Sleep of Champions

Have you ever said “It’s hopeless!  I’ll never be able to (fill in the blank)…”

Many of my sleep coaching clients come to me with statements like that and the belief that they will never be able to get good sleep again.  These same people can be caught saying things like “Oh, that never works” or “Everyone is always so clueless” or other generalized negative pronouncements.  These people aren’t necessarily depressed (though they may be) but they are falling victim to a deadly cycle and habit known as A.N.T. — Automatic Negative Thoughts.  These are seemingly simple thoughts that come from out of nowhere (actually they come from inside your head) and fill your brain with doom and gloom for even the most splendid occasion.  An example of an ANT might be someone who, when faced with an absolutely glorious day might immediately think, “Well, it’s nice now, but I’ll bet it will rain and spoil the BBQ.  You know it always does.”  Another ANT influenced individual may feel they are never good enough, or no one likes them, or they will never have enough money (time, freedom, space, hair, or whatever) that they need to be happy.

ANTs can often be recognized as statements that contain words such as “never”and “always”.  They are also often big generalization or the worst case scenarios.  Here are some really big ANTS:

She didn’t want to go to the movie with me tonight.  She probably hates me and is talking behind my back.  I’ll bet all her friends think I am a geek.  I will never have any close friends and I will die alone in a smelly back alley somewhere.

Uh, oh! I forgot to mail the letter.  They will probably cancel my account and I won’t be able to get any credit in the future.  I am such a loser!

ANTS have a tendency to march around in your head when you are trying to get to sleep.  This can be especially uncomfortable, because there in the dark with everyone else asleep it is really easy to start to believe those thoughts.  After all you can’t do even the simplest thing like sleep.  No one else ever has this problem.  You’ll probably lay awake all night, feel terrible in the morning, mess up at work and lose you job!  See how easy that was to get carried away by the ANTS?

This kind of unhelpful thinking can become a habit (hence the Automatic part of Automatic Negative Thoughts).  And that’s actually the good news.  A habit can be changed.  But first you have to recognize that you are doing it.

Here is a cute music video to help keep you on the alert for the ANT invasion in your life.

I hope ANTS don’t spoil your picnic.

Best Wishes for Peaceful Sleep,

Patty

Business entrepreneurs often feel they have to make a choice between getting the sleep they need and creating the success they desire.  An article from US News and World Report turns this notion around and offers “6 Ways Lack of Sleep is Costing You a Fortune”.  Below are some of my favorite excerpts.  A link to the full article can be found at the end.  I would also love to hear about your experiences in trying to balance sleep and work.  What worked, what didn’t and what would you do differently if you could? Please leave your comments below.

Here are six ways lack of sleep can cost you money.

1. More Accident-Prone

Driving sleep deprived can be as dangerous as driving drunk. Anywhere from 16 percent to 60 percent of car accidents involve a sleep-deprived driver, and 30 to 40 percent of all heavy truck accidents are caused by fatigue.

2. Increased Medical Expenses

People who don’t get enough sleep are 15 percent more likely to have a stroke and 48 percent more likely to develop or pass away from heart disease.

3. Bad Financial Decision Making

Sleep deprivation causes people to restrict their choices to decisions that promise bigger gains, which aren’t always the best ways to accomplish positive results.

4. Sucking Out Success

When you haven’t gotten enough sleep, your brain doesn’t function as efficiently and isn’t able to remember things as well… The overall GPA of a sleep-deprived student versus a student who gets enough sleep is 2.84 as compared to 3.18.

5. Paying for Convenience

When you are tired, you are less likely to take care of tasks on your own. Be it washing your car, making dinner, or cleaning your house, if you are tired you are more apt to look to other people to take care of those tasks for you.

6. Caffeine Costs

If you buy espresso every day to help you stay awake due to sleep deprivation, you can end up spending upwards of $5,000 per year, or if you buy drip coffee everyday, you can end up spending close to $1,900 per year.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/6-Ways-Lack-of-Sleep-is-usnews-4244760345.html?x=0

Be sure to leave your comments below!

Best Wishes for Peaceful Sleep,

Patty

The theme of sleeping off the pounds seems to be everywhere these days.  JJ Virgin at the Huffington Post did a nice review this morning about how losing sleep can pack on the pounds.  Check it out here.

Another blogger named Tina at Finding Food or Love blog looks at it from the other direction.  She points out how finally allowing enough sleep on a regular basis can help shed extra pounds.  You can read her nice article here.

So while you are all reading these fascinating articles, I have a date at the gym — and then a nap!  I’m all for combination therapy.  Please tell me about your sleep weight connection in the comments section below.

Best Wishes for Peaceful Sleep,

Patty

Would you like to lose 30 pounds without going on a diet, going to the gym or having surgery?  The answer may be in improving your sleep habits and patterns.  This story is a about one man who did exactly that.

Please let me know in the comment section below, how sleep has effected your weight loss efforts.

Best Wishes for Peaceful Sleep!

Patty

Even during the playful days of summer we must encourage our children to get plenty of sleep.  In this endearing video Andrea Bocelli sings Elmo to sleep in spite of Elmo’s pleas to stay up.  I hope you enjoy this.  If so, please let me know in the comments below.

Best Wishes for Peaceful Sleep,

Patty

I just read where the Stanley Cup hopefuls, Vancouver Canucks have incorporated serious sleep work as part of their championship training program. In addition to diet and fitness training they have been using advanced monitoring technology to track and adjust their individual sleep habits to maximize their performance potential.

What their coaches and advisors know is that physical recovery times are greatly reduced when a body is being supported by the sleep that it needs.  Reaction times, attention and decision making skills, as well as shot accuracy have all been shown to improve with increased sleep times.

The average adult requires 7-9 hours of sleep.  Hard training athletes may require more to allow the additional time their bodies need for repair, restoration and rebalancing.

Tennis great Roger Federer says he needs 11-12 hours of sleep to be at his best.  Lebron James also prefers 12 hours of sleep. Apolo Anton Ohno says he averages 8 to 81/2.  Interestingly, Tiger Woods reports getting only 4-5 hours of sleep per night.  There have been studies linking sleep loss to a decline in moral judgment, but that’s for another story…

The Canucks have been wearing special wristbands called accelerometers.  These watch-like devices report levels of activity and can produce reports with data such as average sleep per night, time to fall asleep and sleep efficiency.  It even reports the average bedtime and compares it to the team curfew hour of 11:00 pm.  Naps are also recorded.  Quite a few professional athletes swear by 30-40 minute naps on game day, especially if they are operating in foreign time zones.

As the Canucks continue their amazing assault on the Cup in this week’s finals, consider if you will that the extra zip, zing or pizzazz you see in their game may be the result of some extra “zzz”s at night!

Best Wishes for Peaceful Sleep!

Patty

Tired

The courage to go on
Without sign or post or guide
Is failing now.

I cannot see beyond
To any season that would draw
My heart to sing.

My fears and tears and
Wailing thoughts drown out
The softly lapping
Waves of Possibility.

I yearn to end the effort
With a quiet disappearing.
A sideways slip to some
Suspended plane
Where neither touching nor not touching
Causes pain.

The longing strings a stone
Around my neck, outweighing far
The morning light
Or Springlit song of nesting ones.

I feel no calling
Now to write or rhyme or reason.
Still less to struggle to
Explain or beg.

I do not feel so much for any cause
But sleep.

Soft, warm slumber
Wrapping round me like a hug
Without the asking.

I meet clients all the time who say the main reason they have difficulty getting to sleep or back to sleep if they wake up, is because they “can’t shut off their mind”.  Losing track of the off switch to the brain is a pretty common condition.  It also seems the more we try to leave the brain or mind running too long and the higher we rev the engines during the day, the harder that switch is to find at night when we finally want some inner peace and quiet.

In this article from Betsy McGuire, I think she has landed on an excellent principle and I agree with her on the multitude of benefits from meditation.  Though she lists her 6 favorite, I would have to argue for adding one more very nearly at the top of the list; it helps you sleep more reliably and quietly.

Read the article below and then leave your comments about how meditation has worked for you.

Shut Up Brain

Change your brain, change your life. Quieting your brain every day is one of my three pillars of wellness. For many of us, this life moves fast. We’re here, we’re there, we don’t have the time to just sit and be quiet. I urge you now to take the time. A new study from Massachusetts General Hospital has found that practicing meditation for as little as eight weeks produces changes in certain areas of the brain associated with feeling calmer, as well as an improved sense of self, empathy, and memory.

I recently ran across an article which listed 100 benefits of practicing meditation. It sparked me to think about my six favorite things about quieting the mind. (I just couldn’t narrow it down to five). Here they are:

6. Enhances your immune system keeping your body healthier

5. Helps to focus and control your thoughts for increased patience and gratitude

4. Increases serotonin level, elevating your mood

3. Decreases blood pressure and increases blood flow

2. Alleviates fear and worry by focusing your attention on the present moment

1. Meditation brings you closer to who you really are. It helps to chip away at your “life story”. This is the story you tell yourself and others about who you are. We hide behind this mask of our past experiences and how we want to portray ourselves to the world. We insist that this story is who we are, and we tell the tale over and over. Meditation opens your heart and gets you to focus on your true self. The “you” without the mask. When you give up your story about yourself and about life, you are left with things as they are.

All these benefits and SO many more can be yours for free!! Try these beginning meditation steps to get you started:

1. Find a quiet comfortable place and sit. You want to be able to completely relax without falling asleep. Set a timer for 10 minutes.

2. Close your eyes.

3. Clear your head. Let go of any thought that comes into your mind without engaging it. One technique I use is to imagine tying a helium balloon to a thought as soon as it comes to mind. Picture the balloon floating away with the thought.

Meditation is like any other exercise, it takes time and practice. The more you do it, the better you’ll become.

http://www.chickpeawellness.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Betsy_McGuire
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6288964

Best Wishes for Peaceful Sleep,

Patty



Lately I’ve been thinking alot about bedtime snacks. There seems to be a bit of a debate going on about whether or not it is a good idea to have “a little something” before retiring at night.  There are some very smart folks on either side of the discussion and I was hoping to get a dialogue going on here so I can follow it along with you. Here is some of what I’ve seen of the question:

The Case FOR a Bedtime Snack

Michael Breus, PhD, “The Sleep Doctor”, says you should not go to bed hungry and recommends a high carbohydrate, low protein snack in the hour before bed.
More from Dr. Breus

Today Show nutritionist, Joy Bauer points out that while you should not eat a big meal too close to bedtime, a snack may be just the thing to beat chronic insomnia. The trick is to “combine foods that have some tryptophan with ample carbohydrate”.
More from Joy Bauer

Here’s another article from Discovery Health by Virgil Wooten, MD that promotes a light healthy snack before bed for more restful sleep.  Again, the carbohydrates seem to be the clear favorite.
More from Dr. Wooten

The Case AGAINST a Bedtime Snack

Well known sleep apnea specialist, Steven Y. Park, MD has been very clear on the dangers of eating too close to bedtime. He puts it this way in this MedHelp Journal entry, “Three to four hours is the general recommendation to avoid eating before going to bed. The only thing you can have is water within this timeframe.”
More from Dr. Park

Mayo Clinic offers advice to avoid eating at least 2 hours before bedtime.  They also specifically warn against spicy or fatty foods, especially for heartburn sufferers, as these could lead to heartburn and gastroesophageal reflux that could interfere with restful sleep.
More from Mayo Clinic

In his Daily Blog, much beloved Dr. Andrew Weil makes these comments on the subject, “It is more difficult to digest food when lying down. Our digestive tracts work best when we are upright – sitting, standing or even walking. When you lie down after a meal, gravity can disrupt proper digestion; this can lead to acid reflux, or heartburn, which can hinder sleep.   Digesting food requires the body to expend energy. This can interfere with the relaxed metabolic state required for sleep.”    He also says that any eating before bed should be limited to “small, healthy snacks”.
More from Dr. Weil

So where do you stand on the issue of bedtime snacks?

• Do they help us drift to sleep with the help of tryptophan producing carbohydrates?
• Do they keep our blood sugar even through the night or cause disruptive spikes and troughs?
• Should we fast for hours before sleep or is this advice only for those who have GERD?
• Can the body digest a meal and sleep at the same time?  It has to, doesn’t it – since it takes several hours from end to end, as it were…
• If we eat before bedtime what should we eat and what should we avoid?
• What do you think of products like this one?      Click here to learn about NightFood

Please post your comments, information, insights and ideas below.  I am really interested to hear your thoughts.

Best Wishes for Peaceful Sleep,
Patty

Chainsaw. Fog horn. Angry bear. Freight train. A cow giving birth. An Ozzy Osbourne concert. A wounded warthog.  These are but a few of the colorful (and sometimes painful) descriptions of the snoring sounds of otherwise loved and presumably lovable sleepers.

Snoring is a sound produced by air waves passing over loose tissue on its way from the tip of the nose or lips to the lungs.  The looser the tissue and the more forceful the airflow, the louder and more remarkable the resulting noise will become.  The loose tissue may be in the area of the nose (such as polyps), the nasopharynx (adenoids), the back of the mouth or throat (uvula, soft palate, tongue) or lower in the throat (vocal cord abnormalities).  Thickened mucus in any of these areas can also cause or add to the noisy vibration.

It used to be thought that snoring was merely annoying or comical (depending on whether you could close the door or not…).  We now know that snoring may be a sign of a very serious breathing disorder called obstructive sleep apnea.  In this condition the same tissue that is loose enough to vibrate noisily can end up blocking the airway and prevent the air from reaching the lungs.  This can lead to a decrease in oxygen in the blood and disturb the sleep of the victim.  The biggest problem is that this repeats over and over throughout the night and continues night after night. Chronic sleep deprivation and life threatening medical conditions can be a result.

There is new evidence that snoring itself may be damaging to the large blood vessels in the neck.  Just like using a jack hammer or electric sander for hours and hours on end can damage the nerves and vessels of the hands and wrist, the vibration of snoring may be causing similar damage in the area of the head and neck.  One recent study has shown that in people who snore loudly, the blood vessels that carry blood to the brain were damaged and “roughed up” on the inside.  This makes it more likely that a blood clot can form or that rough edges can break off and cause a blockage preventing blood from getting to the brain, causing a stroke.

Snoring can be improved or eliminated through many different approaches or a combination of them.  Snorers should:

• Achieve and maintain a healthy weight
• Avoid alcohol and sedatives near bedtime
• Stop smoking
• Perform nasal rinses to reduce mucus
• Treat allergies as appropriate
• Be evaluated and treated for obstructive sleep apnea
• Sleep on their side or slightly elevated on a wedge
• Avoid sleep deprivation
• See a medical specialist for additional help if needed

What does your bed partner’s snoring sound like?  Let us know in the comments below?

Best Wishes for Peaceful Sleep,

Patty