Health, Wealth, Wisdom & Fun

Link: http://www.thewileyprotocol.com

History tells us that the diseases of civilization all hit hard after the Industrial Revolution when electricity gave us inexpensive artificial light. It goes to demonstrate that the disaster of this country's health situation had three quarters of a century to develop.

Could the deprivation of sleep be ruining the endocrine clock that governs weight gain? Does the amount of time you sleep affect how much you eat? This may surprise you. Indeed. The prescription for better health is sleep, and it's free.

What T.S. Wiley tells us in her book "Lights Out: Sleep Sugar and Survival" is that the world is just too bright these days. That and the fact that people just don't get sufficient sleep, either. And because of this deficiency of sleep, people get illnesses like Type II diabetes as they get older.

For years, people have gone back and forth about the issue of making up for lost sleep. While it seems like our bodies to catch up by having us sleep more soundly the next night, recent study from Northwestern University supports my theory revealed in Lights Out:

In the research conducted by nations that have a functioning part ALL of the time, they discovered that when animals constantly miss adequate amounts of sleep, they no longer attempt to compensate, even if the lack of sleep rises. This research is the first to show that persistent partial sleep deprivation negatively affects an animal's power to make up for lost sleep. A transcript of the study's results were published not so long ago by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

To know more about the cause, take a closer look at the process of evolution and the circadian rhythm. This rhythm is about a 24-hour rhythm in the physiological functions of all living organisms (animals, plants, fungi and cyanobacteria.). The term circadian literally translates to "around" for "circa" and "day" for "dies" and was made by Franz Halberg. Chronobiology, on the other hand, is the real study of rhythms based on times, like weeks, months, or years. In the subject of circadian rhythms, this is influenced and regulated by external factors from the sun (sunrise, sunset) and the weather.

It is interesting to observe that women over forties are more likely to experience more sleepless nights. One reason could be the fact that they are about to experience menopause, but this trend of sleeplessness will probably go on as long as they live.

There are answers. There are natural supplements like melatonin tablets which you can buy at any Trader Joe's and ingest an hour or so before bedtime. The "recommended dosage" is one tablet every hour after sunset as the seasons dictate. As a last recourse try Tylenol PM for three days and go for a walk outside barefoot at dawn and dusk to readjust your internal sleeping clock.

Don't let children or pets wake you up at night if you can manage it. Make sure your bedroom is dark. That means lights out. Also, install a dark curtain to keep out even the moonlight from outside. Don't keep your television or PC inside in your bedroom, either. Even the lights from your digital clock should face away from you. Plus you won't need to get up and go to the bathroom during the night if you stop drinking liquid beverages at 6PM.

Attempt to sleep for a minimum of nine hours or more of uninterrupted sleep every night. Your own bedroom can be the best anti-aging clinic in town. Try it, and your family and friends might just query you who your plastic surgeon is.