Good morning to you all. Make sure to read over the notes below as we will be discussing them after our jog/walk on Wednesday. Each week you will be learning a new health tool you can implement into your life so you can stay functional, strong, and healthy for the rest of your life. Make sure to drink half your body weight in ounces of clean water each day and now you can add in proper sleep. These 2 things can change your health in a big way. You only get one body so let’s start to take care of it.
Circadian Cycle-a natural physiological cycle of about 24 hours that persists even in the absence of external cues.
70 years ago, a fundamental change occurred:
*in 1910 the average adult slept 9-10 hours per night
*currently the average adult is lucky to get 7 hours per night
*before 1910 we slept an average of 4370 hours
*8 years ago we slept 3395 hours
*currently we get about 2555 hours
Insomnia
*50 million Americans have trouble sleeping, 80% of us are sleep deprived
*10 million see a medical doctor for it
*Sleeping pills are prescribed for it
*Insomnia is caused by a complex relationship of: psychological, physiological, biochemical
*the cost of lack of sleep: direct cost= $15.9 billion indirect cost= $100 billion in lost work, time, and accidents
*Spend 1/3 of our lives asleep
*Teenagers require much more sleep than adults about 9.5+ hours a night because of tremendous changes occurring in their bodies
*teenagers tend to feel more alert at night and unable to function well early in the morning. With early school start times this can lead to an accumulated sleep debt of around 3 hours per night
*ideal rest occurs between 10pm and 6am
*sleep during the hours of 10pm-2am repairs our bodies. Immune cells are released to seek out and destroy cancer cells, bacteria, viruses, and other harmful agents.
*between 2am-6am, sleep lets our bodies enter a stage of psychic regeneration, and the immune system is supported by chemicals released by the brain.
Causes of sleep dysfunction are being overweight, drinking to much caffeine, bright lights at night, hormonal imbalances, sugar, dehydration, overthinking or worrying, brain chemical imbalances.
Ways to sleep well are try and sleep and wake with the sun, avoid bright lights 2 hours before bed(TV included), eat right for your metabolic type, drink half your body weight in ounces of water daily, avoid using loud alarm clock, do not look at the alarm clock when you wake in the middle of the night, if your mind races at night, journal your thoughts before you go to bed to clear your mind, avoid stimulants or caffeine after 3pm, eliminate suger, do Qi Gong or Tai Chi before bed.