Tag Archives: energy level

Are you getting enough sleep?

An important, often underrated aspect of good health, is getting enough sleep. Your mood and your performance during the day depends a lot on how good your sleep was the previous night.

sleep

The onset of many modern illnesses such as heart disease, obesity and diabetes are meanwhile also attributed to lack of sleep. So how much sleep is really enough?

Generally school-aged children require about ten hours of sleep while the average adult requires between 7-8 hours. Going to be early however, doesn’t necessarily mean that your sleep is good.

Insomnia or the inability to fall asleep is especially prevalent among people with highly stressed jobs. Apnea, a momentary suspension of breathing, is also widespread.

These are some of the questions you might ask if you have the feeling that you are not sleeping enough:

– Are you having problems falling asleep?

– How many hours are you actually sleeping?

– How often do you have problems during the day staying awake?

If you are feeling drowsy after a midday lunch you can easily rejuvenate yourself by taking a short ten minute catnap. But in most cases we are expected to burn our candles on both ends, giving our bodies too little time to recuperate. You can improve your sleep by doing the following:

  • Avoiding heavy meals, drinks and stimulants such as coffee in the evenings.
  • Keep a regular sleep schedule by going to bed at the same time and getting up at the same time.
  • Take a catnap during the day to catch up for last sleep
  • Make sure your bedroom is dark with television and computer screens turned off
  • If you wake up worrying about something, write it down on paper and postpone it to the next day.
  • Breathing exercises such as exhaling twice as much as inhaling will help you relax
  • Progressive muscle relaxation is also a method that could be useful

If you are one of those few people who sleep ten hours and more a day, then you might have a problem too. A study by the Centers for Disease Control Prevention (CDC) in the US links too much sleep with chronic diseases in adults aged 45 years and older.

Published in early October this year, the study involved more than 54,000 participants in 14 states in the US. Both short and long sleepers reported a higher prevalence of coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity and anxiety, compared to optimal sleepers who got seven to nine hours of shut-eye on average.

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7 Simple ways to get your energy levels back up

During my workshops people frequently tell me how exhausted they are from many things ranging from work pressure to emotional stresses at home. That, I tell them, is a good sign, because they are feeling their bodies and the need to do something about it.

 Your energy level determines your sense of well-being, happiness, creativity, mood and long-term quality of life. And, it is so easy to do something about it. You have the power to make that decision. Here are the first three steps. The others will follow in my next blogs:

1. Liberate yourself from sugar addiction

Freeing yourself from sugar addiction is one of the most important things you can do to boost your health. Sugar is a stimulant that puts your body on alert by boosting the stress hormone cortisol. Your blood pressure increases and initially you feel a boost of energy. The downside is that such a feeling is only short-lived like taking an addictive drug.

 Did you know that the average Pizza you buy from the supermarket is filled with the equivalent of 25 teaspoons of sugar. All the common soda drinks have equally high white sugar content. Artificial sweeteners are suspected of causing Alzheimer and many other modern-day illnesses. See this damning report on how the pharmaceutical industry managed to bring it onto the market

http://goo.gl/Hr04uJ

Sugar upsets the calcium/phosphorus ratio and thus the homeostasis process in the body. Phosphorus is one of the most important nutrients your body needs because it helps filter out waste in the kidneys and stores energy. Most of it is also used to strengthen the bones and teeth.

Try and do without sugar for about 40 days and you will feel the difference. There are alternatives out there such as unrefined raw cane sugar, honey and stevia that you can buy in any organic store.

2. Drinking good water

Water is crucial to flushing out toxins in your body and is the most crucial life-sustaining drink.  Between 50 and 75 per cent of your body is composed of water. It is responsible for functions such as digestion, absorption, circulation, creation of saliva, transportation of nutrients, and maintenance of body temperature. There are different views on how much each individual needs. It depends a lot on your age, the temperature and the amount of exercise you are doing. A lot of our tap water however is contaminated with heavy metals, hormones and pesticides. So be sure that your source of water is healthy  – ideally spring water. You can also add flavour to your water by adding frozen berries, lemon or cucumber. Your intake of calory foods and soft drinks will naturally decrease.

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3. Eat less and eat healthy seasonal foods

Local seasonal foods with short transportation routes still carry a lot of nutrients that you won’t find in those supermarket foods that have been in storage for a long time before they reach your table. Even many of the power foods no longer have the nutrient level they once had because of degenerating soils, long transportation routes and genetic manipulation. (see graph below) If you eat better quality food your portions can also be smaller. Eating slowly and with pleasure also gives the body time to digest. 

Tested Vegetable

Nutrient

1985

1996

2002

Variation

in %

1985-1996

 

 

1985-2002

Broccoli

 

Calcium

manganese

103

24

33

18

28

11

-68

-25

-73

-55

Spinach

Magnesium

Vitamin C

62

51

19

21

15

18

-68

-58

-76

-65

Banana

Calcium

folic acid

magnesium

Vitamin B6

8

23

31

330

7

3

27

22

7

5

24

18

-12

-84

-13

-92

-12

-79

-25

-95

 

 

 Source: 1985 Geigy. 1996 and 2002 Food laboratory Karlsruhe/Sanatorium Oberthal, Germany. 

 

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