Sleep Tips

There are several tips that one can use in improving the quality of sleep which is as important as getting the right amount of sleep. While sleep cycles and patterns are bodily functions that are established and taken care of by our body, applying free will and the willingness to readily surrender to our physical body and admit that it knows what is best for us doesn't come naturally to most people. During childhood and most adulthood good health and sleep are taken for granted and the system is abused indefinitely till it starts falling apart.

Instead of waiting for the system to push back and say enough, it is in our interest to go with the flow of nature and follow certain basic principals in resting the body and mind in an attempt to contribute to a healthy body and health mind.

To begin with it is important to cultivate some basic habits that will set a routine and once the routine is set, one just needs to stick to it and not allow it to lapse. Some tips that might help establish this routine are as described below:

Diet and Exercise: In a 24-hour day it isn't much to set aside 30 minutes for exercising. Initially one can start with a brisk walk and it needn't necessarily be at one stretch. Two sessions of 15 minutes each or three sessions of 10 minute each is a good start. A week or two later there can be a 10-or-15-minute increase to the total time devoted to exercise. Introducing mild stretching exercises and yoga for 5 to 10 minutes everyday can follow this. Exercising late in the evening might not be a good idea since exercise stimulates the body and increases the temperature, which is a direct contradiction to sleep, which requires a relaxed body with decreasing temperature.

It is advisable to eat at least two hours before bedtime since a heavy meal followed by immediate resting doesn't do much to relax the system in its entirety. A cup of hot milk before bedtime is good idea since milk contains tryptophan, which induces sleep. Caffeine should be avoided or the quantity of caffeine should be reduced towards late evening and night. This is primarily because caffeine binds to and blocks the same cell receptors that recognize adenosine, which is the chemical that triggers of the fatigue signal after which sleep occurs.

Smoking causes sleep troubles in numerous ways. Nicotine is a stimulant, which disrupts sleep. Additionally, smokers actually experience nicotine withdrawal as the night progresses, making it hard to sleep.

Many people think that a nightcap before bed will help them sleep. While it may make you fall asleep faster, alcohol reduces your sleep quality, waking you up later in the night. To avoid this effect, stay away from alcohol in the last few hours before bed.

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Sleep Facts and Statistics

Facts and Statistics

• In dolphins, only one-half of the brain sleeps at a time, with the other half staying awake. This is essential in order to reach the water surface to breathe.
• Up to 15% of people “sleep walk.” Sleepwalking is called somnambulism.
• Approximately 15% of people have restless leg syndrome.
• Vehicular crashes are the third leading cause of death and injury in the United States, and up to 20% of them are sleep related.
• Untreated sleep apnea causes 500,000 motor vehicle crashes annually.
• One in 20 men have sleep apnea.
• Seizures occur more commonly during sleep than during waking hours.
• Many tranquilizers actually decrease deeper stages of sleep that are required for the restoration and fresh feeling in the morning.
• Jet Lag is worse when traveling toward the East.
• Sleep loss of four hours is equivalent to being drunk with a blood alcohol level of 0.1%.
• One-third of young adults are pathologically sleepy during the day.

Importance of Sleep

Sleep is important for our overall well being and sleep helps us feel healthier, think sharper & enjoy life more fully. Many people underestimate the value of sleep. Like proper nutrition & exercise, sleep is vital to your health. Lots of disease conditions and emotional problems stem from lack of sleep and not from external factors, as we would like to believe.

The mind and body do not shut down during sleep. Sleep allows the brain to consolidate the day’s learning into memory and improves the ability to learn repetitive skills, such as riding a bike or working on a computer. During sleep, the body does maintenance work like replacing old cells with new ones and reenergizing organs and muscles.

The "work" that sleep does during the night is vital for you to function optimally during the day. Getting the amount of sleep you need and getting a combination of light and deep sleep allow the most restorative benefit.

Sleep Debt

Sleep loss that accumulates night after night is called sleep debt or sleep deprivation. Slight loss of sleep also could cause sleep debt if continued on a regular basis. It is therefore important for the body to get the stipulated amount of sleep.

Impact of sleep debt or sleep deprivation

• Sleep debt has a deep and lasting impact on daytime life. Accidents that occur while driving or decreased levels of concentration at work etc., are all a result of sleep deprivation, cataclysmic accidents, such as the Exxon Valdez or Chernobyl nuclear disasters, can be traced in some part to lack of sleep.
• Fragmented sleep can be as devastating as no sleep. -- Dr. William C. Dement, Stanford University, Sleep Research Center.
• Two-thirds of American adults report a sleep-related problem.--National Sleep Foundation
• Some people show great bravado about getting a job done on little sleep or brag having trouble sleeping, claiming their work proves they didn’t need the rest anyway. Yet the truth is that fatigue is dangerous. America’s sleep problems have reached epidemic proportions, and may be the country’s number one health problem.--CNN Health Story Page.
• By the year 2010, nearly 40 million Americans will experience debilitating excessive daytime sleepiness, and an estimated 79 million Americans will have difficulty falling asleep.--Census Bureau Statistics
• On any given day a substantial number of Americans, perhaps the majority, are functionally handicapped by sleep deprivation.-- National Commission on Sleep Disorders Research
• Researchers suspect one reason heart attacks occur more frequently in the morning is that a night of tossing and turning can lead to a significant surge of blood pressure the next morning.-- Time Magazine
• In today’s fast-paced world we are sleep deprived. We’ve cut back on the hours we sleep to provide more time for work, family and leisure.
  

Future trends of Lucid Dreaming

The future of Lucid Dreaming is extremely bright and promising. To be actually aware of your dream as you are dreaming and the ability to control your dream is almost like gaining the power to create a parallel world. Lucid dreaming is an awesome skill that can be studied and cultivated and prove to be extremely beneficial to human kind.

Once developed, lucid dreaming techniques can be used to wake up and utilize all the creative centers that are lying dormant within one self. It can empower people by enhancing their energy levels and contribute significantly to understanding ones’ fears, problems, or weakness. Lucid dreaming can help evolve and develop a person by removing all mental and emotional blocks.

By employing Lucid Dreaming, our civilization should be able to overcome certain fears and experience more rationale. Lucid dreaming techniques can contribute significantly towards de-stressing people who prescribe to lucid dreaming thereby directly reducing diseases and illnesses. With stress being the main contributor for most physical and mental ailments, lucid dreaming may help people overcome it in the most natural and relaxed form. Lucid dreaming is a bridge that connects the conscious and unconscious minds. While on this bridge you are free to experience the unconscious by being fully aware of what is happening. If a person suffering from recurring nightmares develops the skill of Lucid Dreaming he or she will be fully aware of what is transpiring and has the power to face the challenge and overcome the terrifying experience at the unconscious level. The fear will no longer appear larger than life and the ability to face the fear will convert all the blocked negative energy into free positive energy.

Lucid Dreaming is rapidly gaining popularity all over the world simply because it is one of the oldest and most popular forms of dream phenomena. From ancient Indian scriptures like the Upanishads to Tibetan Bardo or Ancient Greek and Egyptians everyone understood and practiced Lucid Dreaming technique hence Lucid Dreaming is mostly a rediscovery.

Lucid Dreaming is one of the most effective and natural forms of healing. Lucid dreaming helps people overcome their fears and acts an outlet or platform for releasing or expressing suppressed and unexpressed emotions. Problems and baggage that people have been carrying since childhood can be cured once a person masters the skill of lucid dreaming.

Other benefits that can be accrued from Lucid Dreaming include the ability to draw out a persons’ true creative potential as well as problem solving skills and all this is possible because the dreamer is no longer a silent spectator in the dream but an active participant who can control and change the course of the dream. The dreamer is also going to experience some adventurous and unnatural feats like flying, passing through solid objects, levitating etc., which are impossible to experience during a conscious state.

Once initiated into the prarctice of Lucid Dreaming, you can start exploring the advanced forms of Lucid Dreaming like Clairvoyant Dreams, Precognitive Dreams, and Telepathic Dreams. These types of Lucid Dreams are extemely informative and helpful because through these dreams, one can see what could be is in store for the future and act cautiously as forewarned is always forearmed.

Hopefully people will realize the importance of Lucid Dreaming mainly because it is a gentle and relaxing technique of calming, healing and generally connecting a person to his or her core inner self. It almost like being given the power to create a parallel world, inhabit it, experience all that you want to there knowing very well that you are in control of what transpires there. It gives people powerful insights about his or her true Self which is different from the persona or the face that he or she projects into the world.

Lucid Dreaming should act as a guide for people to accept who they are, learn to improve themselves by facing all the challenging situations one encounters in the course of living on this plane. People will learn to be genuine and not try and be something they are not which will help them learn to accept others as they are and there will be no drama or play acting to impress or please, everything will be accepted as it is and nothing will be supressed or repressed within. Lucid Dreaming will open a whole new world to people who are willing to explore the immense potential there is by being self aware during their journey on the physical plane.

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