Insomnia is the most common of all sleep disorders. This is followed by obstructive sleep apnoea – a condition in which breathing stops for 30 to 120 seconds intermittently during the night impairing a person’s day time functioning.  The third most common sleep disorder is restless leg syndrome.

Overall, insomnia represents 8/10 sleep disorders managed in clinical settings. Untreated insomnia can lead to depression, stroke and even heart attack.

Medication as Sleep Remedies

The table below shows common sleep medications prescribed for treating insomnia (figures from the Australian Family Physician Vol 38, No.5, May 2009):

The above table shows that an alarming 95.2% of doctors treat insomnia with bensodiazapines. “Benzos” are addictive. We need higher and higher doses to get the same effect. Long term use can literally turn us into “drug addicts”.  “Benzos” withdrawal have been known to occur in individuals taking these drugs on a regular basis for as short a duration as 2 weeks!

Common bensodiazapines withdrawal symptoms are:

1. Insomnia (how very nice!)
2. Anxiety
3. Irritability
4. Restlessness
5. Agitation
6. Depression
7. Tremor
8. Dizziness
9. Headache

Managing addiction and withdrawal can be very difficult.  To avoid being caught in this vicious cycle, other methods of managing insomnia should be explored.

Natural Sleep Remedies

Following are the main remedies that I recommend to my clients.

• Learn to wind down with relaxation and meditation before bed time. Yoga can be very effective, meditation or relaxation hypnosis.
• Have a cup of Valerian tea/warm milk to soothe your nerves.
• Take 150mg of melatonin supplement. Melatonin is a substance naturally produced by our body to induce sleep. As we get older, we produce less and less of it. Therefore supplementation can be an effective sleep remedy. Best of all, it is natural and non-addictive.
• Try sleep hypnosis to train your body to relax and sleep when you go to bed. Below is the one that I recommend to my clients – many of them have reported success with this inexpensive hypnosis session. Best of all the company producing it offers a 90-day money back guarantee:
  

Also some general tips:

• Take the TV (and computer) out of the bedroom!
• Establish a routine of when to go to bed and when to get up and stick to it.
• Ensure the bedroom is as dark as possible – perhaps use some sleep/eye shades.

Finding What Works For You

As with all things concerning the human body, there usually is no one answer that works for everyone. However, you should be able to find a combination of these sleep remedies that works for you. I hope you will wake up each day feeling fully rested and refreshed.

Our immune system is like a dormant volcano, when it is quiet, it is all lush, green and peaceful.  But when it is active, it ruptures and wreaks great havoc carving a path of wonton destruction everywhere.  An over-active immune system may present in any of the following ways e.g. asthma, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, diabetes, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s disease, allergies, lupus, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, Graves disease, fibromyalgia and Crohn’s disease just to name a few. 

Note that all these illnesses are characterised by one thing – over-active immune systems attacking our very own healthy tissues giving rise to sometimes fatal disease states, causing premature aging.  Remarkably, it is almost like we “try to kill ourselves and implode”!

So, why do our immune systems specifically produce antibodies to actively seek out and destroy the tissues they were supposed to protect?  If you can answer this question you have the key to reversing the aging process!

Reversing the Aging Process

According to Dr. Mark Liponis, all the latest scientific research seem to point to the fact that soothing your immune system or living in harmony with it provides the best answer to reversing the aging process.  And the way to do that is to ensure that you practice the pillars for healthy living every single day of your life:

1. Maintain a healthy weight
2. Maintain healthy teeth and gums, floss, rinse and brush your teeth thoroughly everyday
3. Remove all potential allergens from the environment and your diet as they induce inflammation
4. Eliminate inflammatory processed foods that are nutrient-poor and energy-rich
5. Have a generous serve of anti-inflammatory foods and probiotics (good bacteria from foods like yoghurt) 3 times a day, consider taking an antioxidant supplement to boost your circulating antioxidants
6. Take 1 hour out to relax (meditation, tai chi, yoga, deep breathing exercise)
7. Laugh often (laughter is the best medicine)
8. Get sufficient sleep and preferably be in harmony with the circadian rhythm
9. Exercise (resistance training, stretching and endurance)
10. Love with all your heart (negative emotions lead to hostile immune systems)

If you are like the millions of sedentary people out there who are going to begin an exercise program after New Year’s Day, here’s the bad news for you.  It may be worse to have started and stopped than never have begun at all!

Occasional exercisers, who push themselves to the limits of endurance, get bored and chuck in the towel may be putting their health in unnecessary jeopardy.  A study by Professor Judith Stern at the University of California, Davis, showed that exercised rats taken off their regime soon overate and gained weight like the sedentary rats.  Not a surprising outcome you might say but this bit of the study might make you sit up and take notice.  The blood test results of the exercised rats showed much poorer biochemical profile than the sedentary rats with much higher percentage body fat!

Therefore if you are gearing up for your New Year’s Fitness Resolution only to give it all up by February, my advice is don’t bother.  Some weight gain may be the least of your concerns!

Reference

Animals on an exercise program:  J.S. Stern and E. A. Applegate, “Exercise Termination Effects on Food Intake, Plasma Insulin and Adipose Tissue Lipoprotein Lipase Activity in the Osborne-Mendel Rat,” Metabolism, 1987, 36, pp. 709-714.

P. Lowney, V. M. Lee, R.J. Hansen, et al., “The Effects of Exercise,  Detraining, Starvation and Refeeding on the Lipogenic Capacity of the Osborne-Mendel Rat,” American Journal of Physiology, 1988, 254, pp. 648-654.

“Concept Nutrition wishes all subscribers a joyful Christmas;

And happiness and health in 2010!”

Did you know that our body is in a constant state of regeneration? Guess where the building blocks for creating our body come from? That’s right they come from the food we eat! We are powerful co-creators of our health and appearance every single day.

In fact, our bodies have such miraculous regeneration prowess that the inner surface of our small intestine is replaced every 5 days. Our entire skin is replaced every 27 days. If you ever doubt that you are a co-creator of your appearance, look no further. Each day we participate in re-creating ourselves through our food choices. Do you see each meal as a special opportunity to nourish yourself? Are you providing optimum nutrition to yourself so that the cells in your body can repair and regenerate themselves? Do not pass this opportunity up lightly. This is the key to health and wellbeing!

Below is a list of nutrient-dense foods you should commit to having each day for optimum health. Make every mouthful count. This will be the mainstay of your dietary plan for creating a new you.

Nutrient-dense foods you will include daily:

• 3 or more serves of fruit (spread them out through the day)
• 5-9 serves of vegetables (go the extra mile by making 400ml – 500ml mixed vegetable juice)
• 3 serves of dairy products (endeavour to have 1-2 serves of yoghurt for healthy gut and bones)
• 2 handfuls of mixed nuts and seeds (especially walnuts, sunflower seeds and almonds)
• 1 serve of oily fish or omega-3 eggs or 100g lean meat
• 1 pot of green tea
• 2 serves or more of lentils, peas or beans
• 48g whole grain cereals

I cannot imagine there would be much space left for junk food after consuming all of the above. Congratulations for powerfully choosing to participate in creating the best you ever!

Research by the Australian Bureau of Statistics reveals that since the late 1980’s life expectancy has increased by 6 years for men and 4 years for women, with men living until 79 while women until 83.7 years. This is good news indeed!  Unfortunately this does not mean we are healthier than previous generations!  Quite on the contrary, we are actually just sick for longer.  That was the message during the Australian Lifestyle Medicine Association Conference held in Sydney last month.
They say Australia is the lucky country.  However, the fact remains that despite a decade of unprecedented wealth, limitless choices, advanced healthcare, we are not as “well” as we should be.  We are staring down the barrel of a chronic disease crisis of unprecedented proportion.  Obesity, heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and cancer are leading causes of preventable death.
To date, the health impact of overweight and obesity are yet to be experienced in this country.  Our current health infrastructure is ill-equipped to handle the fast rising “tsunami”.  So what should we do about this burgeoning problem?  The answer is not to have more doctors to meet the needs of a rapidly ailing population.  Instead, we have to take responsibility for our health.  The onus is on each of us to make sure we keep as healthy as possible by making life-enhancing lifestyle changes.
Did you know that during World War II, health improved in the general population in England?  This was because the English were forced to a basic daily diet of wholemeal bread, potatoes and home-grown vegetables.  Eggs, milk, butter, salt, sugar and meat were strictly rationed.  Food restrictions actually brought on unexpected health improvement!
During the Australian Lifestyle Medicine Conference, Professor Garry Egger echoed the same view when he spoke about the inverse relationship between the state of the economy and population health. He showed a graph depicting predictable improved state of health with each economic crisis over the last century.  It is ironic that improved economic conditions is consistent with bad health outcomes.  This is a clear sign that we are victims of excesses or “the good life”.
What do you think?  What active steps are you taking to improve your state of health?

NB: Professor Egger is also the Director, Centre for Health Promotion and Research, Sydney, and author of ‘Health, ‘ill-th’ and economic growth: Medicine, environment and economics at the cross-roads’, a soon-to-be published paper in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Not all fatness indicates disease risk. Not all leanness indicates lack of disease risk. So what is the one factor that is a potent indicator of disease risk? It is an inflammatory process called metaflammation, para-flammation or smouldering inflammation. This condition appears to be inextricably linked with individual lifestyle behaviours like:

1. poor diet
2. inactivity
3. excessive exercise (modern endurance events)
4. inadequate sleep (due to deprivation, insomnia or sleep disorders like sleep apnoea)
5. mental states like anxiety or depression
6. environmental stressors
7. excessive alcohol
8. smoking

Markers of inflammation are expressed through a range of immune mediators such as cytokines, chemokines, adipokines, myokines and transcription factors. Recently, C-reactive protein has gained more attention than NFkB, TNF alpha and Il-6 but overall, these are common markers used to identify unhealthy inducers of metaflammation. It seems, the lifestyle-related inducers listed above are associated with oxidative stress, insulin resistance and eventual development of disease states.
Regularly consuming high glycaemic foods or large quantities of highly processed carbohydrate foods leads to inflammation and aging of cells. As Professor Jennie Brand Miller, world leading authority on the glycaemic index puts it very simply, “High GI foods lead to high inflammatory markers due to oxidative stress. What happens is that the high glucose load overwhelms the power-house (mitochondria) in the cell causing lots of free radicals to be generated. This leads to death of the mitochondria and eventual cell death.” In essence, aspire to eat like traditional natives and regularly choose low GI foods.
Regular moderate level physical activity, approximately ½ to 1 hour per day most days of the week is anti-inflammatory. Getting 8 hours of good quality sleep daily is also vital. It appears that the “stress-like’’ effects of sleep deprivation and the accompanying hormonal changes are associated with obesity.
In an advanced society like ours, mental states associated with stress, anxiety and depression seem to generate acute inflammatory responses accompanied by elevated levels of cytokines. Smoking also elicits a parallel reaction. Both of which are linked to degenerative diseases.
In a nutshell, the maintenance of a disease-free state lies squarely in our hands. Health is about consistently choosing pro-life behaviours through good nutrition, exercise, good quality sleep, relaxation and powerfully choosing joy-filled states. What are your views? Please post you comments below.

I just presented at a kick-off of a local weight management program. One of the first things we tend to do in these programs is to examine our relationship with ourselves.

I always ask the participants, “Who are you to your friends and family?”  Are you a friend, a confidante, a pillar of support, generous, loyal, forgiving, gentle, etc?

Now let’s turn around as ask this question to yourself.  Who are you to yourself? Are you all of those qualities to yourself?  If you are not, then I urge you to examine why not!  This is the single most important relationship in your life. You have got to be your own best friend, accept and love yourself from within before you can conspire for your own success.  This is the stuff of happiness that gives your life purpose and passion.

This leads me to the next important question. How do you feel about yourself when you stand in front of the mirror? How about while you’re naked?  What do you say to yourself?  The “whispers” in your head constitute your self-image.  And your self image forms a large part of your self-concept which has a direct impact on your self-esteem. Are you sending any toxic messages about yourself to yourself?  Guard against that.

Try the following exercise:  Turn around and look behind you for five seconds, and spot all the things that are blue.

Done?

Now, without looking behind you again, list all the yellow things you saw.

Difficult, isn’t it? In fact, most of us can’t list a single one.

This is the same when we are looking out for all the things that are wrong with us. We render ourselves unable to see the positive! So let’s turn this around – let us look for all the good things about ourselves. Soon some of the bad aspects will start to disappear. When you love and appreciate yourself and your body, you will naturally take better care of yourself. That way doing the right things like making better food choices and taking time out to exercise will be a lot easier.

One last thing; if you feel that there simply aren’t any aspects of you or your body that are positive – are you focusing on blue by any chance?

In third world countries, eating in moderation is the only way to go as there is literally not a lot of food to go around. In places like Indonesia, Thailand or the Philippines, the staple food is rice.  When you examine their meals, you will realize that more than ¾ of what they eat will consist mainly of various types of organic vegetables and rice put together, mostly harvested from the land.  If they are lucky they might get a small amount of fish (perhaps 60-80g each at most) and a little egg to accompany the rest of the rice and vegetables. Egg is generally regarded as a cheap source of good quality protein so it is frequently served. This is the foundation of what people eat 3 times a day. Meat tends to be only served on special occasions. In some poorer areas of  Thailand, only two meals are served a day due to scarcity of food in certain regions. In Australia, we are fortunate; we do not have a problem with food scarcity, instead we get the privilege of dying from diseases caused by excessive food intake!

Studies have shown, without any shadow of doubt, that calorie restricted diets are associated with longer life expectancy. Now we know the reason why. This is because calorie restricted diets are anti-inflammatory and hence synonymous with good health.

This led some people to think that if calorie restriction is associated with longevity, then surely starvation or fasting occasionally must be better! Unfortunately (or fortunately), this was not found to be so.  Starvation is associated with inflammation.  Quite remarkably this is an adaptation that has evolved through human history to ensure survival during times of famine. Inflammation causes insulin resistance which is a state where the body is not sensitive to the hormone insulin.  Consequently, more and more insulin gets produced by the pancreas setting up a vicious cycle causing insulin resistance.  High circulating insulin helps conserve the body’s reserves sparing the breakdown of fat and protein!  This inbuilt metabolic miracle is hugely responsible for our survival in times of food scarcity.  And this is also precisely the reason why, punishing low calorie diets do not serve you!  They could make you more and more insulin resistant such that you are no longer able to break down fat at all!  In other words, when you ‘yo-yo’ diet you are destined to get fatter and fatter making each endeavour less and less effective.

Listed below are common behaviours and dietary practices that either promote or reduce inflammation:

Which camp do you belong to?  Make changes to get into the anti-inflammation camp right away.  Studies have shown you could be saving yourself 7-10 very good years.