Sleep loss

9 Foods to Help You Sleep

9 Foods to Help You Sleep

Adding these foods to your diet may help to increase your odds of a successful slumber.
Some people have trouble falling asleep. Others can’t stay asleep. And then there are the people who have trouble turning life “off” and tucking into bed at a reasonable hour.

Whatever the reason, we’re not alone—more than 50 million Americans don’t get enough shut-eye. Yet the health benefits of a good night’s rest are countless: sleep helps keep you happy, your brain sharp, your immune system strong, your waistline trim, your skin looking youthful—and lowers your risk of high blood pressure and heart disease

Here’s the good news: Adding these foods to your diet may help to increase your odds of a successful slumber.

1. Fish
Most fish—and especially salmon, halibut and tuna—boast vitamin B6, which is needed to make melatonin (a sleep-inducing hormone triggered by darkness), according to an article published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

2. Jasmine Rice
When healthy sleepers ate carbohydrate-rich suppers of veggies and tomato sauce over rice, they fell asleep significantly faster at bedtime if the meal included high-glycemic-index (GI) jasmine rice rather than lower-GI long-grain rice, in a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. While the authors aren’t sure how it happened, they speculated that the greater amounts of insulin triggered by the high-GI meals increased the ratio of sleep-inducing tryptophan relative to other amino acids in the blood, allowing proportionately more to get into the brain.

3. Tart Cherry Juice
In a small study, melatonin-rich tart cherry juice was shown to aid sleep. When adults with chronic insomnia drank a cup of tart cherry juice twice a day they experienced some relief in the severity of their insomnia.

4. Yogurt
Dairy products like yogurt and milk boast healthy doses of calcium—and there’s research that suggests being calcium-deficient may make it difficult to fall asleep.

5. Whole Grains
Bulgur, barley and other whole grains are rick in magnesium—and consuming too little magnesium may make it harder to stay asleep, reported the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine.

6. Kale
Dairy products are well-known calcium-rich foods. But green leafy vegetables, such as including kale and collards, also boast healthy doses of calcium. And research suggests that being calcium deficient may make it difficult to fall asleep.

7. Bananas
Bananas, well-known for being rich in potassium, are also a good source of Vitamin B6, which is needed to make melatonin (a sleep-inducing hormone triggered by darkness), according to an article published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

8. Chickpeas
Chickpeas boast vitamin B6, which is needed to make melatonin (a sleep-inducing hormone triggered by darkness), according to an article published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

9. Fortified Cereals
Fortified cereals also boast vitamin B6, which is needed to make melatonin (a sleep-inducing hormone triggered by darkness), according to an article published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

Source: eating well

Full Moon Night May Reduce Sleep by 20 Minutes

Full Moon Night May Reduce Sleep by 20 Minutes

Next time when your grandmother tells you a folklore as you try to sleep on a full moon night, tell her to cut short as you are going to lose some sleep owing to the effect of lunar cycle on your brain.

Researchers have found that people actually sleep 20 minutes less when the moon is full.

“Participants slept an average of 20 minutes less and had more trouble falling asleep during the full moon phase. However, the greatest impact on REM sleep (during which most dreaming is believed to occur) appeared to be during the new moon,” said Michael Smith from Sahlgrenska Academy at University of Gothenburg in Sweden.

Based on a study of 47 healthy adults aged 18 to 30, the results support an earlier theory that a correlation between sleep and the lunar cycle exists.

“The brain is more susceptible to external disturbances when the moon is full,” Smith added.

A Swiss research study conducted last year showed that the full moon affects sleep.

The findings demonstrated that people average 20 minutes less sleep, take five minutes longer to fall asleep and experience 30 minutes more of REM sleep.

“There may be a built-in biological clock that is affected by the moon, similar to the one that regulates the circadian rhythm,” researchers said.

Re-analysis of the data showed that sensitivity, measured as reactivity of the cerebral cortex in the brain, is greatest during the full moon.

Greater cortical reactivity was found in both women and men whereas only men had more trouble falling asleep and slept less when the moon was full, said the paper that appeared in the journal Current Biology.

Source: ndtv

Shift workers beware: Sleep loss may cause brain damage, new research says

Are you a truck driver or shift worker planning to catch up on some sleep this weekend? Cramming in extra hours of shut-eye may not make up for those lost pulling all-nighters, new research indicates.

The damage may already be done — brain damage, that is, said neuroscientist Sigrid Veasey from the University of Pennsylvania.

Alzheimer’s & Sleep

The widely held idea that you can pay back a sizeable “sleep debt” with long naps later on seems to be a myth, she said in a study published this week in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Long-term sleep deprivation saps the brain of power even after days of recovery sleep, Veasey said. And that could be a sign of lasting brain injury. Veasey and her colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania medical school wanted to find out, so, they put laboratory mice on a wonky sleep schedule that mirrors that of shift workers.

They let them snooze, then woke them up for short periods and for long ones.
Then the scientists looked at their brains — more specifically, at a bundle of nerve cells they say is associated with alertness and cognitive function, the locus coeruleus.

They found damage and lots of it.
“The mice lose 25% of these neurons,” Veasey said.
This is how the scientists think it happened.
When the mice lost a little sleep, nerve cells reacted by making more of a protein, called sirtuin type 3, to energize and protect them.

But when losing sleep became a habit, that reaction shut down. After just a few days of “shift work” sleep, the cells start dying off at an accelerated pace.
The discovery that long-term sleep loss can result in a loss of brain cells is a first, Veasey said.

“No one really thought that the brain could be irreversibly injured from sleep loss,” she said. That has now changed.

More work needs to be done on humans, she said. And her group is planning to study deceased shift workers to see if they have the same kind of nerve damage. They hope their research will result in medicines that will help people working odd hours cope with the consequences of irregular sleep.

Source: CNN

World Sleep Day: Lack of sleep can cause heart disease

How you sleep is a major determinant of how well your heart functions. A new study carried out on cardiac patients at the Sir Gangaram Hospital here revealed that around 96 percent of patients who have cardiovascular problems have sleep apnea.

Sleep apnea, which is clinically called Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome (OSAS), is a type of disorder characterized by pauses in breathing or instances of shallow or infrequent breathing during sleep.

“Lack of sleep is directly related to cardiac diseases,” Sanjay Manchanda, head of Sir Gangaram Hospital’s Department of Sleep Medicine, told IANS.

“Quality of sleep is very important. A good night’s sleep prevents heart attacks, diabetes as well as road accidents.”

The study, carried out by the hospital in collaboration with Philips Healthcare, also proves the correlation between lack of sleep and heart ailments.

It said that 58 percent of patients of cardiovascular disorders had severe sleep apnea and an estimated 85 percent of them were not aware that sleep apnea and
cardiovascular diseases were correlated.

Removing some of the myths associated with sleep apnea, the study further said that there is no correlation between weight and extent of sleep apnea.

Even thin patients can develop the disorder.

The severity of sleep apnea in cardiac patients was found to increase with age, the study said.

Sleep apnea involves cessation of airflow for 10 seconds or more during the night due to partial or full collapse of the airway in human beings. The reduced or absent airflow results in high carbon dioxide and low oxygen.

The sufferer is forced to increase his breathing effort against the collapsed airway. This means that the sufferer arouses to a lighter stage of sleep, which
leads to sleep fragmentation and the person wakes up unrefreshed.

Added Manchanda: “It is by far the single most common disorder seen at sleep centres and is responsible for more mortality and morbidity than any other sleep disorder.”

He said though there are many reasons that can lead to sleep apnea like alcohol, smoking and use of sedatives, in some people it is due to the structure of their
throat and the upper part of their body.

Snoring, the doctor said, is just an indication of the condition.

According to J.P.S. Sawhney, chairman of the cardiology department at Sir Gangaram Hospital, sleep apnea as a disease is grossly untreated.

He said its correlation with cardiac disease has not been understood by the public as yet.

However, the doctors said that the condition is easily treatable.

Surgical intervention or a machine called C-Pap which ensures trouble-free breathing during the night, can easily help patients.

The C-Pap, one of the most common treatments, derives its name from the application of “continuous positive airway pressure” (or forcing air) through a patient’s nose to prevent limp throat muscles from closing off the airway.

The price of the machines, which have several variants, range between Rs. 35,000 and Rs. 90,000.

Source: Daiji world