-
Why You Need to List Your Most Important Tasks
If you are someone who likes to read self-improvement or personal development books, then you have probably heard the term MIT. These are your most important tasks, the ones you want to get done in the beginning of your day before focusing on anything else. Here are some things to know about choosing your most important tasks, and why you need to get them done first. Choose Your Most Significant Tasks as Your MITs To start with, your most important tasks should be the ones that are most significant. These are the ones that will make the biggest difference in your success, reaching your goals, or completing your work for…
-
What Does Your Biological Clock Have to do With Your Sleep?
Sleep Awareness Week 2021, March 14-20, 2021 We all have a biological clock. This biological clock is sometimes referred to as your circadian rhythm or your sleep-wake cycle. In fact, there is a small “part” in your brain that controls all of this. It controls when your brain and other organs secrete chemical messengers, known as hormones, to other parts of your body to cause things to happen in your body. Even when this part is removed from the brain, it continues to function all on its own! The reason that it is important to have a general understanding of how this biological clock works, is so that you can…
-
Medical Conditions that Interfere with Normal Sleep
If you are always exhausted, despite making real attempts at improving your sleep, or you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep (insomnia), then you should always discuss this with your medical doctor. There are two reasons for this. First, some medications contain compounds that make it harder to sleep. For example, some pain medications have caffeine in them. In addition, some asthma medications, and even nasal decongestants can also disrupt your sleep. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Second, a number of health conditions, both physical or mental, can interfere with your sleep, and some of them can actually be dangerous. Here are a few physical medical…
-
Understanding the Different Stages of Sleep
National Sleep Awareness Week 14-20, 2021 Sleep is a necessity. It allows your brain and body to recover after periods of wakefulness. Specifically, sleep restores your body’s ability to function, to repair body tissues, create hormones, consolidate memories and learning, and regulate mood. Sleep makes up such an important part of our lives, that there are people who spend the majority of their careers dedicated to the topic. Whether you experience an occasional day of sleepiness, or you feel like you spend most of your days in a sleep-deprived state, it is important to understand the different stages of sleep. This can then help you improve the quality of your…
-
How Much Sleep Do You Need?
National Sleep Awareness Week, March 14-20, 2021 Considering that we spend one-third of our lives asleep, knowing how much sleep is required is a good question. However, it often comes with an over-generalization. For example, in March 2015, the National Sleep Foundation came up with some guidelines on how much sleep that people, of different ages, should be getting. General Sleep Recommendations The recommendations were for healthy people with normal sleep patterns. The appropriate duration of sleep for a newborn, for example, is 14 – 17 hours. Whereas, teenagers are fine with 8 – 10 hours. Young adults and middle-aged adults should be aiming for 7 – 9 hours per…
-
Life Reset: Work on Better Sleep
Sleep is one of the best things you can do for yourself but is often overlooked. Too many people lose out on sleep or at least have a poor quality of sleep, assuming it is just something you do, and not at all important. But your sleep quality can affect nearly every facet of your life, including your physical health, mental health, and so much more. How Much Sleep Are You Getting? Before you can adjust your sleep routine, you need to have a starting point. Keep a sleep diary for a few days or week with what time you went to sleep and woke up. Note what are doing…
-
Sleep and Your Immune System
Getting an adequate amount of sleep is important for a wide variety of reasons. These range from keeping your stress levels stable to affecting your weight. It can also seriously impact your immune system. If you consistently get less sleep, you might find yourself getting sick more often and taking longer to fully recover. When you go to sleep, your body isn’t doing “nothing”. It’s actually quite active during rest, doing a lot of behind-the-scenes maintenance that’s very important for you to stay healthy. Your Body Produces Stuff in Your Sleep One important thing your body does while you’re asleep is produced and utilize something known as cytokines. These are…
-
What’s the Fastest Way to Boost Your Immune System?
People are often interested in how they can improve their immune system as fast as possible. Typically, they’re only looking for information about this when things are starting to go wrong. There are lots of things that you can do in order to boost your immune system quickly, However, some of them take some time to make a considerable difference. There’s rarely one guaranteed way to get your immune system boosted overnight, but by doing multiple immune-boosting things at the same time, you can set your immune system up to be as strong as possible! Get More Sleep One thing that you can do to rapidly improve your immune system…
-
How to End Your Day the Right Way
When you’re creating a healthy daily routine, it’s common to focus more on the mornings. However, if you want to reduce stress, feel happier and be more productive the next day, you’re going to want to also put effort into how you end your day and your nightly routine. Here, we’ll look at some of the things you can add to your routine to end the day the right way. Write a gratitude list Studies have shown that making a list of the things you’re grateful for before you go to bed can deliver great benefits. It forces the mind to focus on the positive, helping you to sleep better…
-
Tips on Getting Enough Sleep
Getting enough sleep is a huge issue in the United States today. A busy life can affect your ability to sleep but other issues like hormones, diet, sleeping environment, stress, or medical conditions can affect how well you sleep. It’s easy to point to your schedule as the reason why you can’t get enough sleep. By the time you get a free moment, it’s time for bed. But then there’s a TV show you want to see or one more thing you need to finish. Then you stay up too late. It’s a vicious cycle. In my case, medical conditions affected my sleep habits. I was attached to a dialysis…
