Can’t fall asleep? Toss and turn? Wake up at three and never be able to get some more winks?
Research about circadian rhythms has borne out what our grandmother’s told us: Sleep before midnight matters. The major repair work in the body happens from around eleven pm to one am. Repair means: Mending muscles, replacing worn-out cells, rewiring brain connections, restoring broken DNA before cancer can develop.
That repair will not happen if you are not in bed, not asleep.
Try basic sleep hygiene:
• Go to bed latest at ten. It helps to read some books – uplifting books rather than thrillers. But whatever works for you.
• Do not eat after dinner – preferably not after six pm. Because, if your body has to digest your stomach contents, it has less time for repair.
• No stimulants after noon (coffee, tea, coke, chocolate, etc.).
• Sleep with window open (if your neighborhood is not too noisy). Indoor pollution is usually worse than outdoor pollution, and you don’t want to re-breathe you own spent air all night.
Second thought: If we don't get enough sleep, we are stressed out the next day. Fact is that the quality of every day of your life is decided the evening before: Did you get to bed in time? Stress elevates cortisol in our body, and high cortisol makes us ravenously hungry. The stress hormone cortisol links poor sleep and obesity.
Last thought: When we were still living in caves, in the darkness, without electricity, we would be confined to our communal sleeping on and under bear skins for about twelve hours a night. Obviously, nobody can sleep that long. So, we woke up after four hours and had a little sex (took about five minutes). Then we would lie awake a while. Toward morning, we would sleep another four hours.
Question: What did we do during those unused three hours fifty-five minutes? We would think. Think a bout the meaning of the lingering dream that the Gods had sent. What did they want us to learn from this dream?
Nowadays we want to sleep effectively: eight hours per night, without waste of time. But something got lost along the line: The reflecting.
Next time, you can’t sleep, think about what is good in your life, and how you can do better. Remember what you wanted your life to be when you were a kid. Dare to dream! Read More
Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.
Spring Fatigue - Undiagnosed
April 19, 2010
A disease exists in Europe that is never diagnosed here: Spring fatigue. Around February, March, April everybody complains about it - and suffers.
Spring fatigue happens when the body is depleted of essential nutrients at the end of the winter, after not enough fresh fruit and vegetables in the cold months.
Do American people not have it? I think they do have spring fatigue - they are just not told about it. Because there is no pill against it. And the rather like to think they have spring fever...
Yet the remedy is easy: Eat about as many fresh greens you can put your hands on: chives (around this time I put handfuls of chives on and in about everything), dandelions, spring onions, stinging nettles, kale, chard, spinach. Many might be weeds in your garden.
Stinging nettles? Yes! It is a weed, but I planted it in my garden on purpose (in a raised bed). Yesterday, I made my first nettle soup of the season. The recipe is easy: Boil one or two cut potatoes (including skin) with a little bit of water and salt. When half soft, add stinging nettle leaves (the stems are tough; you need gloves to handle nettle because they sting), olive oil and pepper. Boil until soft - only a few more minutes. You can puree it - I did. But one can also just eat it like a green vegetable. Never forget the olive oil - without fat, your body cannot assimilate vitamin A from the greens.
Europeans think the stinging nettle is the most valuable herb, period. They use it for a tonic, strengthening the body overall. It is also good against hay fever, but you better buy it as phyto-caps for that purpose. The nettle root is used against prostatitis.
Make sure you know your herbs and harvest your herbs from a clean place - not where dogs pee on them. Go for a local herb walk to learn about herbs. Read More
Love Ice Cream?
April 18, 2010
Every time a patient tells me “I just luuuuve ice cream!” (or whatever), I answer “You shouldn’t love food - you should love your spouse!”
Usually that gets me a stare. Am I serious? Yes! Every time you find yourself saying you “luve” something edible, start re-examining your eating habits - and your life. A famous story about the former German President Gustav Heinemann (1899 to 1976) goes like this: A reporter asked the President if he loved Germany. “No,” said the President. “I love my wife.”
Nearly invariably I find that patients who “love” certain foods, have an allergy to them. One shouldn’t “love” cheese – and yet, so many people do. Very often, the beloved food is from the dairy group (my downfall is whipped cream!). There is but one solution: DON’T EAT IT!! I used to eat nuts daily (they are chock-full of mineral and vitamins and good fats), until I found out that they caused my extreme fatigue. No food should appear on your menu every single day. The more you rotate, the less likely it is that you get a food allergy.
Besides that you might suffer from a food allergy, it seems (to me, at least) that you don’t have your priorities right. Food should not be loved; food should sustain your life. Your life should be bigger than ice cream and pizza. The same goes with “hate” as in “I hate red beets”. Beets are tasty, and they are healthy. On should not “hate” anything.
Get a life! Ice cream is not a life. We have world hunger and fuel shortage and water scarcity and poverty and injustice to mend. Just start somewhere! Read More