnia problems. These 7 tips can help you stay away from allergies and get the quality sleep that you need. If you are still experiencing issues with either allergy or insomnia, consider going to a medical professional specializing in sleep disorders to get the proper diagnosis and treatments for allergies.

Risky Relationship Between Diabetes and Sleep Apnea: How Sleep Apnea And Diabetes Affect Each Other –

Which comes first, obstructed sleep apnea or diabetes? Having obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) can result in diabetes. Having diabetes can also lead to sleep apnea.

Obstructive sleep apnea affects 18 million people in the United States while 29 million people in the country have diabetes. Both OSA and diabetes are serious diseases that can result in life-threatening complications when left untreated.

How are sleep apnea and diabetes connected to each other? Here is the relationship between the two that can help you manage them in the long run.

Sleep Apnea Can Cause Diabetes

Sleep apnea can be a risk factor for diabetes. 1 in 3 patients with OSA can develop diabetes.

During a sleep apnea episode, your body struggles to breathe. When the body is low on oxygen, the brain sends messages to your body to breathe. Since obstructive sleep apnea is blocking the airway, your body releases stress hormones that can increase your blood glucose levels.

This sleep disorder also causes a pause in your breathing as you sleep. An episode can lead to a cut off in the body’s air supply for ten seconds or longer. This can increase your blood’s carbon dioxide levels leading to insulin resistance.

Diabetes occurs when your cells do not properly use insulin or your body does not produce enough insulin. When insulin is not properly used in your body, high blood sugar levels start to build up resulting in diabetes.

Sleep apnea can lead to diabetes because of the increase in blood sugar levels, insulin resistance, and lack of insulin in the body.

Diabetes Can Lead to Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Diabetes can result in obstructive sleep apnea. According to the Risk of Obstructive Sleep Apnea in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus study, patients who have type 2 diabetes have 50/50 chances of having sleep apnea. People with Type 2 diabetes are often obese and have a lot of visceral fat.

Visceral fats are the fats in the body that surrounds your organs. Having extra visceral fats in the body can cause your neck and throat tissues to block the airway, resulting in an obstructive sleep apnea episode.

Diabetes causes the occurrence of extra visceral fats in your body. This can cause the blockage of the airway leading to obstructive sleep apnea.

CPAP Can Manage Sleep Apnea and Diabetes

Obstructive sleep apnea and diabetes caused by OSA can be managed by using continuous positive airway pressure or CPAP machines.

CPAP is a treatment that keeps your airway open by using mild air pressure. Using a CPAP machine is a crucial tool in managing OSA while you sleep.

A study conducted by researchers from the University of Chicago entitled Eight Hours of Nightly Continuous Positive Airway Pressure Treatment of Obstructive Sleep Apnea Improves Glucose Metabolism in Patients with Prediabetes. A Randomized Controlled Trial showed that using a CPAP machine for 8 hours every night for two weeks helped manage the glucose metabolism of people diagnosed with pre-diabetes and OSA.

Using CPAP machines as a cure for sleep apnea helped people to breathe better as they sleep, resulting in a full night’s rest.

People with sleep apnea and diabetes should be vigilant. If you notice diabetes or sleep apnea symptoms, diagnosis at a healthcare facility is a must. Seek the help of a medical professional, specializing in sleep disorders, to identify and treat your condition.