Sleep
Sleep yourself healthy – this is a revolutionary Self Treating Therapy for your Health you have to try. It is easy, side effect free and doesn’t cost a cent. After a short time you will feel better, as fresh as you have not felt for a while. You think that sounds good – so lets give it a go – lay down and simply close your eyes.
Sounds too easy – but it is not! Most people do not get enough sleep. People work too much, have too many commitments or watch too much late night TV Shows. It is a fact that people who do not sleep enough get sick. Studies show that sleep deficiency can weaken your immune system, affects your libido, causes weight gain and increases your blood pressure, you get more prone to infections, your work productivity sinks and your life expectancy sinks as well.
If you are not sure if you achieve sufficient sleep just answer the following questions on your own.
- Do I need an Alarm Clock to wake up?
- Did you oversleep even you use an alarm clock?
- Do you struggle getting up in the morning?
- Are you sometimes overpowered by tiredness?
- Do you sometimes fall asleep against your will (during the daytime)
- Does it sometimes happen that a single glass of beer and wine knock you out?
It is not only when you have problems falling asleep but in general you should ban everything that sends out radio waves/frequencies. Studies show TV’s, clock-radios, mobile phones and mirrors interfere with your quality of sleep. As sleeping is an active process a good bed is important. A good mattress is the key - it should not be older than four to five years, as it will be worn out due to the sweating over night by this time frame.
Sufficient sleep is essential for us to regenerate our Body and to produce our essential growth hormones. This is the only way that our body can produce some of these Hormones – that is also the reason that we can not suvive long without enough sleep.
The optimum length of sleep is a minimum of six hours. Due to hormone cycles six, seven and a half or a maximum of nine hours plus the time we take to fall asleep are the optimum sleeping time lengths.
Until recently the scientific recommendation stated:
It is not so important that you go to sleep before midnight, more importantly is that you have a regular sleeping pattern. This means you should always go to bed at the same time – plus or minus 15 minutes.
It is also no problem for our biological clock and organism if you work late, watch TV once or party through one night as long as you have that above mentioned sleeping pattern.
Now we know the best time to sleep is between 9pm and 3am the so called Spleen time - this is the time the body can get the best nurturing, rejuvenating and recovering sleep.
Compared to daytime our body only has a blood flow of 15% in our deep sleep phase.
Working three shifts for more than 15 years takes at least 4 years and 10 months out of our life expectancy!
Before going to bed we should turn off the TV and go for a walk in the dark as our body needs darkness to produce our sleeping Hormone Melatonin.
To help sleeping and assist the production of Melatonin (every other Growth Hormone after that as well) you can take 500mg Tryptophan (Not 5-HTP!) 30 minutes before bedtime with fruit juice. This will help regulate your sleep and push up your Hormone Production. If you do not have access to Tryptophan you can eat Bananas as a natural resource of Serotonin, the next hormone after Melatonin or use a mix of Arginine, Ornithine, Lysine and Vitamin B6.
A very good assistance to help you sleeping, especially if your racing mind is stopping you from getting a good night sleep is the Breathing/Meditation Technique in combination with the CD 'Silk in the clouds' from Universal Medicine. For more information come to the free Freeearth Breathing Meditations Classes or visit: www.universalmedicine.com.au
Our body produces its growth hormones in the first four and a half hours of the deep sleep phase. After four and a half hours the Melatonin level reduces to six hours with hardly any production.
From four and a half hours on the testosterone levels increase fast (easy to see by men - The Morning Glory)
From six hours on the Cortisol levels (Cortisol = our body’s own energy) increases and has three peaks: after six hours, seven and a half and nine hours (always plus the time we take to fall asleep).
Women have their highest peak at seven and a half hours – Men six and seven and a half are close. That is the reason for the optimum sleeping time being seven and a half hours for women and six or seven and a half hours for men.
Also in the morning we have the lowest cholesterol levels.
The Link between Obesity and Sleep Deprivation
Studies conducted have shown that individuals who have a less than adequate number of hours of sleep often battle obesity as they are more likely to increase weight. This is due to the hormone imbalances that are experienced with a lack of sleep which enhance the yearning to eat. The autonomic regulatory control of food intake is related to the hypocretin/orexin cells. If these cells are exceedingly stimulated they can bring about sleeplessness which in turn leads to over eating.
