Author: Jeanne Sager

Skip The Babysitter: Date Nights That The Whole Family Will Enjoy

Post author By Jeanne Sager
Post date November 15, 2017

When was the last time you had a date night? If you’re laughing so hard right now you’re wondering if you’ll pee your pants, you’re in good company. In one recent survey by Care.com, 85 percent of parents said they wished they had more date nights. A third of parents even confessed they haven’t been out with their partner in more than six months (that’s half a year, y’all!).
With the holidays speeding toward us like the Polar Express, shelling out for a babysitter might not be in the cards.
And that could be good news. No really—hear us out.
An increasing number of studies show that kids learn healthy relationships by watching how their parents relate to one another. So it only stands to reason that kids could learn a little something good about dating by tagging along on your date night!
But how can date night be an actual date night with the kids screaming “Ewwww!” every time you give your partner a peck on the lips? Let’s dive in, shall we?

Stargazing

Grab a blanket, load up a star guide on your phone (Night Sky is free for iOS and Android), and head outdoors to help the kids find the Big Dipper. An evening of stargazing means cuddling under a blanket for the parents (and sneaking kisses in the dark without the kids noticing!) while your kids learn about the night sky. Hand over the star map, and let them lead the way.

Movie Marathon

Pick a movie series or theme with a ton of options or let the whole family vote. Pop the popcorn, flip off the lights, and get ready to cuddle on the couch with your honey with your favorite people all around you. If you have younger kids especially, family bonding will make way for couple time as the kids give in to exhaustion. Stay up to watch the last movie…or move to the bedroom. It’s up to you.

Test Drive a Car

No, you don’t have to buy a new car. You just have to express interest in buying it. Swear the kids to secrecy (or better yet, don’t let them in on the game until later), and hit a dealership for some adventure. The kids will have fun testing out all the backseat gadgets while you get to hold hands in the front. Bonus: an adventure to talk about for weeks (or even months).

Bowling

Hit the town bowling alley and ask for separate lanes! While the kids battle each other (and enjoy the benefit of gutter guards), you can challenge your partner to see who’s the best bowler. Remember to stock your pocket with quarters if your kids are old enough so you can let them play a few games in the arcade while you get quality time with your SO.

Candlelight Dinner

Let’s face it: Even the frozen pizza you threw in the toaster oven and popped on paper plates is romantic when there are candles. Tell Alexa to play some of the crooners, ask the kids to turn off the light switch, and get ready to make googly eyes at your honey while the kids giggle in the semi-darkness..

Laser Tag

Grab a Groupon for the local fun center and prepare to partner with your date in a battle against the kids. While you’re whispering strategy in a corner, your kids will be trying to take you out. Leave no man (or woman) behind.

Volunteer as a Family

The family that volunteers together doesn’t just stick together. They raise kind, generous kids who give back to their community together. Ask the volunteer coordinator for jobs that the kids can do without you hovering, and you might even score some semi-alone time with your partner doing something that will make you both feel good. (Hey now, you know what we mean, you dirty mind!).

Tags organic

Nutrition x Advice

Is Coffee Good For You? Here’s What The Research Says

Post author By Jeanne Sager
Post date November 13, 2017

Dunkin’ Donuts likes to tell us that America runs on Dunkin’, but let’s face it: Americans will run on any old coffee. An estimated 54 percent of us over the age of 18 drink at least one cup daily, and most coffee drinkers are sucking down at least three cups of joe each day.
Coffee consumption is a $40 billion business, according to a 2010 report from the National Coffee Association, but what are we really drinking? And is coffee good for you, or are the side effects outweighing that sweet caffeinated boost?

What is coffee, anyway?

There’s an old dad joke that coffee is a bean, so it’s a good way to get your vegetables. Technically, coffee does come from a coffee bean, but the bean part of that phrase is a bit of a misnomer. Coffee beans are really seeds from the coffee cherry, which grows on the flowering coffee fruit tree. So in reality, coffee is a fruit product.
The National Coffee Association traces the origin of our favorite pick-me-up beverage back to ancient times, when a goat herder named Kaldi supposedly noticed that his goats were eating “berries” from a particular tree and showing signs of high energy after their snacking.
The berries were, of course, what we now know as coffee cherries, and whether the legend is true or not, it’s clear that at some point in history, people started looking to coffee beans as a means for getting caffeine into their exhausted bodies. By the 15th century, coffee was a tradeable good on the Arabian peninsula, with the Turkish word kahve and the Arabic word qahweh eventually giving rise to the English coffee.
The drink had hopped continents to Europe by the 17th century and came across the Atlantic shortly thereafter, making its way to America thanks to the help of the British sometime in the 1600s. The infamous tea tax that prompted the Boston Tea Party (and eventually the American Revolutionary War) buoyed coffee’s popularity in America and got us hooked on java. That’s when coffee consumption became as much your patriotic duty as means of fight fatigue, and a nation of coffee drinkers was born.
Of course, the fact that coffee will wake you up in the morning didn’t exactly hurt in making coffee our go-to beverage.
“The main active compound in coffee is caffeine, which stimulates the central nervous system and makes us more alert,” explains registered dietitian Travis King.
And just one cup of coffee can pack a whole lot of caffeine. A venti (20 oz) of Starbucks’ Blonde Roast boasts 475 milligrams of caffeine, whereas a standard Green Mountain Keurig K-Cup will infuse 75 milligrams of caffeine into just eight ounces of brew.
There’s no question that we love the jolt that we get from coffee, but what is all our coffee consumption doing to our bodies?

Is coffee good for you?

If you go by the constantly changing headlines, coffee can do a whole lot of harm—or a whole lot of good—to the body.
A study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine just this past August, for example, suggests that coffee drinkers live longer than people who stick with tea or water. Funded by the National Cancer Institute, the researchers looked at more than 180,000 American adults ages 45 to 75 and their coffee drinking habits. They then looked at mortality statistics, including deaths due to heart disease, cancer, respiratory disease, stroke, diabetes, and kidney disease. Their conclusion? “Higher consumption of coffee was associated with lower risk for death in African Americans, Japanese Americans, Latinos, and whites.”
Another study, also published in the Annals of Internal Medicine and funded by the European Commission Directorate-General for Health and Consumers and International Agency for Research on Cancer, took a look at the impact of coffee drinking by more than half a million Europeans in 10 different countries.
The researchers considered everything from liver function to inflammation and metabolic health, splitting up men and women to see if coffee had different effects based on gender. In the end, they came up with similar results: “Coffee drinking was associated with reduced risk for death from various causes.”
So coffee is a magical elixir that will save—or at least extend—your life, right?
Not so fast.
“It’s been called a wonder drug, and it’s been called a carcinogen,” says Ruth Kava, PhD, RD, a senior nutrition fellow at the American Council of Science and Health. “It’s all over the map.”
But the answer lies somewhere in between, and one of the major issues with caffeine research and data is how studies are performed. Most coffee studies are retrospective, Kava tells HealthyWay. That means that people are being asked to report their past activities—for example, how much coffee they drink—to researchers after the fact.
“Maybe you’re going to remember that accurately, maybe you’re not,” Kava points out. What’s more, retrospective studies can be skewed by a participant’s fear that the researcher will judge their answers, meaning they may under- or overreport their coffee consumption.
That makes all of the results that claim to show coffee is good for you a mixed bag. Kava’s analysis of all the studies out there?
Coffee isn’t magic, but it does have its benefits, at least when it comes to the caffeine portion of the equation. Being alert, of course, is a good thing. It means we have better reaction times, we’re more vigilant, and we’re usually better able to perform our day-to-day tasks. A registered dietitian herself, Kava drinks coffee in the morning as a wake up, as do 43 percent of Americans who turn to caffeine to combat “daytime sleepiness.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gives limited caffeine intake the rubber stamp. Although there is no official guideline from any federal agency on how much coffee to drink for health, the FDA espouses adult consumption of up to 400 milligrams of caffeine a day “as an amount not generally associated with dangerous, negative effects.” If you’re constantly hitting the coffee cart at work, there’s good news here: 400 milligrams is equal to about four or five cups (as in measuring cups—not paper cups or mug refills) of coffee per day.
Even the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) has given pregnant women leave to consume some coffee during their pregnancies. In a committee opinion issued in 2010, the OB-GYN group noted, “Moderate caffeine consumption (less than 200 mg per day) does not appear to be a major contributing factor in miscarriage or preterm birth.”
And while the doctors did note that caffeine can cross the placenta to the baby, the official opinion states that the crossover “does not cause a decrease in uterine blood flow or fetal oxygenation.” Pregnant women are advised to speak directly with their medical caregivers before consuming caffeine, but the ACOG leaves the door open for a bit of java consumption during pregnancy.
Even if you’re not pregnant, the amount of coffee you should drink (or whether you should consume any at all) should come down to a talk with your medical practitioner, but Kava is quick to advise that women not jump on the coffee bandwagon hoping it will cure them of their ills.
“For the average, relatively healthy adult, moderate consumption is not going to hurt you, but it’s not going to cure all your ailments,” she says.

Is coffee bad for you?

Did you notice Kava said coffee consumption is okay for the average, relatively healthy adult? The key word here is adult. Even the doctors who say coffee is okay to drink (and that it can give you a much-needed wake-up call in the morning) are adamant that coffee is likely bad for children.
Almost three-quarters of kids consume caffeinated beverages every day, according to a study published by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), with energy drinks and coffee leading the pack in terms of kids’ caffeinated beverages of choice. But if you have a child at home who is begging you to just let them tag along on the next Starbucks trip because “Everyone else is,” it’s okay to stand firm, even if you’re a coffee drinker yourself.
According to the AAP, the risks of coffee (and other caffeinated beverages) to kids is limited, but so far, studies on coffee and caffeine intake have largely focused on adults. The AAP study does report cases of caffeine toxicity and deaths, as well as the risk of tachycardia, arrhythmia, hypertension, hyperactivity, anxiety, and increased blood sugar concentrations as reasons kids should not drink coffee or other caffeinated beverages.
And it isn’t just kids who can suffer from coffee’s side effects—or the side effects from whatever’s added to your coffee.
“The antioxidants in coffee have been linked to a decreased risk of type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, myocardial infarction, and cirrhosis,” says Matthew Kunar, DO, a family practitioner with OhioHealth Primary Care Physicians. “However, there is some evidence that shows adding sugar and non-dairy creamer to your coffee may decrease the antioxidant effects.”
Those additives in coffee can add up, Kava points out. If you’re sweetening your coffee with spoonfuls of sugar, you might want to take a look at just how much you’re increasing your sugar consumption, because doing so can be linked to obesity, heart disease, and more.
The idea that coffee consumption should be limited to less than 400 milligrams of caffeine, per the FDA guidelines, is also not to be ignored. If nothing else, limiting your coffee intake could help you sleep better. Studies have found that the fatigue-fighting benefits of caffeine end up costing us when we drink too much coffee (or drink it too close to bedtime), basically creating a vicious cycle of being tired, drinking coffee to combat it, struggling to sleep, being tired, and going for another pour.
“Caffeine, especially within four to six hours of sleep, can cause insomnia, so I usually advise against an afternoon cup of coffee if it’s interfering with sleep quality,” King points out.
Depending on how much you drink, or how your body reacts, the stimulating effects of caffeine can also be considered a drawback.
“Everyone’s response to caffeine is different, so some people will feel more anxious, jittery, and have a rise in blood pressure from a small amount of coffee,” King explains. If you’re feeling shaky or overstimulated, it’s suggested you cut back on your intake—or cut it out of your life entirely.
It’s important to note that not all coffee-beverages are created equal. A study conducted by researchers at the Second University of Naples’ Department of Experimental Medicine found that espresso increased parasympathetic nervous system activity in healthy young people, but regular coffee didn’t. Clearly your next coffee shop order should be guided by your own health and wellness goals.
The good news? Many of studies that slam coffee as something harmful are much like those that declare it a wonder drug, Kava says. They’re retrospective or just plain inconclusive.
“It’s really kind of a mishmash of studies,” she points out.

The Bottom Line

While grabbing a coffee is a trendy way of socializing and can feel like an indulgent pick-me-up, coffee drinking also manages to get a bad rap. Despite the mixed messages on our relationship with the beloved bean, at the end of the day, most doctors give coffee the thumbs up, at least when you stick to a few cups a day rather than slurping it down from dawn to dusk.
As Kava points out, “You can drink too much of anything!”
If you’re worried about how much coffee you drink, you may want to talk to your doctor about it. They can help you devise a plan to kick a caffeine habit that’s gone too far without having adverse withdrawal effects. And if you’re convinced you need to go it alone, don’t be too hasty.
“I wouldn’t recommend trying to quit cold turkey,” warns Trude Brinley, a registered dietitian at OhioHealth Grady Memorial Hospital. “That can lead to severe headaches!”
Instead, she suggests switching to half-caff beverages—a blend of regular and decaf coffee—or ordering a small cup rather than the large. “Then start taking it down little by little,” she says.
Replacing coffee with water will definitely make your doctor happy (how often do we hear how much we need to hydrate?) Tea may be another obvious alternative, but be aware: Teas often have caffeine in them as well, unless you opt for completely herbal varieties. That said, they are a good middle ground between coffee and going caffeine-free, if that’s what you need.
“Teas, especially green teas, are associated with a lot of the benefits of coffee with a more moderate dose of caffeine, so some people may not experience as strong negative side effects with tea,” King says. “Other infused drinks, like guayusa and yerba mate, are becoming more popular as sources of caffeine that are claimed to have a variety of benefits, but these haven’t been researched as extensively, so take health claims with a grain of salt.”

Tags Featured, search

Happy Home Lifestyle

6 Essential Oil Blends You Need To Cozy Your Home Up For Fall

Post author By Jeanne Sager
Post date November 13, 2017

Burning scented candles has long been the way to do aromatherapy on a budget. But with everyone and your mother pushing essential oils on Facebook and rumors that candles may or may not be hazardous to your health, if you’re looking to make the switch, now might be the perfect time.
Whether aromatherapy has medicinal benefits is still up for debate in the scientific community, but there is no question that we are affected by the scents around us. So whether you’re looking for the calming benefits of a house that’s full of good smells or just want to encounter some delicious scents when you walk back in the door after a long day, here are some recipes you may want to play with this fall:

1. Frankincense, Patchouli, Lavender, and Rosemary

The outside air isn’t the only thing that’s crisp in autumn! Rosemary adds freshness to this fall brew for the same sort of pick-me-up you get when you take a walk on a fall afternoon. Patchouli is said to have mood-boosting properties too, making this mix a must when you’re stuck at home and want to feel good about it.

2. Cinnamon, Clove, and Nutmeg

Hello pumpkin pie. No need to turn on the oven with this mix! These oils are all reminiscent of the kitchen, but you don’t have to whip up any baked goods to spread the smell throughout the house. Heck, if you want to put your diffuser in the bathroom to make things smell divine, we won’t judge.

3. Orange, Lime, and Sage

Sage isn’t just a thing you sprinkle in your stuffing. The sage and citrus oil mix is a popular blend in soaps and lotions for good reason. The freshness of the citrus cuts through the strong herbal scent for a smell that’s clean and invigorating.

4. Nutmeg, Orange, Clove, Lemon, Cinnamon, Eucalyptus Radiata, and Rosemary

That’s a whole lot of scents, we know. But the orange and lemon bring the citrusy scent that makes a home smell fresh and clean into a mix that’s otherwise earthy and reminiscent of a walk through the local nursery.

5. Orange, Cinnamon Bark, Clove, Vanilla, and Nutmeg

Hello holiday cheer! Remember when your mom used to boil the orange peels on the stovetop with a few dashes of this and sprinkles of that? Now you can mix the whole thing up in a diffuser and spread the smell of the holidays throughout your house. No one has to know you didn’t have time to bake this year!

6. Lavender and Cedar Wood

People have been sprinkling lavender on their pillows and packing clothes in cedar chests for decades (if not longer), so these scents tend to bring us back to childhood. Add this mix to your diffuser and set it up in your bedroom for a pleasant trip off to dreamland.

Tags organic

Conscious Beauty Lifestyle

Want Healthier Nails? Here’s What You Need To Know

Post author By Jeanne Sager
Post date November 10, 2017

How far into fall do you get before your hands start to look like something Disney would do to the evil stepmother? The colder (and drier) the air gets, the more my hands scream for me to pay attention to them.
From the cuticles I’ve neglected while running myself ragged during the summer to the nails I’ve been using to dig in the sand and garden dirt, this is the time of year when my hands start screaming for a detox.
Care to join me? Here are some of the best ways to bring your nails, cuticles, and the rest of your hands back from the front lines.

Start with the basics.

Got [linkbuilder id=”6448″ text=”yellow nails”]? Yup, you, me and everyone else who opted out of using that base coat of nail polish. Who has all that drying time to waste on a coat that no one will even see? But a base coat won’t just protect you from polish staining your nails. It can actually make your manicure last longer.

Where to start?

Julep’s Oxygen base coat is a little pricey, but you want something free of toxins this close to your nails, and Julep’s products are free from chemicals that are often found in other polishes, such as formaldehyde, formaldehyde resin, toluene, dibutyl phthalate (DBP), and camphor.
OPI Start to Finish doubles as a base coat and a top coat, offering a pretty good bang for your buck.

Take a tip from your haircare.

Moroccan oil and coconut oil don’t just take care of your flyaways. Oils have surged in popularity for use on our hair, and it turns out they provide moisture for our hands too.
If you have dry cuticles (and who doesn’t this time of year?), add a drop of oil on each and rub it in. Don’t forget the nail itself. Even though we tend to think of them as dead, the nail is connected to living tissue—hence why they continue to grow—and the American Academy of Dermatologists says that nails need moisture too.

Remove your acetone remover.

Acetone makes fast work of old polish, but while it’s stripping your nails of that power red, it’s also stripping your body’s natural oils. Substitute a non-acetone remover (many brands offer both varieties) in its place for a healthier alternative. It will take more elbow grease to get the polish off, but your cuticles will thank you.
Zoya Remove + won’t just strip the polish, it moisturizes your nails too. And it’s reasonably priced.
Or grab an old standby! Cutex has a budget-friendly, acetone-free option.

Drink more.

Water, that is. Women are supposed be getting about 91 ounces (that’s 2.7 liters) of water a day, whether it’s in the form of plain water or via the foods and other beverages we consume. But the average adult drinks less than half of that every day.
That’s not good for your body, and it’s not good for your nails either. Moisture in means moisture fed to your fingers and toes, and well…you know how this works. Get a water bottle. Start drinking.

Polish your polish collection.

Ever peeked at the ingredient list on a bottle of nail polish and wondered how to pronounce half of those things? Scientists are still sorting out whether all of those chemicals are bad for our bodies. But while they’re doing the digging, you can put your nails on a toxin-free diet. The watchdog non-profit Environmental Working Group regularly reviews beauty products and rates their safety based on the ingredients. Check out their list to find toxin-free polishes.
Some of our favorite nontoxic nail polishes are Smith & Cult, Butter London, Pacifica 7 Free, Deborah Lippmann, and Zoya.

Tags Featured, organic

Health x Body Wellbeing

Sleep Deprivation: How It Impacts Your Body And What You Can Do About It

Post author By Jeanne Sager
Post date November 8, 2017

When was the last time you had a good night’s sleep? If you can’t remember, don’t push yourself. You’re probably already feeling the effects of sleep deprivation, and your body may be doing just about all it can to stay awake and read this.
We all have days like this…weeks like this…sometimes even months like this! If you’re a mom, you can count on losing as much as six months of sleep during the first 24 months of your child’s life. Yes, you read that right.
Sixty percent of parents get just 3.25 hours or less sleep every night when their kids are 24 months or younger, and 10 percent of parents get a total of 2.5 hours of continuous sleep per night during their child’s first two years of life.
But you don’t have to have kids to be struggling to prop your eyelids open. If you work as a home health aide, lawyer, police officer, physician, paramedic, economist, or social worker, you’re among the most sleep-deprived employees in America and aside from that, women are almost twice as likely as men to report insomnia and other symptoms of sleep deprivation.
If you’re chugging down a cup of coffee and trying to keep your eyes open, you’re not alone. But you do need help!
Here’s how to power through that lack of sleep and catch some ZZZs.

How much sleep do you really need?

You know how much sleep you’re managing to get a night, but do you know how much you really need to leave exhaustion behind? Just as our bodies change as we age, so does the amount of sleep we need to recharge them.
The National Sleep Foundation recommends that adults age 18 to 64 get seven to nine hours of sleep every single night. Our nighttime needs drop around age 65, although not by much. Seniors are still told to get between seven and eight hours of sleep each night.
Of course, that’s all easier said than done, and there aren’t many Americans who are heeding the advice of the National Sleep Foundation.
Although people in rural and suburban areas tend to get better sleep than people who live in big cities, most of us fall asleep sometime after 10:30 p.m., according to data from Jawbone’s fitness trackers. And even with those late bedtimes, more than half of Americans are awake by 6:30 the following morning.
If you manage to be one of the people who conks out at 10:30 p.m. and makes it all the way until 6:30 a.m., the math indicates you’re probably doing okay.
But if you’re snorting at the idea that your life could shut down long enough for you to be one of the few, well, welcome to the club. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just one out of three Americans actually gets what the doctor orders in terms of shuteye. The rest of us are running around fueled by coffee and trying desperately to get more done in less time so we can get to bed earlier each night.
While we’re in good company, the bad news is that depriving ourselves of a full night’s sleep is doing a number on our bodies. It stands to reason that if sleep is part of a healthy routine, lack of sleep can affect our health, and the science backs up common sense on this one.
“If you get a good, full night of sleep daily, then you’re healthy and alert,” says Benjamin Smarr, PhD, Reverie sleep advisory board member and professor of neurobiology and behavior at University of California, Berkeley. “The more disrupted your sleep is over time, the more unhealthy you are likely to become. Between these extremes, there is a sliding scale of health and cognitive deficits that build up over time.”
“But the long and short of it is, every part of you needs sleep—eating, digesting, playing, thinking, socializing, healing, remembering,” Smarr says. “Sleep is necessary for all this and anything else you do as a functioning human being. When you don’t get good sleep, these normal and necessary habits suffer.”
That can mean simple things such as concentration and the ability to do well at whatever you do—work, workouts, parenting, enjoying a good read. On the extreme end, though, lack of sleep has been tied to an inability to process glucose, which increases your diabetes risk, as well as a heightened risk of coronary artery disease.

Are you sleep deprived?

The term sleep deprivation is bandied around a lot both by medical practitioners and those of us who get a kick out of sharing funny GIFs about coffee on social media. But what does it actually mean to be sleep deprived? Is there a number of hours of sleep you can get that cuts you out of the sleep-disordered crowd?
Not exactly.
From a technical perspective, deprivation is simply withholding something from someone’s possession—even if, in the case of sleep, it’s our own. From a medical perspective, sleep deprivation is not a diagnosis, nor is there an exact number of hours of sleep that doctors look for when reviewing a potential case.
However, sleep deprivation is a term that doctors use, and it’s one they take seriously because of the potential for other health conditions to be associated with it.
“There is not a ‘clinical’ definition per se, however we divide sleep deprivation into two categories,” explains Kimberly Fenn, PhD, an associate professor of psychology at Michigan State University. “Sleep deprivation refers to one or more nights in which an individual obtains no sleep. This is somewhat rare in the population.”
“In contrast, acute sleep restriction refers to partial sleep loss that occurs across several nights,” Fenn notes. “This occurs any time an individual obtains less than seven hours of sleep per night and is quite common in society.”
While being tired is an obvious sign that you might be sleep deprived, it turns out that not feeling tired is one too.
“If you don’t sleep all night, your body hasn’t healed or refreshed, so your brain functions similarly to how it would when you’re legally drunk,” Smarr explains. “But in the morning, your circadian sleep drive runs out, causing your circadian clock to switch to promoting wakefulness—meaning you feel like you get a second wind. This wide awake yet unrested state is when many people have accidents because they overcompensate for what their body and mind can actually handle. In fact, far more harm is done annually from sleep deprived driving than actual drunk driving!”

What’s really going on?

Typical sleep deprivation can have a number of causes.
“Typically, people become sleep deprived because of external factors (e.g., a project at work, a trauma such as a loss of a loved one, etc.),” Fenn says.
In the U.S. Navy, for example, sailors have long been held to “five and dimes,” a system by which they were limited to no more than five hours of sleep at a clip. It’s a system that’s being replaced with new sleep mandates issued by the military this year to address sleep deprivation among our troops.
It’s not just extreme military practices that are being questioned. There is growing criticism of employers that hold employees to schedules that limit sleep. Doctors have long worked shifts that can go on for days (literally) during their residency and internships, grabbing catnaps in on-call rooms as a means to refuel their bodies. Truckers are known to sleep for similarly few hours, sometimes faking log books and pushing themselves with the help of caffeinated beverages (and other stimulants) to stay awake and keep driving so they can meet sometimes unreasonable deadlines.
Intensive studies of the practice have likened the effects of sleep deprivation caused by these sorts of shifts to the effects of alcohol on the body, and groups such as the Institute of Medicine have called for shift reductions to improve not only the health of employees but also protect the people with whom they interact.
Of course, sleep deprivation isn’t always caused by grueling hours on the job. Sometimes you’re at home, you’ve got nine hours set aside for a good night’s sleep, you’re lying in bed, and…nothing’s happening. Your body (and mind) refuse to shut down.
“If an individual typically spends eight hours in bed but can only sleep for a fraction of this, then that likely indicates that s/he is suffering from some form of insomnia,” Fenn says. “Similarly, if an individual habitually sleeps for seven to eight hours but does not feel rested and suffers from excessive daytime sleepiness , then this might indicate an underlying problem with their sleep, e.g., the individual may suffer from sleep apnea, etc.”
Another issue that causes sleep deprivation? Parents of young kids and caregivers of the elderly or sick can find themselves unable to grab quality sleep, not because they don’t want to sleep but because the people for whom they are caring require around-the-clock help.
Caregivers may get sleep, but if it’s in short bursts of time—in between the baby’s cries or calls for help from an ailing loved one—it is often non-restorative. Scientists posit that short stints of sleep don’t allow the body to get enough rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, the sleep stage linked to forming memories and learning.
“There are four stages of sleep—stage 1, stage 2, stage 3, and REM,” Fenn explains. “Stages differ dramatically in a number of ways, primarily based on neural activity.”
REM sleep typically doesn’t take over until you’re at least an hour into sleeping, and your body can cycle in and out of it. But if your sleep is interrupted, REM sleep is harder to achieve, which—in turn—affects your memory and your ability to concentrate.

Break the cycle.

If your sleep deprivation can be linked specifically to a crying baby who is keeping you up or a work schedule that doesn’t allow time for sleep, you might feel like there’s no end in sight.
But there’s one piece of good news that’s worth clinging to in these dark times: It will get better.
“If an individual is sleep deprived due to environmental factors such as this, they are typically short term, and normal sleep patterns will resume when the environmental stress subsides,” Fenn says.
In other words, when the baby starts sleeping longer through the night or your schedule changes, you will be able to get back to your old routine. But if you can’t make an adjustment on your own or can’t pinpoint the root cause of your sleeplessness, it’s important to seek medical care.
A healthcare provider will likely ask that you start what’s known as a sleep diary to help get a sense of just how much you are (or aren’t) sleeping and other factors that may be affecting your sleep, such as amount of light and noise. They may hand you a sleep diary in the office, or you can download one for free from the internet. A sleep diary is filled out at home by the patient, meaning your doctor will depend on you to be up front about everything from alcohol usage and caffeine intake so they can get a clear picture of what’s going on.
To help augment a patient’s self-reporting, your doctor’s office may send you home with a wearable device too, says Yunpeng Wu, MD, medical director of sleep services at O’Bleness Hospital in Athens, Ohio.
“We have medical devices that can fit on your wrist, much like a Fitbit or a watch, but different,” Wu says. “Wear [it] for a week or two, we can download the data and we can see how the patient sleeps and make recommendations. From that data, we can develop a plan with the patient.”
A doctor may also schedule a sleep study, Wu says, wherein you go to the hospital or a sleep center at night, and healthcare providers actually observe your entire routine, monitoring what’s going on with your heart rate, breathing, and more. Medical technicians will look for signs of conditions that could be causing your sleep deprivation.
Sleep apnea, for example, is a sleep disorder that causes you to stop breathing for short periods while you’re sleeping. It can cause a person to wake up feeling like they didn’t get much sleep, sending them to the doctor with complaints of daytime fatigue and more.
Your doctor’s recommendations (and any prescriptions) will be based on what they determine is causing your sleep deprivation.
“That doesn’t always mean going right to medication,” Wu says. “There are cognitive behavior therapy options, relaxation skills.”
“A lot of times, patients can do this by themselves, without needing professional help,” he adds. “There are routines you can get yourself into.”
A good routine that gets the doctor’s stamp of approval?

Avoid exercise three to five hours before bedtime.
Do not eat too closely to your bedtime.
Try getting to sleep by 11 p.m. and waking up by 6 or 7 a.m. every day (yes—even on the weekends!)
Eat a balanced diet, avoiding caffeine consumption after noon.
Make sure you pull yourself away from anything that stimulates you (such as a TV show or book) in time to wind down.

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Nutrition x Advice

Having Frequent Hunger Pangs? Here’s Why—And What To Do About It

Post author By Jeanne Sager
Post date October 31, 2017

When hunger pangs first hit, they can take you by surprise. We’ve all been there. You’re sitting in a quiet college classroom during a big final or—worse—in an important job interview. Your stomach starts rumbling and the harder you try to get it to shut up, the louder and more demanding it gets. It’s embarrassing and unnerving. What does it want?
Is that growl in your stomach a sign of a building bellyache or is your body just screaming, “feed me”? The truth could be a little bit of both!
Some people refer to hunger pangs as “hunger pains,” and it’s not just because the two words sound so similar. When your body is starting to feel hungry, a hormone produced in your stomach and small intestine called ghrelin kicks into play.
Dubbed an “appetite increaser” by doctors, tells your stomach to release the enzymes that prep it for food. That’s what causes your stomach to sound like the Gremlins from the ’80s horror flick (note the similar name!), and it can get pretty uncomfortable.
So, what should you do when your appetite kicks in and you’re struggling to keep the growl of hunger pangs quiet? Should you give in to your cravings or call a doctor?
Here’s what the experts have to say about what to eat, when to eat, and when to get help.

What is a hunger pang, anyway?

Technically, if you’re feeling pain in your stomach when you’re hungry, it’s because stomach acids are attacking the stomach lining, says Sandra Arevalo, director of nutrition services and community outreach at the South Bronx Health Center in New York City.
Ghrelin tells the stomach to release acids that will break down the food you eat. But if you’re not sending your stomach a hamburger or some cheese for the acids to work on, they have nothing to do but start to go after the lining of your stomach.
True to their name, hunger pangs can be caused by actual hunger. If you don’t stick to a regular eating schedule, your body will eventually protest in the form of a rumbling in the tummy.
That’s why we tend to feel hunger pangs when we’re dieting and denying our body the amount of food it’s used to or when we’re busy and forget (or don’t have time) to eat.
The reasoning is pretty simple: The body uses food for energy. If we don’t supply it with energy, the body warns us that we need to refuel. The hormone stimulates our appetite, so we will chow down to satiate it.
Unfortunately, though, hunger pangs don’t just crop up when our bodies actually need food. Ghrelin works hand in hand with insulin, the hormone that the pancreas releases to keep your blood sugar on an even keel. When insulin levels increase, ghrelin tends to decrease.
On the other side of the same coin, when your insulin levels drop, your ghrelin levels spike. That’s why eating a whole bunch of junk food can fill you up for an hour…only for your body to get hit with cravings to eat again.
“If [you’re] eating sugary and highly processed meals, your blood sugar spikes quickly, and your body releases a lot of insulin, which does it job quickly,” explains Melanie Wirth, a registered dietitian with Taher Food Services in Minneapolis, Minnesota. “Then you have a crash!”
In other words, your insulin levels will bottom out, and ghrelin will be released, triggering stomach acids and eventually your appetite…even though you just ate an hour ago.
Other reasons you might be feeling that ache in your midsection? Some medications, especially antidepressants, can cause ghrelin releases in the body, Arevalo says.
And if you’re not getting enough sleep, your body may punish you for it. Researchers have found that even a single night of sleep deprivation can make your body kick up the cravings. Thirst can also mimic hunger, with your tummy rumbling to tell you it that what it really wants is a glass of water (or six).

What if it’s something else?

Any time you feel pain in the gut, it’s normal to wonder if you’re coming down with a virus or you’ve been hit by [linkbuilder id=”2274″ text=”food poisoning”]. And it’s no different when you’re dealing with hunger pangs.
When ghrelin starts doing its dirty work in your belly, the symptoms of hunger can seem like symptoms of something more insidious.
So how do you tell the difference between hunger and something more serious?
Take note of how you’re feeling overall, says Vanessa Rissetto, a registered dietitian from New York City. “Hunger pangs normally leave you with an empty feeling in your stomach,” she says.
Hunger is often (although not always) accompanied by feelings of lightheadedness or dizziness, which can be related to the insulin crash that your body is experiencing or a lack of energy due to the lack of food to sustain the body’s needs. You may also feel irritable, Arevalo says, hence the popular term “hangry” (a portmanteau of hungry and angry).
On the other hand, if you’re experiencing nausea, diarrhea and/or fever along with that stomach pain, it’s probably time to pick up the phone and call your doctor.
“Hunger will never give you a fever. Hunger will not give you diarrhea,” Arevalo points out.
Even if you have deduced you are hungry (rather than coming down with the gastrointestinal virus that’s been making the rounds at your office), take note of how often you feel hunger pangs. If you experience hunger symptoms often, it’s still important to talk to your doctor.
Frequent hunger issues alone are not normal and could be a sign that you need help. It’s why Arevalo says everyone who is embarking on a diet change should consult with a medical professional who can help them craft a nutritional plan that is right for their body and their needs.
Not trying to change up your diet for a weight loss plan? It’s still important to regulate your meal schedule. Researchers have found that not eating at regular mealtimes doesn’t just cause wacky ghrelin levels. It also causes us to choose foods that aren’t as healthy as the stuff people chow down on when they stick to a schedule.

Am I really hungry?

It may be easy enough to deduce that you’re hungry when you’ve been running around getting things done and haven’t taken a second to nosh, but it’s not always that simple. Sometimes the brain will be telling the body it needs to eat, even when the stomach isn’t presenting those hunger pangs.
That’s when Arevalo tells her clients to sit down and think about what they’re feeling. “Are you feeling the desire to eat more as a pain in your stomach or is the pain in your head?” she asks clients.
If your stomach is uncomfortable and/or making noises (remember the Gremlins), then it’s probably true hunger. If it’s not, then your brain could just be pushing emotional hunger.
If you’ve ever wolfed down a pile of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies because they smelled soooooo good, you know this one firsthand. Just smelling something delicious can trick our bodies into thinking we’re hungry, while seeing food on a billboard or in a TV commercial can trigger our appetites (and our salivary glands). The hunger may all be in the brain, but it can certainly feel like we need to eat ASAP, which often leads to overeating.
Your mental health can also play a role in emotional hunger. Studies have shown that stress, lack of sleep, and other negative experiences can make our bodies feel like they’re in desperate need of food. Your appetite might truly have increased, and you might feel yourself craving something sweet or salty.
The difference, however, is that hunger pains that are felt in the stomach indicate your body actually needs food for energy, Arevalo explains. A craving that’s coming from your brain, on the other hand, is purely emotional. If you can power through it, your body won’t suffer from lack of nutrition.
If you’re sure the feeling isn’t rooted in your emotions, you’ll also want to check in with yourself to determine whether you’re dehydrated. When was the last time you drank some water? Have you been drinking alcoholic beverages, which tend to be dehydrating?
“A lot of times we feel hungry, but we just have thirst and can’t differentiate,” Rissetto explains. That’s because the symptoms of thirst mimic hunger. You can get shaky, irritable, even have pain in your stomach.
Rissetto recommends you drink a tall glass of water, then wait 20 minutes to see if the pains or food cravings go away. If they do, it’s likely your body was just crying out for water. It’s a good reminder to up your intake.

How to Curb Those Cravings

Once you’ve figured out that you’re hungry—and not just craving that bag of chips in your desk drawer because your boss was acting like a jerk and you aren’t sure how you can get all your work done and still get out of the office by 6 to pick up your kid—the obvious fix for hunger pangs is to eat. Right?
Hold on just a second. You don’t need to go running for the kitchen, Wirth says. Nor should you. Even hunger pangs aren’t a sign that you need to eat immediately or else. Instead, you need to take a few minutes to consider your options.
When your stomach is growling, your head is dizzy, and you’re feeling cranky, it’s easy to grab junk food. In fact, scientists say we’re more likely to give in to our worst cravings when we’re in the throes of hunger.
That’s in part because those foods are fast and easy (what could be simpler than grabbing a candy bar, opening it up, and eating?), but Arevalo says it’s also because of the way our body processes different foods. The body can digest carbohydrates much more quickly than proteins and fibers, so we tend to crave carbs that will give our hungry body a fast fix. Of course, then there’s the inevitable insulin crash an hour or two later, and the resulting hunger pangs.
If you just ate recently and need to eat something small to quiet your growling stomach or you don’t have time for a full meal, Wirth says you should eat “hearty snacks that include some protein and healthy fats.”
Protein-laden eats take longer to digest, which means the stomach will feel fuller longer, and you can avoid that ghrelin release. Meanwhile, researchers have found that foods high in polyunsaturated fats, such as walnuts and fish, can actually work against ghrelin and suppress appetite.
Carbs aren’t completely verboten, but Wirth warns they need to be “complex carbs” like oatmeal or whole grains to “increase satiety and prolong the release of ghrelin.”

Some easy (and healthy) snacks for shutting down hunger pangs:

Baby carrots and hummus
Nuts
Veggie smoothies
Low-fat cheese and an apple
Black bean dip with sliced sweet peppers
Soy bean dip with celery sticks
Apple wedges and peanut butter

How to Avoid Hunger Pangs

Once you know what causes them, avoiding hunger pangs is fairly simple. Talk to your doctor or dietitian about crafting a healthy balanced meal plan and eat at regular intervals instead of skipping meals.
And while it may seem obvious, feeling hunger pangs is just another reminder to avoid junk food whenever possible, lest you get caught up in the vicious cycle of insulin/ghrelin releases.
“The more sugar you eat, the more ghrelin may be released,” Rissetto points out. “Limit your intake of sugar if you are always feeling hungry! If you’re always eating sugar/’junky carbs’ you spike your insulin levels, which ultimately crash quickly, leaving you hungrier than before and craving … more ‘junky carbs’!”

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Health x Body Wellbeing

Funding For Chronic Fatigue Research Has Doubled, But Do You Know The Signs Of The Syndrome?

Post author By Jeanne Sager
Post date October 29, 2017

Imagine telling someone you have a disease only for them to roll their eyes or tell you that you’re imaging things. Welcome to the life of the hundreds of thousands of American women living with chronic fatigue syndrome.
Officially dubbed myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is one of those diseases that’s long befuddled the medical community. There’s no known cause, and doctors can’t just run a blood test that confirms you have CFS. Even the symptoms—from fatigue that makes day-to-day activities difficult to muscle aches, headaches, and joint pain—are often associated with other diseases, making chronic fatigue that much harder to diagnose.
Even more frustrating if you have ME? The internet is rife with articles that further the myth that CFS is all in a patient’s head rather than a very real and very serious illness.
Currently 1 million Americans have been diagnosed with CFS, and women lead the pack in terms of diagnoses—we’re two to four times more likely to have ME.

So why the debate?

Although the term has only recently made its way into the mainstream, the medical community has been seeing chronic fatigue crop up in patients for decades. In the 1800s and even into the 1900s, it was often written off as a “nervous exhaustion.” Female patients, in particular, were pooh-poohed as the weaker sex and their symptoms considered signs of weakness.
Sexism (and skepticism) about the condition is hardly a thing of the past. It’s only been in recent years that scientists have made serious headway in ME studies, enough to begin to quiet the detractors who call the disease psychosomatic.
That myth that was blown wide open by doctors in Australia in early 2017 when researchers at Griffith University’s National Centre for Neuroimmunology and Emerging Diseases found a dysfunctional cell receptor in the immune system they say is to blame for ME. Another win for people with this condition came in March 2017, when researchers at Stanford University published their own study that showed the immune cells of ME sufferers don’t recover as well as those of healthy individuals.
With the National Institutes of Health doubling funding for ME research in 2017, the debate over whether the disease is real seems to be finally rounding the bend into “believe them” territory.

What does ME do?

Of course, if you have ME, there is no question the disease is real.
Sufferers experience a drastic decline in their ability to do activities that were normal before the illness. And when they do try to exert the same sort of energy they exerted pre-ME—taking on tasks as simple as going to the mall—they’re often hit by post-exertional malaise (PEM), a crashing of the body that can keep them housebound for days or even weeks.
The official symptoms to look for, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, include:

Feeling extremely exhausted for more than 24 hours after physical or mental exercise
Not feeling refreshed after sleeping or having trouble sleeping
Having a hard time concentrating or problems with attention and memory
Feeling dizzy or faint when sitting up or standing (due to a drop in blood pressure)
Muscle pain or aches
Pain or aches in joints without swelling or redness
Headaches of a new type, pattern, or strength
Tender lymph nodes in the neck or under the arm
Sore throat that is constant or goes away and comes back often

Why women?

Although men can and do suffer from chronic fatigue, ME diagnoses in women are far more common than they are in men. And women with ME tend to have more severe symptoms than men with the disease. A woman’s risk of having both chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia concurrently is nearly double that of a man. Issues such as widespread pain, muscle spasms, dizziness, sexual dysfunction, Raynaud’s phenomenon, morning stiffness, and drug and metal allergies are all less likely to show up in men with the disease than they are in women.
But like the still-elusive cause for the condition, the reason that it’s more prevalent in women remains a mystery. Unfortunately, gender studies researchers say women are often blamed for bringing the condition on themselves as they’re blamed for being both too high strung and too weak.

What can you do?

Only a medical professional can diagnose chronic fatigue syndrome. Typically fatigue symptoms must have begun at least six months prior to diagnosis, and a patient will have to have at least four other symptoms from the list to get a diagnosis. Because the symptoms also crop up with other diseases, the diagnosis process may take time, as doctors have to rule out other diseases and conditions.
If your physician determines you do have ME, be aware there is no cure, but there are medicines that can be used to alleviate many of the symptoms.

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Mindful Parenting Motherhood

5 Parenting Strategies To Help Instill Gratitude In Your Little Ones

Post author By Jeanne Sager
Post date October 28, 2017

We all want to raise the kid who says please and thank you and picks up the fast food cup some jerk dropped just a foot from the garbage can—aka the kid who is not that cup-dropping jerk.
But how do you raise a gracious child? When the average 11-year-old is walking around with a $600 smartphone in their hands and the word “entitlement” is thrown around like it’s going out of style, instilling gratitude in your kids can feel like climbing a mountain.
But before you throw up your hands, here are a few practical tips to consider.

What’s the big deal, anyway?

It’s pretty obvious that gratitude is a part of being a good human being. Teaching our kids to appreciate the things they have and the people around them—helping them be kind to other humans and the earth—is part of raising good citizens who will give back to the world at large as adults.
But we’re not just doing it for the world. Teaching gratitude benefits our kids themselves, too.
Scientists have found ample evidence that being gracious actually helps make us healthier people, both physically and mentally. Researchers at the University of Manchester in England, for example, found that adults who wrote in a gratitude journal fell asleep faster and stayed asleep longer than those who skipped the practice. Better sleep isn’t all they can get out of the deal. Researchers in Taiwan looked at gratitude in athletes back in 2013 and they found a correlation between athletes’ gratitude and boosted self-esteem.
So how do we get our kids sleeping better, feeling better about themselves, and geared up to grow into the philanthropic nice guys and girls we want to be around?

1. Give/Save/Spend

Whether it’s birthday cash from Grandma or $5 they picked up dog-sitting for the neighbors, kids love having their own money. Teaching them early on that money isn’t just for spending can help them not only learn wise money-management skills but also offer up some lessons in gratitude.
Begin the practice of having them split their money three ways: Some can be spent, some can be saved, and some should be set aside to give to a local charity of their choosing. It doesn’t have to be much (that $5 for dog-sitting won’t go that far anyway!), but even small donations that come from the heart instill a message that goes both ways.
To help keep it going, create a give/save/spend jar for their separate sums, or buy a cool piggy bank with different slots for the money.

2. Talk the talk.

Giving money (and food, clothes, and toys) to charity is a wonderful thing. Lives can be changed by donations. But anyone who spends time volunteering will tell you that physically getting out there and doing something tangible for a charity they support offers something mere donations don’t: A chance to see the fruits of your labor.
Take the kids to the local animal shelter to cuddle some cats who don’t get a lot of love. Tackle a messy roadside with garbage bags and gloves. Swing by the homeless shelter and ask if they need help dicing potatoes or serving soup. Your kids won’t just make a difference; they’ll get to see why giving back matters.

3. Make it a game.

You don’t need to drag kids to the thankful mountain. Bring the mountain to them with games that sneak lessons on gratitude into the fun. Do they love playing Uno? Make whoever throws down a wild card say the name of one person they’re thankful for. Are they fans of hopscotch? Each time they land on an odd number, they have to offer up one place they’re thankful for. You know your kids best, and you can help ensure that their creativity, gratitude, and love of play unite.

4. Practice what you preach.

As their role models, it’s on us not just to remind kids to show appreciation and kindness but to do it ourselves. Think of how many times you said “Mama” until they finally associated the sounds with you: the person. Now consider how many times you will have to say “please” and “thank you” before it sinks in. You’re welcome!

5. Write it down.

It’s not always easy to appreciate the people we live with, especially when they’re hogging the bathroom in the morning or eating the last of the cereal. Creating a family kindness ritual can change that. Ask everyone in your household to write kind notes for Mom and Dad, siblings, kiddos, and even spouses on Post-its and have them stick their notes of gratitude up in surprising places. If your kids are too young to write, you can do it for them. Not only will the act of writing their grateful thoughts down require your child to think about the good in others, but finding a surprising place to post the note (and knowing they might find some for themselves, too) will keep the giving and receiving of gratitude fun.

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Life x Culture Lifestyle

How To Be More Productive Through Self-Care

Post author By Jeanne Sager
Post date October 26, 2017

If there were more than 24 hours in a day, the question of how to be more productive might never come up. More time in the day equals more time to get everything done, after all.
But with the clock insisting on giving us just 24 little 60-minute increments before the day flips over, we’re all facing the struggle to fit working out, seeing our BFFs, and whipping up a batch of cookies for the kids’ bake sale into a day that’s already jam-packed with everyday minutiae.
The solution might not be what you expect. Could taking more time for yourself out of an already tight schedule be the secret to increasing your productivity?
A growing number of experts are screaming for us to take more time for self-care, and it turns out there’s a surprising boost in productivity that comes with taking that much-needed time out.

The Self-Care Solution

Self-care sounds simple enough. The directions are right there in the term: You need to care for yourself. But knowing what self-care is doesn’t mean we’re actually doing it.
Aaron Boster, MD, system medical chief of neuroimmunology at OhioHealth Neuroscience Center, puts the blame on society as a whole. “Within our culture, it’s completely acceptable to go to work, to work late hours,” he says. “What’s not acceptable or embraced is taking time for yourself. Words are used like ‘lazy’ or ‘unmotivated.’ We’ve completely devalued taking care of yourself.”
And yet, Boster points out, everything from taking time to eat healthy meals (instead of scarfing down a bag of M&M’s at your desk) to drinking adequate amounts of water to getting a full night’s rest can fall under the umbrella of self-care. They’re all things that common sense would dictate we need to do, and they’re all things that have an impact on our productivity levels.
A whopping 1 million American workers call in sick to work every day because of stress-related illnesses (from depression to heart issues), and that stress costs businesses an estimated $200 to $300 billion a year in lost productivity. Lack of sleep alone is estimated to cost companies more than $63 billion annually in productivity reduction.
Simply put: When we skimp on self-care, our productivity takes a nosedive.
“We have to take the time to fuel our bodies,” Boster says. “If you don’t fuel the machine, it doesn’t work too hot!”
Caring for your body is essential maintenance in the same way that getting regular oil changes and new tires are essential maintenance for your car. One prevents the engine from blowing up, the other prevents us from getting sick and losing the precious productivity time. But if we’re not taking time for self-care because we’re too stressed to get everything done as it is, how are we supposed to put an end to this vicious cycle?
Here’s how to be more productive at work and home and take care of ourselves at the same time.

Get organized.

At first glance, improving your organization may sound like it’s more about your bosses (or even your house) than it is about yourself. After all, good organization skills and time management are an obvious means to boost productivity.
But what we often forget is how much a messy desk or messy house can affect our own stress levels. As much as 84 percent of Americans admit that they worry that their house isn’t clean enough, and 55 percent say it causes actual stress.
Clutter has been solidly linked to a spike in the stress hormone cortisol, and it can challenge our productivity. As Princeton neuroscientists found when they looked at clutter, the more stuff you have around you, the more each item tries to pull at your attention. A whole lot of stuff everywhere won’t just cost you time and productivity; it can completely overwhelm you.
Taking time to get things neat and tidy might be time away from “getting things done,” but in the long run, it will help you improve not only your workflow but your mental health too.

Get moving.

If you’ve been to the doctor recently, they probably gave you chapter and verse on getting enough exercise, right? The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends adults get at least 150 minutes (2 hours and 30 minutes) of moderate-intensity aerobic activity or 75 minutes (1 hour and 15 minutes) of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity per week.
If you’re not meeting that minimum, you’re hardly alone. Just a third of American adults get up and move enough to hit the recommended physical activity benchmarks every week. Exercise is often the first thing that we cut from our day, because it doesn’t seem quite as necessary as everything else. Your boss isn’t paying you to exercise. Your kids can’t eat your exercise.
But working out doesn’t just help the body in terms of making the muscles stronger, preventing obesity, and boosting the strength of your heart. It turns out scientists have found a direct link between physical activity and job burnout. In a study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, scientists in Israel posited that people whose physical activity levels were high had virtually no career burnout issues, whereas those who were sedentary had relatively high levels of dissatisfaction on the job.
It’s not just liking our jobs better that comes from exercise, either. Taking time to work out literally helps make you more productive, allowing you to pack more into less time.
In a 2011 study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Swedish scientists linked exercise to an increase in both the quantity of work and work ability and a decrease illness-related job absences. The scientists suggested reducing work hours for “health promotion activities” to increase production levels. While their recommendations were focused on employers, there’s no reason not to take the bull by the horns yourself.
Boster suggests taking a brisk 20-minute walk twice a week to start yourself off on a new and improved exercise regimen. If you can do more, even better!

Meditate on that.

The mindfulness movement has been catching fire in America of late, and it’s not just your yoga buddy who’s pushing meditation anymore. A growing number of companies are adding mindfulness programs to their employee wellness solutions.
The reason? Taking time to meditate can boost your productivity. As Harvard researchers found out when they began to look at mind–body practices, meditation and/or yoga can increase productivity by an estimated $3,000 per employee per year. And the benefits don’t end at the workplace door. In one employer-based mindfulness program, participants reported a 28 percent reduction in stress and 19 percent less pain.
That’s likely because meditation leads to better rest, says Light Watkins, meditation teacher and author of the book Bliss More: How to Succeed in Meditation Without Really Trying. In turn, Watkins says that better rest “leads to a greater ability to focus on the task at hand and prioritize what’s important.”
“I consider meditation to be a ’key’ habit, because it makes you more apt to do the other things that should be a part of any self-care ritual: exercise, healthy diet, rest, philanthropy, and time spent with loving friends and family,” Watkins says. “If stress can diminish our desire to engage in all of those activities, then meditation should increase our desire.”
Like exercise, meditation may seem like something we just can’t fit in our schedules, but you don’t have to take hours out of your day to make it happen. Meditation is often part of yoga practice, which allows you to hit all your exercise and meditative needs in one fell swoop. Even better: Just 25 minutes a day of hatha yoga is considered enough to improve brain function and boost energy levels, which are tied how productive we are.

Sleep on it.

We all need sleep. It’s how the body restores itself. But if you ask a quarter of American women how many mornings they woke up feeling refreshed in the past week, the answer would be a flat zero. A third of us get less than seven hours of sleep every night.
Going to bed late and waking up early can help you steamroll through the six piles of laundry, catch up on bills, and finally fix the broken toilet. But it’s costing you.
“If you’re going to bed already knowing you won’t get a good night’s sleep, you’re doomed from the start,” Boster says. “We have to figure out ways to make time to sleep.”
When we do it, he points out, we feel better, we think more clearly, and we have more energy. And how else do we expect to be more productive?
A study by RAND Europe found that lack of sleep ends up costing the U.S. economy $411 billion a year, while workers are losing 1.2 million working days annually. Scarier still, the study found that getting too little sleep on a regular basis hikes your mortality risk. If you’re routinely getting less than six hours of sleep a night, you have a 13 percent higher mortality risk than someone sleeping the seven to nine hours that the National Sleep Foundation recommends for adults.
The solution is pretty clear on this one: Carve out enough time to get enough sleep, and you’ll be better able to tackle the mountain of projects ahead of you each day. The better able you are to get them done, the faster you can do it, leaving time for well…more sleep!

What about yo’ friends?

Don’t let the number of social media buddies fool you: We’re becoming an increasingly isolated society. The number of people who say they have no close friends has tripled in the last few decades.
One of the major culprits is time. Friends tend to get the shaft when you’re burning the candle at both ends trying to get everything done. Your boss doesn’t pay you to chit chat, right?
Well, maybe they should. Indulging in time with friends has long been considered a crucial part of a healthy self-care regimen. Friends can boost your longevity by as much as seven years. That’s as much of a life expectancy increase as you’d get by avoiding cigarettes! Of course, personal health means fewer work absences and better productivity in and of itself.
It turns out friendship in the workplace also has a particularly positive influence on the amount of work we get done. Being able to turn to our friends on the job provides a safety net and allows us to ask questions without feeling judged, which helps us be more productive at work. Another big benefit to making friends at work: Your mood tends to improve as you feel comfortable, which spills over into positive effects on the work itself.

Waste time.

Can’t imagine sitting around staring at the ceiling tiles and twiddling your thumbs? How about getting up from your desk, walking to the break room and actually taking the entire allotted 15 minutes away from your work?
Try it, Mikey. You won’t just like it…you’ll be re-invigorated and able to get a whole lot more done than you would have if you’d kept your mind hyperfocused on work.
Our brains get a workout when we’re at work, and sometimes they need an old-fashioned break to recharge, according to researchers from Hiroshima University.
Their suggestion is one that’s hard to argue with, especially if you like kittens or puppies. The researchers found that taking a few minutes to watch cute animals on the internet can restore your cognitive functioning, boosting your productivity and helping you get more work done in the long run.
It turns out your mom was wrong: Laughter isn’t the best medicine. Panda cams are!

Just say no.

Can you bake just a dozen cookies for the bake sale? How about coming in the office for just a few hours on Saturday morning? Would you sign up for the office softball team? Come on, they need someone with a strong pitching arm…and it’s just two practices a week!
Saying no to any (or all) of the above is the ultimate in self-care. It’s giving yourself leave to set down boundaries in your life and putting you in the driver’s seat. It’s also a way to reclaim your time. And look at all the things you can now do with that time to amp up your productivity.

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Health x Body Wellbeing

How To Fall Asleep Fast (And Stay That Way)

Post author By Jeanne Sager
Post date October 25, 2017

Yajun GiaOh Sunday night, how troublesome you can be. For almost 40 percent of Americans, the last night of the weekend is the one we spend tossing and turning, wondering how to fall asleep.
And when you take a close look at insomnia and other sleep disorder statistics from the American Sleep Association, things don’t exactly look better the rest of the week. Hundreds of thousands of us fall in bed every night and beg our brains to just shut up and let us sleep already.

What’s going on?

When it comes time to go to bed, most of us would love to fall asleep the minute our heads hit the pillow. The faster it happens, the faster we can head into dreamland, right?
The good news is we really can fall asleep fast, according to Steven Woltering, PhD, director and founder of the Neurobiological Lab for Learning and Development at Texas A&M University. Woltering and his colleagues have studied sleep onset latency (SOL), the amount of time that it takes the body to transition from being fully awake to sleeping soundly.
In a survey of 2,000 healthy, typically developing people, Woltering says the average time people self-reported falling asleep was less than 2 minutes. When Woltering’s graduate student Yajun Jia added more controls to measure the sleep conditions (aka not going by self reports), the number was higher but still below about 8 minutes. Women tended to have a longer SOL than men, even if they transitioned to sleep quickly.

Yet a third of us struggle to fall asleep at night, putting the number of Americans with insomnia—the diagnosis for trouble falling asleep and/or staying asleep—in the millions, and forcing 5 percent of women to turn to sleep medications to help them catch a break at bedtime. So what’s going on?
First, a bit of good news: Doctors don’t consider you to be a “problem sleeper” if you’re not falling asleep within 8 minutes. In fact, trouble falling asleep is not considered a “pathological problem” until it’s happening on a regular basis, according to David White, chief medical officer of Philips Sleep and Respiratory Care. You need to lie in bed for 30 minutes (or more) more than three times a week for a month for a doctor to make an insomnia diagnosis, White says.
An insomnia diagnosis can be short term or chronic, meaning some people will struggle with sleep for just a few weeks or as little as three months, whereas others can face bedtime battles for longer. The reasons this is happening—and the speed with which you can (or can’t) kick insomnia—are as individual as people themselves.
“The more we learn about what goes on in our brain when we fall asleep, the more we realize that sleep does not depend on a single mechanism,” Woltering tells HealthyWay. “There are a number of brain nuclei, biochemicals, and endocrine systems involved, and they all interact. What this tells us is that sleep has evolved as a very important function. I think having such a complex and widespread network is helpful in terms of having some safeguards: If something goes amiss with one system another can take over to compensate so we can still sleep.”
One of the biggest factors in whether we fall asleep quickly is a brain chemical called adenosine. Adenosine builds up when you’re awake, and the longer you’re awake, the more you tend to have.
“The more adenosine you have in your system, the more pressure you will feel to go to sleep! It’s like an internal clock,” Woltering says.
Unfortunately caffeine, certain medications, stress, and other factors can block our adenosine receptors, keeping us awake longer.
So, is it possible to fall asleep faster and actually stay that way? The experts say yes! Here’s how to alter your space, your body, and your mind to make it easier to fall asleep fast—and stay asleep.

Space

If you get the minimum seven hours of sleep a night that adults are supposed to get, each year you’ll spend some 2,500 hours in bed (or wherever you zonk out). But if your bedroom isn’t primed for sleep, you’re probably going to spend a whole lot of that time trying to convince your brain to quiet down so you can catch some ZZZs.
Lighting: The body depends on periods of light and dark to adjust our circadian rhythms, the internal clock that tells us when we should be asleep and when we should be awake. But too much light in your bedroom will throw that out of whack, White says. A bedroom should be as dark as possible, with the addition of room-darkening curtains and other means to block out distracting light that could trigger the brain to stay awake.
One of the biggest offenders is blue light, aka the light that’s emitted by a smartphone or tablet screen, White says. “It’s innately alerting,” he warns. “It makes you wake up!”
Clocks: Most of us depend on an alarm clock to wake us up in the morning, but if your clock has numbers that are visible from your bed, you need to turn it around…or remove it from the room entirely, says Jacob Teitelbaum, MD, author of the book From Fatigued to Fantastic!
Clocks in the room can heighten our insomnia anxiety. Our brains are trying to wind down and fall asleep fast, but we’re watching the time slip by, and the stress hormone cortisol is rising in the brain…which keeps us awake. Dump the clock, and you don’t know how long it’s taking you to fall asleep. That in and of itself can make the transition from wide awake to dreaming go faster.
Temperature: Growing up, we learned that the average body temperature is 98.6 degrees, and that’s a sign of health. What you might not have learned is that your body temperature fluctuates during the day, and it tends to drop at night. That’s because body temperature and sleep are directly linked.
As researchers Kazue Okamoto-Mizuno and Koh Mizuno explained in a sleep and thermoregulation study published in 2012 in the Journal of Physiological Anthropology, “heat exposure increases wakefulness and decreases slow wave sleep and rapid eye movement sleep.” Meanwhile, the researchers found, the relationship between your sleep–wake rhythm and the circadian rhythm of your body’s core temperature is important for maintaining sleep.
In other words: If your room is too hot, you’re not going to fall asleep quickly (or maybe at all!) The optimal temperature for a room—according to the science—is between about 60 and 67 degrees Fahrenheit if you’re wearing pajamas and using a sheet. If you sleep in the buff and skip out on any sort of covering (no sheet, no blankets), the researchers say you can dial up the temperature to as high as 89 degrees.
Sounds: Some people need strict silence to fall asleep, while others struggle if it’s too quiet. If you’re the former, a white noise machine may help block out distracting street sounds, White says.
If you’re in the latter camp, playing relaxing music (think Johann Sebastian Bach, not Justin Bieber) has scientifically backed benefits. According to a 2008 study published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing, listening to classical music can reduce sympathetic nervous system activity and decrease anxiety, blood pressure, heart, and respiratory rate. In turn, those help soothe the body off to dreamland.
Scents: Aromatherapy may not be a fast fix, but it could be the answer to the question of how to fall asleep without medication.
Teitelbaum says there are benefits to relaxing essential oils in the bedroom. Although much is anecdotal, at least one study has shown lavender, in particular, has a soporific effect. It might be worth a spritz of the pillow…at least! And yes, you should stop rolling your eyes at the friend who is always blathering on about their diffuser and essential oils on Facebook now.
Body

Prepping your room will only get you so far when it comes to cutting your sleep onset latency. Your body has to be ready too.
Cut back on caffeine and alcohol: The stimulating effects of caffeine help wake up the more than half of Americans who suck down at least one cup of coffee every day. But caffeine’s effect on the adenosine receptors can make falling asleep fast impossible, especially if you’re drinking coffee or soda after 4 p.m., Woltering says.
Alcohol, on the other hand, may well allow you to fall asleep or even help you to fall asleep. The trouble comes later in the night, when your body tries to transition into REM sleep.
“Alcohol actually suppresses REM (rapid eye movement) sleep,” Woltering explains. “We still have a lot to learn about sleep and alcohol. What is fascinating is that researchers are beginning to link chronic alcohol intake with the development of psychopathology. Our brains crave dream sleep and if they don’t get it, pressure starts to build up in our brains to have more of it. Now, it may be—and this is speculative—that some of the delirium that you see with chronic alcoholism may be explained by the brain starting to dream while we’re still ‘awake.’ REM sleep is bleeding through in our waking lives!”
Unfortunately, the way alcohol affects REM sleep can mean you fall asleep easily at first, but after your body awakens during REM sleep, you can’t fall back to sleep.
Plan your exercise wisely: Remember when you were a kid, and you were absolutely wiped out at the end of a long day of running around with your friends? Most of us spend a whole lot of time sitting on our rear ends and not a lot of time tiring our bodies out. Increasing the amount of exercise you get to at least 150 minutes per week has been linked to improved sleep quality.
But White is quick to advise that patients sneak in their workouts early in the day if possible. Working out before bedtime may tire out your muscles, but stimulating activity that raises your heart rate can actually keep you up.
Get comfy: If you’re a dedicated morning shower person, it might be time for a change. Night showers (or baths) have been shown to help us get to sleep faster, because they lower the body temperature, which works in conjunction with a cooler bedroom to signal to the body that it’s time to dream.

But don’t get too cool! The same scientists who found overheating could keep us up found that being too cool could have the same effect. One quick fix that’s backed by science? Throw on a pair of socks to keep your tootsies from getting too cold. If you sleep with a partner, they’ll appreciate not being woken up by a cold foot to the leg!
Another piece of getting comfy is considering your food choices. Large meals shortly before bedtime can weigh heavy in the gut and keep you awake, White says, so it’s wise to get dinner over with well before you plan to hit the sack. If you’re absolutely starving, stick with something small (and non-caffeinated).
Get help: Even if you’re trying to avoid medication to help you sleep, your doctor can advise you on whether you should try melatonin (a natural supplement that mimics the body’s own sleep hormones), check to see if any medications you’re currently taking could be keeping you awake, and test you for health issues that might make it harder to fall asleep.
Mind

The leading cause of insomnia, at least among women, is anxiety. White calls it ruminating—while other people fall off to sleep, the issues they’re facing in their day-to-day life keep them tossing and turning.
Get help: This type of insomnia is what White calls “psychophysiological insomnia.” Once the mental health concern is addressed, the insomnia should go away. Seeking help via a therapist is one means to make a difference.
Meditate: If you don’t feel like your problems have reached the level of speaking to a physician, 15 to 20 minutes per day of meditation has been linked to better sleep. As Light Watkins, meditation teacher and author of the book Bliss More: How to Succeed in Meditation Without Really Trying, tells HealthyWay, “The time you spend meditating will get refunded back to you in time you’re not wishing you were sleeping deeper.”

Set up a routine: Kids aren’t the only ones whose minds wind down when they follow through the same steps each evening.
“Parents have long known that creating a sleep routine, such as a bedtime story, eases children into sleep,” Teitelbaum says. “Adults are no different. Setting up a relaxing bedtime routine, such as reading a book, or having a hot Epsom salt bath with a glass of wine, trains us to fall easily into sleep. Don’t expect to go from high stress right into sleep, any more than you would expect a child to do so!”
Trick yourself: If all else fails, a little reverse psychology may be the key to how you fall asleep fast and stay that way. Studies have found that trying to force ourselves to stay awake instead of trying to go to sleep can have a paradoxical effect. Essentially, our sleep onset latency speeds up because we’re telling ourselves not to fall asleep.

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