Restless legs syndrome (RLS) causes an unpleasant prickling or tingling in the legs, especially in the calves, that is relieved by moving or massaging them. This sensation creates a need to stretch or move the legs to get rid of these uncomfortable or painful feelings. As a result, a person may have difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep. One or both legs may be affected. In some people, the sensations are also felt in the arms. These sensations can also occur with lying
down or sitting for prolonged periods of time, such as while at a desk, riding in a car, or watching a movie.

Many people who have RLS also have brief limb movements during sleep, often with abrupt onset, occurring every 5–90 seconds. This condition, known as periodic limb movements in sleep (PLMS), can repeatedly awaken people who have RLS and reduce their total sleep time. Some people have PLMS but have no abnormal sensations in their legs while awake.
RLS affects 5–15 percent of Americans, and its prevalence increases with age. RLS occurs more often in women than men. One study found that RLS accounted for one-third of the insomnia seen in patients older than age 60. Children also can have RLS. This condition can be difficult to Read The Full Story…

REM sleep boosts memory, creativity, and more, experts announce.

In  a new study, people who took naps featuring REM sleep -in which dreams are most vivid - performed better on creativity-oriented word problems. That is, the REM, or rapid eye movement, sleep helped people combine ideas in new ways, according to psychiatrist Sara Mednick, who lead this study.

At midday, after the first round, the subjects were given a 90-minute rest period, during which they were monitored. Some participants took naps with REM sleep, which typically begins more than an hour after a person falls asleep. Others took an REM-less nap. A third group rested quietly but didn’t sleep.

There was a second round of tests in the afternoon. In a typical second-round test, participants were asked to guess what single word is associated with three seemingly unrelated words. For example, given “cookie,” “heart,” and “sixteen,” the answer would have been “sweet.” The correct answers to many of the second-round questions were the same as the solutions to analogy questions from round one.

On the second-round questions whose answers matched first-round answers—for example, “sweet” and “sweet”—the REM nappers improved their performances by 40 percent. Non-REM nappers and the non-nappers showed no improvement on these problems, said Mednick, of the University of California, San Diego, who presented her findings Friday in San Diego at the American Psychological Association’s annual convention.

That means that REM sleep improved participants’ ability to see connections among seemingly unrelated things: the answers from the first-round analogy problems and the three words in each round-two association test, she said. Read The Full Story…

Parasomnias are disruptive sleep-related disorders that can occur during arousals from rapid eye movement (REM) sleep or arousals from non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. In some people, the walking, talking, and other body functions normally suppressed during sleep emerge during certain sleep stages.
Alternatively, the paralysis or vivid images usually experienced during dreaming may persist after awakening. These arousal malfunctions are collectively known as parasomnias and include confusional arousals, sleep talking, sleep walking, night terrors, sleep paralysis, and REM sleep behavior disorder (acting out dreams). Most of these disorders—such as confusional arousals, sleep walking, and night terrors—are more common in children, who tend to outgrow them
once they become adults. People who are sleep-deprived also may experience some of these disorders, including sleep walking and sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis also commonly occurs in people who have narcolepsy. Certain medications or neurological disorders appear to lead to other parasomnias, such as REM sleep behavior disorder, and these parasomnias tend to occur more in elderly people. If you or a family member has persistent episodes of sleep paralysis, sleep walking, or acting out of dreams, talk with your doctor.

Menstrual cycle hormones can affect how well women sleep. Progesterone is known to induce sleep and circulates in greater concentrations in the second half of the menstrual cycle. For this reason, women may sleep better during this phase of their menstrual cycle, but many women report trouble sleeping the night before their menstrual bleeding starts. This sleep disruption is probably related to the abrupt drop in progesterone levels in their bodies just before they begin to bleed. Women in their late forties and early fifties, however, report more difficulties sleeping (insomnia) than younger women. These difficulties may be because, as they near or enter menopause, they have lower Read The Full Story…

Myth 1: Sleep is a time when your body and brain shut down for rest and relaxation.

No evidence shows that any major organ (including the brain) or regulatory system in the body shuts down during sleep. Some physiological processes actually become more active while you sleep. For example, secretion of certain hormones is boosted, and activity of the pathways in the brain needed for learning and memory is heightened.

Myth 2: Getting just 1 hour less sleep per night than needed will not have any effect on your daytime functioning.

This lack of sleep may not make you noticeably sleepy during the day. But even slightly less sleep can affect your ability to think properly and respond quickly, and it can compromise your cardiovascular health and energy balance as well as the ability to fight infections, particularly if lack of sleep continues. If you consistently do not get enough sleep, eventually a sleep debt builds up that will make you excessively tired during the day. Read The Full Story…

What you eat can affect your sleep. So, our nutritional diet and the food we eat always influence our sleep. Luckily, some foods contribute to restful sleep. We call them sleeper’s foods. Sleepers are tryptophan-high containing foods, because substance tryptophan is the amino acid that the body uses to make serotonin, the neurotransmitter that slows down nerve traffic so your brain isn’t so busy. They relax tense muscles, quiet buzzing minds, and/or get calming, sleep-inducing hormones - serotonin and melatonin - flowing.

The next 10 foods can make getting a good night’s sleep a dream come true:

1. Turkey

Turkey contains tryptophan. However, bear in mind that tryptophan is most effective when the stomach is basically empty, not full, and when there are some carbs in the stomach, not lots of proteins. To get the most from the tryptophan in turkey, eat a slice of white turkey meat on a slice of whole-wheat bread in the middle of the evening.

2. Warm milk. It is not a myth. Milk has some tryptophan - an amino acid that has a sedative - like effect - and calcium, which helps the brain use tryptophan. In addition, there is the psychological throwback to infancy, when a warm bottle meant, “relax, everything’s fine.” Moreover, calcium contained by milk helps the brain use tryptophan.

3. Bananas. They are practically a sleeping pill in a peel. In addition to a bit of soothing melatonin and serotonin, bananas contain magnesium, a muscle relaxant. Also, bananas contain magnesium which has a relaxing effect on muscles.

4. Nonfat popcorn. Pop a bag half an hour before bedtime: The carbs will make your body to create serotonin, a neuro-chemical that makes you feel relaxed. Skipping the butter-fat will slow the process of boosting those feel-good chemicals, and, as mentioned above, will also slow digestion in general.

5. Whole-wheat bread. A piece of toast with your tea and honey will release insulin, which helps tryptophan get to your brain, where it’s converted to serotonin and quietly murmurs “time to sleep.”

6. Red bell peppers - Researchers at the University of Alabama fed rats 200 milligrams of vitamin C twice a day and found that it nearly stopped the secretion of cortisol, a hormone released in your body when you’re stressed. Calorie with calorie, red bell peppers give you extra vitamin C than any other fruit or vegetable.

7. Chamomile tea. Chamomile tea is generally known not only for its relaxing effect, but for its sedating effect as well,. Chamomile tea’s mild sedating effect has helped many restless people fall asleep - it is the perfect natural antidote for restless minds/bodies.

8. Oatmeal. Oats are good for a good night’s sleep because they stimulate the production of melatonin - and a small bowl of warm cereal with a splash of maple syrup is cozy - and if you have the munchies, it is filling too.

9. Potatoes. Eating a little baked potato or a small serving of mashed or roasted potatoes will clear away acids that can interfere with tryptophan amino acid.

10. Honey. Drizzle a little in your warm milk or herb tea. Lots of sugar is stimulating, but a little glucose tells your brain to turn off orexin, a recently discovered neurotransmitter that’s linked to alertness. However, recent studies have discovered that glucose (like the one contained by honey) can stimulate the brain to reduce the quantity of orexin. Orexin is a recently discovered neurotransmitter that is connected to alertness.

Some of the advantages offered by gastric bypass surgery are significant weight loss, improvement in several health conditions and social well being. On the other hand, the negative side of gastric bypass is the presence of health risks and complications that might occur during surgery, nutritional deficiency in patients and anastomotic complications that occur after surgery.
Gastric bypass surgery is a type of weight loss operation meant to treat severe obesity and the health problems resulting from it. It has become one of the popular solutions to people’s weight problems, and information about it is now readily available. Even on the Internet, websites featuring Las Vegas gastric bypass surgery is easy to come across. There are a number of health advantages and disadvantages involved when undertaking gastric bypass surgery, and all of them are worth considering.

Advantages

Significant weight loss

The most obvious benefit offered by gastric bypass surgery is a significant reduction of weight. Weight loss in people undertaking extensive gastric bypass surgeries is estimated to be as high as 65% to 80% of excess body fat. Compared to dieting or exercise, the weight loss benefits are long-lasting and are achieved over a shorter span of time.

Improvement of health conditions

Another positive result of the surgery is a significant decrease in the co-morbid conditions of patients. These health conditions include hyperlipidemia and essential hypertension, which are both seen as being relieved in more than 70% of patients. Nearly 90% of patients see a dramatic improvement in their diabetes mellitus type 2 condition, while 80% experience lower blood cholesterol levels within a couple of months after the surgery. Almost all patients experience relief from gastroesophageal reflux disease as well as back pains and joint aches. After losing weight there is also a dramatic relief from sleep apnea and a reduction of snoring. Several respiratory illnesses are also improved, including respiratory insufficiency and asthma. Read The Full Story…

Does the full moon phase affect your sleep? What about the cycles of the moon? Many disorders seem to follow the phases of the moon. When the moon is full, some people may suffer from insomnia, nightmares, strange dreams, and some people even sleepwalk. A most interesting fact that some people sleep better when the moon is full, but its brightness falls on their faces.

Numerous studies have tried to find lunar effects. Reuters reports that researchers with the Austrian Society for Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research examined the sleep patterns of 391 people in several European countries. About half of the subjects had sleep disorders, but no one knew that researchers were interested in the effect of the moon. “When I take care of patients with sleep problems, so many say that the full moon stopped them (from) sleeping, even I was expecting some small difference to appear in the study,” Gerhardt Kloesch, psychologist University of Vienna, which led to the current research, told Reuters. Read The Full Story…

What is melatonin?

Melatonin is a hormone made by the pineal gland of human body what is a small gland in the brain. Melatonin helps more control your sleep and wake cycles. Very small amounts of it are found in foods such as meats, grains, fruits, and vegetables. You can also buy it as a supplement.

What does natural melatonin in the body?

Your body has its own internal clock that controls the natural cycle of sleep and your waking hours. For the part you see your body controls the amount of melatonin in the body is doing. Normally, melatonin levels begin to rise in the mid to late evening, remain high for most of the night, and then went in the early morning hours.

Light influences how much melatonin the body produces. During the shorter days in winter, your body produce melatonin, sooner or later in the day than usual. This change may cause symptoms of seasonal affective disorder (SAD) or winter lead depression.1

Normally, melatonin levels decline gradually with age. Some older adults make small amounts or none at all. Read The Full Story…

If you have been working on getting your newborn baby to sleep longer, it may help if you feed your baby before getting him to sleep, give your baby a warm bath, follow a consistent routine, put a sound machine near your newborn, always be on the lookout for a sleepy baby, create a conducive environment for sleeping, make sure your baby’s diaper is dry, swaddle your baby, keep the temperature right, and be flexible and try different techniques.

As a parent, it is very challenging to get your newborn baby to sleep longer. Though they sleep for as much as 15-19 hours in a day, they do not do this in one period of time and their sleep habits usually make you getting really sleepy and tired as well. To help you get your newborn baby to sleep longer, consider the following advice:

Feed you baby before getting him to sleep

The foremost reason why your newborn does not sleep longer is that his stomachs is still small and he needs to be fed every few hours, usually every two. To help your baby sleep longer, especially at night, feed the baby before putting him to bed. But, be sure not to overfeed him, as this will cause discomfort to your baby and make him sleep less than you expect.

Give your baby a warm bath

A warm bath can help your baby sleep longer through the night as it will help soothe your baby. You can make this a part of your bedtime routine to give him a cue that it is about time for bed. Read The Full Story…