14 tips to recover from a sleepless night

Last night, our two-year old woke up and screamed.  Sounds familiar?

He is normally a very reliable sleeper, so my wife and I both assumed that it was time to get up and take his older brothers and sister to school.

It was only when we were reaching for our toothbrushes, that we glanced at the clock.

It read 1.30am!

We crept back to bed, taking our toddler with us, feeling rather foolish.
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Food that makes you sleep.

At this time of year, food is on pretty much everybody’s mind.

It is a time for festivals and celebrations.  Whether you celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas or Hanukkah, food and drink play a dominant role.

So, it’s not surprising that we sometimes overindulge.  And that can have a direct influence on the way we sleep.

Your diet can seriously affect your sleep.  In fact, there is more and more evidence that good eating habits are linked to healthy sleeping patterns and that both are related to health and longevity.

Eating a large meal just before going to bed does not promote sleep.  It causes our digestive system to have to work harder than it should while you sleep, preventing the body from paying proper attention to the business of healing and rejuvenation for which sleep is designed and needed.  As a result, you may not wake up as refreshed as you should.

At the very least, overindulgence is likely to cause heartburn, indigestion or bloating, all of which will disturb your sleep.

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11 easy steps to Creative Visualization

visualization techniques

Creative Visualisation is a simple but powerful tool which you can use to bring positive outcomes to any area of your life.

1. Find a quiet place where you aren’t going to be disturbed.  Make sure that you are comfortable and warm and that the lights are turned down.  You might want to do this if you are still awake after your Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) exercise.
2. Close your eyes.  Breathe deeply, inhaling through your nose and exhaling through your mouth.
3. Imagine you are lying on a beach on a tropical island.  The sand is incredibly soft and cool to your touch.  Feel it as it flows between your fingers and toes.

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5 Simple Ways To Improve Your Sleep

simple sleep

Sleep is such an important part of our lives and yet can prove so elusive, can’t it?

If you are like me, you go through phases of thinking that at last you’ve cracked the code to good, consistent, restful sleep. And then, out of the blue, you have a night of restless sleeplessness.

The secret has slipped through your fingers. All those things that have previously worked for you suddenly seem to have lost their efficacy, and you are left feeling powerless and frustrated.

Finding some answers to the question of how to achieve lasting, consistent sleep is the subject of this blog. SleepAngels is a place to explore the issues surrounding sleep.

Sometimes that will mean following the academic institutions whose main purpose is to research the technical and medical aspects of sleep. Other times it is to look at the mystery of sleep from a more personal, perhaps even philosophical point of view.

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Try this Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) Exercize

progressive muscle relaxation

Here is another great way to relax your mind.

Do this when you are already in bed.  The PMR exercise teaches you effective progressive muscle relaxation through a two-step process. First you deliberately tense certain muscle groups, and then you relax the muscles and turn your attention to noticing how the tension flows away.

Here is a step-by-step way to relax your muscles and your mind in preparation for sleep:

1.  If you’re not already in bed, find a quiet place to perform the exercise.  It should be warm, free from distractions such as TV or music, and somewhere where you know you won’t be disturbed
2.  Make yourself comfortable, loosening or removing your clothes
3.  Plan on falling asleep before you finish the exercise – so don’t light candles but do be ready for bed

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Relaxation 101: the benefits of deep breathing

deep breathing exercize

“I breathe slowly and deeply. I make my eyes still under eyelids, I make my mind still, and soon, Sleep, seeing a perfect reproduction of himself, comes to be united with his facsimile”.   Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler’s Wife)

Yesterday, I talked about the various different techniques for relaxing both our bodies and our minds in order to get us into a relaxed state for sleep.

This Deep Breathing Exercise (also known as Diaphragmatic Breathing or Belly Breathing) is used in yoga and is one of my favorites.

The trick to this form of breathing is to inhale while extending your tummy rather than your chest. It is the foundation for yoga breathing and is a great way to reduce anxiety as well as to relax. (more…)

Relax your mind. 11 great ways to improve relaxation.

relax your mind

“Many things, such as loving, going to sleep, or behaving unaffectedly, are done worst when we try hardest to do them.”  C.S. Lewis

It’s Friday night, and you get home late from the office.  Even though the weekend stretches out ahead, you are anything but relaxed.

Yet you are aware that you must relax your mind.  All you can think about is the workload that you have been struggling with during the week, the irritating issues you have to deal with because they couldn’t be resolved before you left the office, that unfinished report, and the difficult conversation that you are going to have with your boss.
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How to Read the Tell-Tale Signs of Teenage Depression and What You Can Do about It

teenage depression

Most parents are well aware that their teenage children experience bad moods and occasional bouts of melancholy. Teenage depression is a much more serious problem than that and can lead to a number of issues such as teenage drug abuse, on-going problems at school or in the home, and even suicide.

Fortunately, effective treatments for depression are available. Become proactive in your child’s life so that you can spot the warning signs of teenage depression and can then work to get your adolescent child back on the path to health.
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Insomnia during pregnancy? 14 tips to get the rest you need

insomnia in pregnancy

Many women suffer from insomnia during pregnancy. According to a joint study conducted by St. Joseph’s University, Philadelphia and Delaware County Memorial Hospital in USA, 97% of mums-to-be have trouble sleeping.

So what causes insomnia in pregnancy?

There are many possible causes including:

• anxiety
• fear
• shortness of breath
• morning sickness
• excitement/anticipation
• discomfort (tender breasts, backache, leg cramps etc.)
• frequent bathroom visits
• vivid dreams and nightmares
• heartburn and acid reflux
• baby kicking

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Why pulling an all-nighter can have unexpected consequences. The effects of Sleep Deprivation.

sleep deprivation effects

Sleep deprivation and other sleep disorders can have a serious effect on health, going beyond just making us cranky and moody the following day.

More of us could be pulling an all-nighter than any generation before us.  Whether it is working on a presentation, writing a paper for school, or going on a bender for a friend’s birthday, we may be ignoring one of our body’s fundamental needs – sleep.

A new study from the University of California, Berkeley, and Harvard Medical School and published in the Journal of Neuroscience suggests that there could be another, lesser-known side-effect.

The researchers studied the brains of healthy young adults and found that they experience short-term euphoria after a missed night of sleep.  But the study suggests that same neural pathway that stimulates feelings of euphoria, reward and motivation after a sleepless night may also lead to risky behavior.

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