Sleep is essential to our ability to function in our everyday life which has much to do with our happiness. No matter what mental, physical, and emotional problems you have in your life, they will be worsened by exhaustion. It’s impossible to be happy when you are overwhelmed, anxious and short-tempered.all extensions of sleep deprivation. In my work with women who come to me in this condition, they are hardly even breathing. So there goes any oxygen that could be helping their brain to function.

According to the National Sleep Foundation (NSF), almost two thirds of women many of them mothers have insomnia, meaning that they have difficulty falling or staying asleep. The only time in my life that I really didn’t sleep enough was when my son was a baby. He woke up five times per night, needing to nurse. That went on for two years. Desperate to find out if there was anything that I could do, the women of La Leche League promised me that after two years, things would improve. They did. Almost thirty years later, I’m a good sleeper and I do realize its importance. I just read or meditate for ten minutes and I’m out like a light.

William C. Dement, MD, PhD, the Dean of Sleep Disorders Research and Professor of Medicine at Stanford University, states: “Americans have gotten the message that good nutrition and plenty of exercise are important for health, but we have not paid enough attention to the third pillar of good health, which is adequate sleep.”

The Harvard Women’s Health Watch suggests six reasons to get enough sleep.

1. Learning and memory: Sleep helps the brain commit new information to memory through a process called memory consolidation. In studies, people who’d slept after learning a task did better on tests later.

2. Metabolism and weight: Chronic sleep deprivation may cause weight gain by affecting the way our bodies process and store carbohydrates, and by altering levels of hormones that affect our appetite.

3. Safety: Sleep debt contributes to a greater tendency to fall asleep during the daytime. These lapses may cause falls and mistakes such as medical errors, air traffic mishaps, and road accidents.

4. Mood: Sleep loss may result in irritability, impatience, inability to concentrate, and moodiness. Too little sleep can also leave you too tired to do the things you like to do.

5. Cardiovascular health: Serious sleep disorders have been linked to hypertension, increased stress hormone levels, and irregular heartbeat.

6. Disease: Sleep deprivation alters immune function, including the activity of the body’s killer cells. Keeping up with sleep may also help fight cancer.
Guidelines for better sleep from the American Insomnia Association.

 Maintain a regular wake time, even on days off work and on weekends.

 Try to go to bed only when you are drowsy. Use your bedroom only for sleep, massage and sex.

 Avoid napping during the daytime.

 Establish a relaxing pre-sleep ritual such as a warm bath, light bedtime snack, or ten minutes of reading.

 Exercise regularly. Mild exercise should not be done within 4 hours of bedtime while vigorous exercise should not be done within 6 hours of bedtime.

 Keep a regular schedule. Regular times for meals, medications, chores, and other activities help keep the inner clock running smoothly.

 Avoid large meals close to bedtime, but a light snack can help promote sound sleep.

 Avoid ingestion of caffeine within six hours of bedtime

 Avoid alcohol in the evening. Even a small dose of alcohol can produce dangerous levels of sleepiness if ingested when drowsy.

 Avoid the use of nicotine close to bedtime or during the night.

 Do not drink alcohol while taking sleep medication, sedatives or other medicines that may interact with alcohol.

Jill Schneider, is a wellness teacher in Delray, Florida, www.circle-of-life.net/. Jill is also on the leadership panel for Mommy Mentors’ Mom’s Business Mastermind Group, www.mommymentors.com/. Mommy Mentors is a resource for all mothers to find support, inspiration and information, both in business and life.

Tags: health, sleep, sleep deprivation, stress, wellnesshealth, sleep, sleep deprivation, stress, wellness

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Aloe Vera is greatly enriched with vitamins, minerals, and other important nutrients. Aloe has also been around for as long as any one can remember, with evidence of it even being there during the dinosaurs’ age.

Not only has it been around for a long time, but it has been used during almost all of the time it has been around. Aloe is able to cure burns and bruises, small cuts and some medium sized cuts, stomach problems, and there is extensive research being done on other uses.

One of the many things that Aloe can do is help raise your immune system. That’s right; studies have shown that aloe can actually help protect you from cancer, sickness, and other problems.

So how does aloe raise your immune system? Inside of aloe there are numerous vitamins, minerals, and trace elements. All of these things combined into one create a type of shield against bacteria that causes sickness and disease.

Now not every aloe plant contains everything it should. Because of the fact that earths soil is starting to become depleted of its old minerals and enrichments, earth’s vegetation is suffering as well. How ever, there are people who build green houses and buy enriched soils for them.

These green houses help keep air and ground pollution down inside of the green houses, and also can keep the soil inside of them from becoming depleted like other soil.

With green houses, and proper care, the aloe plant can continue to work its healing properties on humans and can continue to decorate houses as well. What some people don’t understand though is that aloe can be used for numerous things.

You don’t even have to go to a store to buy it. You can take a leaf off of an aloe plant that you own go on the web and find out what you can do to it to get the type of healing you require from it.

Different Types of Aloe

There are over 500 different species in the Aloe family. Each one is different in size and appearance going any where from as small is a half dollar coin to full sized trees.

They are found all over the world, but are native to Africa Yemen and other countries in that region. The differences between the Aloes are actually very odd ones. Some of them can survive in cold weather; others die in cold or wet climate.

When you think of aloe, what do you think of? Most people think of the aloe that is used for sun burns and other minor injuries? Have you ever thought of it as a small little shrub? Or a big tree? With over 500 different species no matter how you look at it, it is still a very big species.

Aloe Vera is the most commonly known, it has been used for burns, cuts, bruises, nutritional values, and much more by all the different cultures of the world. The aloe that we are familiar with grows like a desert plant; it has long slender leaves that are thick all the way up to around the middle where they start to thin out.

Caring for these plants is very easy, and most aloe plants can be found in a garden or in a home used as decoration. Aloe is also a good source of vitamins, and so there are a lot of different cultures that experiment with the different types of Aloe.

With all the different types of aloe, and all of the evidence of it’s healing abilities, it is a wonder it is not extinct yet. The plants are all over and easy to find once you know what you are looking for. Using aloe for injuries is also easy, simply by cutting off a leave and squeezing the juice out you are able to work with aloe juice.

Copyright 2006 PillFreeVitamins.com

Steven Godlewski is a self-made millionaire and is currently working with the staff at PillFreeVitamins.com He has an extensive background in nutrition as well as other health related fields. For more health-related articles see their website at:
http://www.pillfreevitamins.com

Tags: Aloe Vera, health, nutrition, vitaminsAloe Vera, health, nutrition, vitamins

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Have you ever been in a situation, where you felt uneasy because of something you think you may have forgotten to do, such as switching off an appliance at home, or perhaps a feeling that you annoyed someone whom you wanted to get along with really well. If you have experienced such feelings and worse on a regular basis, then you most probably are a victim of anxiety attacks.

All of us, to some extent, have experienced anxiety and at different levels. There are some things you may know about anxiety, and some things that you may not be familiar with. So in order to be prepared for your next encounter with a feeling of anxiety, you need to get to know what anxiety is before it escalates into a panic attack.

Anxiety is simply the feeling of discomfort, uneasiness and or fear of what may eventually happen resulting from a perceived, imagined, or a real threatening condition. On the extreme end panic attacks can occur due to heightened feelings of anxiety.

There are two main categories of symptoms during an anxiety/panic attack and these are physical and emotional symptoms. Physical symptoms include difficulty in breathing, shaking , sensations of heat, rapid heartbeat and fatigue. Whereas emotional symptoms deal with excessive worrying, depression, fear, irritability and lack of focus.

Now you may be thinking, that anxiety is only caused in situations where you are faced with an impeding threat and have no other option but to face it. In reality, this is not true as anxiety can occur in unthreatening conditions too . For example, imagine that you have been chosen to speak in front of a large audience and the reason you were picked amongst your other hundred colleagues is because you are regarded as the best. In such an encounter, you will feel proud that you were picked from a hundred other people but at the same time the thought of having to speak in front of a large crowd can trigger anxiety. In such cases you get a mixed feeling of both positive and negative anxiety.

In spite of the negative impression we have for anxiety, it is not dangerous in any way what so ever. If you thought that anxiety is dangerous and will threaten your health then you need to think again, because all this is merely a false perception of anxiety. Feeling a little shaky and or having a feeling of ‘butterflies in the stomach’ is pretty normal.

Panic attacks however, are far more dangerous and should be a concern to your health. Panic can sometimes result in dizziness, blurred vision, difficulty in breathing due to a tight chest and in extreme scenarios a victim can feel faintish where they may or may not, end up unconscious. The major problem with panic attacks is that most victims think they are going through a stroke and this further aggravates the current condition. So the best way to differentiate anxiety from any serious illness is to consult a medical expert on a regular basis.

So all in all you must understand that the feeling of anxiety is not bad in any way, in fact it’s more of a defensive inherent feeling which protects us from possible danger by engaging a response within us in fight or flight situations. So it’s not the “bad guy,” you just have to learn how to control it.

Jason Rickard is the owner of Your Favourite Shop - Offering White Noise and Relaxation CDs - Visit Hapa Health for more articles.

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