Are Your Summer Habits Contributing to Early Death?
© By Lena Sanchez
 
Because of the sunshine and longer days we feel good therefore we do more. That by itself isn't bad! It's the consistent habit of too much and/or too little of necessary habits that is contributing to early death of so many!

Our good health relies on so many good health habits, but one of the most important is SLEEP! The most overlooked and underdone of any habit for the majority. Most especially in the summer months!

Summer days are long and people simply tend to overdo in either vacationing, yard work or simply having a good time. People tend to take all they can get with the attitude of it won't last if I don't take advantage now? The most lacking during the summer and creates health problems and overlooked by most health practitioners, is sleep!

Overlooked by the medical profession as well. A doctor seldom ever asks "How much sleep do you get nightly?"
 
The lack of sleep contributes to the immune system break down, opening the body up to the next germ or virus that comes through the air to grab you. Sleep deprivation also sets you up for heart disease and ultimately an early death. Sleep deprivation causes a huge number of accidents and death on the roads.
 
Okay, so one or two sleepless nights will not make a big difference nor will it result in severe problems. But it could still result in your death or the death of an innocent unknown person. According to highway accident investigators, the lack of sleep in individuals is resulting in more than 100,000 car accidents a year! This has been documented in police report after police report!
 
I just had a thought; Maybe we should outlaw driving with less than seven hours sleep a night, after all guns don't kill as many people yet people are fighting to outlaw them.
 
Loss of sleep results in a foggy memory, slows reaction time and makes concentration impossible as well as lowering your immune system's ability to react when needed. Not to mention that too little sleep creates the inability to tolerate others, otherwise known as a short temper.
 
What happens when we sleep?
 
We go through five stages of sleep!

Stage one as a phase in and out of sleep, usually called drowsiness.
Stage two is a light sleep where muscles and body starts to relax.
Stage three and four is the deep sleep phase. The time for healthy restorative sleep where the brain and heart slow to a resting phase and this stage takes up 50% of sleeping time, when the right amount of hours are obtained.
Stage five is the time when dreaming takes place and the waking phase of sleep and very necessary to the brain and body.
 
In a study at the Medical College of Wisconsin, the study found some very disturbing information about sleep! She found that rats deprived of sleep over a three-week period resulted in intestinal bacteria spreading into the blood stream and organs of the body making the rats ill. That one thing can result in death! "That's worrying because their basic biological needs are a lot like ours," says the study leader Carol Everson.
 
According to other sleep studies done at UCLA, the deep sleep stage is where our blood pressure falls, the heart rate slows and blood vessels relax making it easier for blood to flow through our body giving our heart a much needed rest. As soon as we fall asleep the hormones that regulate the sympathetic nervous system start to diminish. But in sleep deprived people, Catecholamine levels actually climb, raising blood pressure making the heart work harder than normal. This setting a sleep deprived person up for very serious consequences in the end.
 
The basic amount of sleep needed in an individual is seven to nine hours of sleep. You may think you are getting enough sleep but are you?
 
If the following is occurring;

*        Excessive tiredness?
*         Loud snoring
*         Morning headaches
*         Irritability
*         Reduced attention and concentration
*         Narcolepsy - brief attacks of deep sleep during the day
*         Sleep Walking (Somnambulism)
*         Sudden jerky leg movements that awaken you
*         Teeth grinding at night
*         Breathing cessation while asleep called sleep apnea
~Sleep apnea (cessation of sleep) requires medical attention to determine if you are getting too much or too little sleep.
 
If the above problems are occurring it may simply require some changes in your afternoon and evening habits, if you are not pushing your summer hours to create these problems then you need to look further for causes... Start looking at your diet and supplements as eating fast, prepackaged, processed foods will deprive your body of nutrients. Don't exercise too close to bedtime. Make sure your bedroom is quiet and has no light in it, as sleeping with lights in a room cause interruptions in the sleep pattern you may never even be aware of. Curb the afternoon and evening coffee, cola, tea and alcohol. These habits setup the sleep depriving mechanisms resulting in you getting insufficient sleep. Yes, alcohol will make you get to sleep but also will not allow you to sleep the length of time your body requires. If it isn't your diet, you're bedroom is dark and quiet and you are getting sufficient minerals and vitamins daily but still having trouble sleeping go for the natural herbal sleep inducers, not chemicals, for a while until your body's clock become reset. Natural Sleep Herbs can be taken to improve and guarantee a great nights rest and sleep.
 
Having fibromyalgia for more than 30 years has necessitated me using a sleep aid nightly. First the doctors gave me the drug Amitryptline that started out with 25mg at bedtime and over the years graduated up to 175mg. Yes, it made me sleep through the night but required more and more and created morning grogginess yet still waking with pain that required several hours to become myself again. I also found out it hampered other body organs from working as they should and contributed to a multitude of other health issues I had experienced through those year... I left that nightly regimen in 1995 for an herbal compound that does not leave me drowsy, groggy and allows me to awake and be myself.
 
My naturopath friend explained to me that the particular formula I take shortens the first two sleep stages and puts me into the deep sleep phase faster that produces the slowing of the heart and lowering the blood pressure and gives me that needed rest. Get your rest and avoid dangers created by insufficient sleep is imperative to your continuing good health!
 
What I must take due to those years of Fibromyalgia and a necessity for me; Deep Sleep Herbal Formula a combination of several sleep inducing adrenal gland healing herbs that can be found online click here

WARNING: (Never stop a prescription you've taken for a long period of time without PROPER supervision. Amitryptline and other antidepressants given for sleep inducing or other reasons are habit forming and do produce withdrawals that are life threatening if stopped suddenly without other things in place.)