How to Improve the Quality of Your Sleep

Why is it Americans don’t get enough sleep? Basically, because we do not fully appreciate its importance and then act accordingly. We think of sleep as just a time-out, in contrast to the emphasis

we put on each day’s waking activities. Or perhaps we have come to rely on pills to make sleep satisfactory.

Yet deprive yourself of sleep and not only will your mind be less sharp, your immune system will not protect you from diseases, your metabolism is thrown off balance, you are more likely to put on weight, and your skin and eyes will look tired. In short, you feel lousy.

But you have the solutions. Take a few actions. Create better conditions for quality sleep. Small changes can make a big difference to your sleep and your life. And limit your needlessly taking meds.

Common Sleep Problems

• Insomnia, the inability to fall asleep, is the most common sleep problem for adult Americans; 54% experience at least one symptom of insomnia a few nights a week and 33% almost every night. These people feel constantly tired yet don’t feel the urge to sleep.
• Sleep-maintaining Insomnia - you may fall asleep but wake up and cannot go back to sleep. This may be due to several things, including needing to urinate,  having inconsistent sleep patterns caused by drinking alcoholic beverages, or are worried about something. You may be awakened by restless leg syndrome, a bad dream, suffer from depression, or may be affected adversely by a medication.
• Your sleep is disturbed by sleep apnea. Apnea is when you stop breathing while you are asleep, sometimes snore, gasp and go right back to sleep again without even realizing what happened. Sleep apnea is most common in overweight people and affects almost 7% of Americans. Those with untreated apnea feel tired due to their inability to get sound sleep. Because of their sleep deprivation they are 2 to 7 times more likely to have a car accident than the general population. The good news is that you can get tested, diagnosed and treated.
• Sleep deprivation – getting less than 7 to 8 hours of sleep for most people – may develop as a result of general, poor sleep habits like staying up late and getting up early to go to work. Even 20 minutes less sleep per night than required results in cumulative sleep loss. And the truth is that it’s very hard to make it up just by sleeping in on weekends.

Sleep Solutions: A check-list of do’s and don’ts

• Plan for sleep as you plan for your day. Be active throughout the day, but not right before bedtime, if you want to sleep at night.
• Set the stage. Make your bedroom welcoming and tidy, and your bed, pillows and bedclothes comfortable. Don't skimp. Get the right mattress and rotate it often. Replace it as often as you might change your car. You spend one third of your life in it.
• Get consistent with bed- and wake-up times. This is one that people underestimate. Also, don’t sleep in a chair in front of the TV. When you begin to feel sleepy, go to bed
• Winding down from the day’s activities will help you relax, fall asleep and stay asleep.
o Do not drink anything with caffeine after 3pm.
o Do not drink anything for two hours before bedtime to avoid the need to pee.
o Do not exercise in the evening. It will keep you awake.
o Limit alcoholic beverages and don’t drink any within 3 hours of bedtime.
o Dim lights of your sitting room two hours before bed; use reading lights if needed. Darkness allows melatonin to increase. We've all heard and experienced the impact of blue light on our sleep. Leave that tempting electronic device in the living room.
o  If you get up in the night, use night lights only.
o Do not make or accept phone calls from anyone for one hour before bed-time Similarly, do not enter into decision-making or problem-solving discussions late in the evening.
o If you watch TV before bed-time avoid disturbing programs.
o Never watch TV in the bedroom.
• If you want to read, use a reading lamp, aimed at the book not your face.
• Turn down the thermostat before going to bed in colder months. Programmable thermostats will take care of this for you, and can be set to turn the heat back on, prior to your rising.
• Apply stress-relieving techniques like breathing exercises if you wake up in the middle of the night and cannot go back to sleep within 20 minutes .
o Ask yourself “what is worrying me?” and if you can do nothing about it at the time, make a note of it and resolve to attend to it during waking hours.
o Get up and do something relaxing and satisfying like listening to quiet soothing music, until you feel sleepy again.
o Keep the area dark, and use white noise to neutralize sounds.
• See your doctor if you think you have apnea or restless leg syndrome get tested. For apnea, a device called CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) helps you breathe during sleep. Restless leg can be reduced with increased exercise during the day or medication during the night. Consult with your doctor.

You are the one with the ability to improve the quality of your sleep and your life. Begin by paying more attention to how you feel and why you feel this way. Take ownership of your sleep and begin to make small adjustments in the way you approach it. Sleep is the time for body and brain to reboot from the day’s work and restore. Sleep and wakefulness serve different functions. Both are needed for balanced wellbeing.

Why Sleep Matters

During my career at NASA we allocated a lot of resources to ensure that our astronauts would be able to perform their duties safely and effectively. The quality and amount of their sleep was a crucial factor, and likewise it is for you and me. Today, 40% of Americans say they do not get enough sleep. On average, Americans get 6.9 hours of sleep each night, slightly less than the 7 to 9 hours recommended by experts. If you’re Japanese you likely get much less, but more if you are from France. So, what does it matter if we don’t get enough sleep?

•    Without enough, quality sleep we cannot fully enjoy our waking hours.
•    Getting enough sleep comes with substantial benefits, crucial to our physical well-being, such as increased energy, fitness and improved immunity.
•    Without adequate, quality sleep our mental and emotional health deteriorates often evidenced by fatigue, depression, anxiety, and reduced effectiveness.
•    Seventy million Americans have what is considered a “sleep problem”, including insomnia or sleep apnea. In addition to the challenges suffered by the individuals, the diagnosis and treatment of sleep problems is said to translate to a direct cost of more than $15 billion per year. The additional indirect costs, like accidents, lost productivity and hospitalization, amount to more than $50 billion. Sadly, more than 100,000 automobile-related accidents per year are sleep related.

In a 24-hour day roughly one-third (8 hours) is spent sleeping while the remaining 16 hours we are awake. We do a great deal of planning and structuring of our waking hours to work, socialize, be active and so on. Often viewed as “the opposite of being awake”, we perceive sleep as an unconscious or semiconscious passive state that just happens and does not require our attention. Somehow, we believe sleep will take care of itself to provide us with much needed respite from the day’s activities. We carefully plan our day using watches, calendars and lists to organize each day. How many of us pay similar attention in planning and structuring our sleep?

Two significant events of the 20th century led to greater appreciation of the costs and benefits of sleep.
First, the invention of the electric light bulb enabled the practice of work during what had for all time been normal sleeping hours. This led to the discovery that all living organisms on Earth have an internal, circadian 24-hour biological clock that is fine-tuned by daylight and night-darkness. Disturbing or reversing these rhythms comes with consequences.

Secondly, methods were developed of continuously recording the electrical activity of the brain and of imaging (MRI) its changes day and night. This has led to awareness that the brain is extremely active during sleep and that disrupting its normal pattern of activity can have disastrous consequences on emotional and physical health. Even so, much remains to be learned.

This is the first of a series of blogs on sleep where I’ll delve further into the nature of sleep and how your approach to it can help you live healthier, fuller lives. For now, here are five non-medicinal solutions to improving your sleep:

1.    Avoid stimulants for several hours before bed time. Consume no caffeine, and this includes caffeine from foods like chocolate, after 3 pm.
2.    Plan for sleep by powering down. Ever notice how going from the computer or smart phone to the pillow doesn’t encourage nodding off? Avoid exertive physical activity after dinner.
3.    Make your bedroom for two things only: sleeping and making love. TV’s and even reading should happen elsewhere. And your beloved cell phone? Don’t even think about it.
4.    Set and keep a consistent bed-time. There’s a reason we did it for our kids.
5.    Respect your sleep time. You spend one third of your life doing it.

Sweet dreams!

Meditation - Getting Started

by George Danellis

Ok, so “meditation”. The word itself makes most people a little bit uncomfortable, sort of like being sat at Thanksgiving dinner right next to your most obnoxious relative. Meditation often provokes images of flaky people, or figures in golden robes. Maybe you’ve tried it yourself and have memories of an uncomfortable experience where your body hurt or thoughts and emotions seemed to come in a relentless, uncontrollable stream. So you gave up, or never started.

And that’s wholly understandable. I know, because I’m human too.

But maybe you’re one of those fortunate folks (like me, some of my friends, business colleagues and the more than 20 million Americans) who have gotten past these initial obstacles and are now enjoying the benefits of a regular meditation practice. If so, please let me know in the comments section below how I do at both explaining why meditation can improve the quality of your life, and how to get a practice started the easy way.

The Why

• Improved Health. From being able to maintain a more stable and healthy weight, to reducing blood pressure, to dealing with pain, to addressing unhealthy habits - developing a meditation practice is a winning proposition for your health. Doctors today are rapidly recognizing the benefits of meditation for their patients.
• You’ll Become Less Bothered by the Small Stuff. Over time a meditation practice will help you better see how things really are in any given moment, rather than how we often make them out to be. Day by day you’ll develop a bit more of a ‘No Big Deal’ attitude.
• Improved Effectiveness. Whether handling a work duty, a creative activity or a personal relationship, meditators report improved concentration and a general sense of awareness, with less anxiety.
• Not Why You Thought. You’ll have your own reasons for starting. Over time I guarantee that other benefits will arise. That’s just how it goes.

The How
While there are many types of meditation, the one here is a secular practice that can be done by anyone, and is commonly called Mindful Awareness.

1. Take Your Seat. Find a comfortable, quiet place. Sit with upright posture in a chair with your palms resting naturally on your thighs. Close your eyes. Or if you prefer to leave your eyes open look slightly downwards with an unfocused gaze.
2. Bring Your Awareness to The Breath. Take one big breath and fully let it go. Thereafter breathe normally, gently noticing the breath go in, and then out. Perhaps allow your jaw to relax and your mouth to rest slightly open -whatever feels natural.
3. When Your Attention Wanders, Bring it Back To The Breath. Because it will wander, over and over again - from what’s for dinner tonight, to how you might have handled “that situation” differently yesterday, to how you can’t keep your attention on your breath. It’s been said that just as a dog barks, a mind thinks. So there’s no reason to judge yourself, just let the thought go and bring your attention back to the breath. Over time you’ll get the hang of it.
4. Conclude with Gratitude. Give thanks for whatever you want, including your new meditation practice!

To start, I recommend doing this meditation for 5 minutes, three or four times a day, whether in your living room or car, sitting in a park or wherever it works out for you. Over time, increase the length of your meditation sessions until you are up to 15 minutes or longer. A goal to sit for thirty minutes a day is good but not necessary, and I recommend allowing yourself one day a week that you set aside to not meditate.

Enjoy your new meditation practice!

George Danellis is a Corporate Sustainability consultant, surfer and lover of a good meal enjoyed with friends and family. He's had a sitting meditation practice since 2007.

Mark Kelly and Gabrielle Giffords Conquer the Odds.

With Mark Kelly about to command the last mission of the space shuttle Endeavor, I wanted to write a bit about their journey, as a follow-up to my January post on their situations and the stress related to it. 

As we all know, on January 8th, 2011 in Tucson, Arizona astronaut Mark Kelly's and his wife Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' lives were turned topsy turvy. This dynamic and loving couple were at the peak of their careers. Instead, they were then faced by both a life-threatening violent injury and a seemingly impossible choice about his commitments and dreams. For Kelly, this was about whether to stay consistently by his wife's side, or to continue towards a lifetime opportunity as commander of the Shuttle Endeavor's last flight. Not an enviable situation.


Fast forward to late April. It is now Tuesday and Endeavor is on the launch pad. The precious cosmic ray detector payload, which is to be fixed on the exterior of the International Space Station, has been loaded and the payload bay doors closed. Lift-off is less than three days away. Commander Mark Kelly and his crew of five are in the usual pre-launch quarantine and the count-down has begun. The excitement grows with a mixture of nervousness and pride. This launch would have been noteworthy without the added attention of the Kelly-Giffords storyline. Dignitaries including the Obamas are beginning to arrive. 

In the space community, it was always understood that Mark Kelly would make the decision to go ahead with his mission. As Kelly put it, 

"You've got to make a determination whether ...is this something you think is worthwhile? And the way I do that is I've got to look at what's the personal risk to me and what's the reward to our nation in doing this? I think the space shuttle program and human space flight in general provides a great deal for our country." 

This is the result of his analysis and conclusion of the overall dilemma he and his wife were facing. Not least in his decision was his wife's health status. We have heard about Representative Giffords' determination, and results in her  recovery, no doubt influenced by her wish to see her husband's dream fulfilled. Her improvement made Commander Kelly's decision significantly easier.


On her side, knowing how much this mission meant to her husband, Gabrielle Giffords was going to do everything in her power to make it possible. She made his launch her motivation to recover faster. This meant that not only did she have to overcome great odds to survive, but to go a leap further by declaring early on that she wanted to be present for the launch. Setting such a seemingly insurmountable, but relatively short term goal, gave her the determination during an otherwise long and slow journey to recovery. It was a tangible target. Imagine how much slower her recovery would have been if there was no pressing target for which to reach? From a rehabilitation point of view her desire to support her husband and to be at the launch may have been the best thing that could have happened to her.


Representative Giffords and Mark Kelly show us how, when you assess your situation (even when it is utterly traumatic) and decide on a position you intend to aim for, much is possible.

As Endeavor is making her final launch before retiring, may she and her crew travel safely, and may the story of Commander Kelly and Representative Giffords serve to inspire.

Mix Up Your Exercise for Better Results

If you are already exercising regularly, here are some suggestions to help you get the most from your effort, and develop some enduring, beneficial habits. Allow Spring's arrival to be a helpful nudge.

If you are like many of us and feeling like you need to increase your activity but cannot quite get motivated or find the time in your busy schedule, here are some tips that may help you make exercise more enjoyable and effective.

When you read about exercise today what you commonly see are standard recommendations for types of exercise and how long you should exercise based on averages from studies in groups of people. While this information is valuable it's unlikely that you are that 'average' individual. Each one of us is in our unique place and have things we like to do, resources at our disposal, and more. It's important to note that 'more and harder' are not always better. We are best served by adapting these global standards to real life. Our life.

The following recommendations are based on proven methods, as well as the latest research and observations that to be healthy, fit and sustain activity over time, it is not only which exercise we do that matters but how to develop activity habits that fit into our individual lives.  

1) Go for Variety. The body gets accustomed to the same thing every day and over time stops responding in the same manner. Ever reach a plateau?

2) Confuse the Body by alternating the speed or intensity or frequency of what you do if even by small amounts and with moderate intensity. This is why interval training is better than maintaining a steady pace at anything you do. Walk faster and slower. Take a few steps backwards every so often.

3) Change Posture. Stand up as often as you can throughout the day. Believe it or not, as well as improving balance and functional strength, this stimulates an enzyme that targets abdominal fat and has more physiological benefit than taking slow walks.

4) Take a Class.  Classes provide structure, accountability and also variety since no two classes are alike, and you will do things that you otherwise wouldn't. There are lots of classes out there at health clubs or public recreation programs. My favorite is Yoga, where you learn to use breathing to energize or calm yourself, while increasing flexibility and balance.

5) Try Pilates. Pilates is amazing at strengthening your body's core muscles that support your back. It reminds me to suck my stomach in when I sit at my computer or driving. Start with an introductory class if you have never done it.

6) Make it Social. Grab a friend or group and play tennis, golf or take a long walk once a week.

7) Swim. Outdoors if you can, but anywhere is good. Swimming is a wonderful, low-impact activity and just plain feels good.

8) Get Dirty, Have Fun: Gardening is not usually thought of as exercise but the next day your pleasantly aching muscles may tell you otherwise. Stretch before and after and don't try to do your spring clean-up and planting all at once. And the next time you walk by the playground, swing on that swing, even slowly. You may even make a new, younger friend or two.

9) Relax. And I'm not talking about watching TV. Most of us think we know how to relax but really aren't accomplishing it. I'm talking about an activity that releases your tension and brings you back to a state of equilibrium. Relaxation is just as important to our muscles and joints as contracting them. Not sure how to do it? Take a restorative or Yin yoga class and learn that feeling.
 
10) Do it now, then do it later. Do you fail to start exercising due to not having enough time? Instead, do 3 or 4 minutes here and 3 or 4 minutes there. Which do you think will have results - lamenting your busyness and not doing anything, or doing a little bit at different times during the day?

I consider myself a fairly active person but if you are like me, you may spend a little too much time sitting in front of a computer or a TV, especially during the colder months. It's also easy to go with what's comfortable and not test our bodies in smart and reasonable ways. I hope that with Spring's arrival, you will allow some of these suggestions to spark a renewed enthusiasm about your exercise program.

Aging Well With a Generous Daily Dose of Gravity

I imagine that most of us don't worry so much about dying but about what comes just prior to that part of life. Like my friend Tom Rogers used to say: "I want to be healthy till I drop dead!" Aging well and retaining dignity and independence is what it's all about. 

The human body is a gift. We owe it to ourselves to take good care of it and in fact we have more influence over this body than we might believe.  Not feeling your best is no fun and often very costly. In contrast, a healthy body and mind help you feel good and look young. At times, you may for instance get down on yourself about what you’ve eaten or having been relatively inactive. It’s important that you be aware of this and make choices that better support your wellbeing. Although medications have their place, practical, non-medicinal solutions are readily available as well. There is much to be learned from previous generations.

Modern Times and Technologies
Many modern technologies have contributed to robbing us of good health. They crept up on us before we quite realized what was happening.  Although the TV remote control, your car, your computer and the washing machine make your life and work easier, they also reduce your need to move. 

Designed for Gravity
Your body was designed to live and move in gravity which, in turn, makes movement effective. We’ve learned from astronauts living in space how important using gravity is to wellness. In spite of hours of strenuous exercise while in the microgravity of space, astronauts lose stamina, balance, coordination, and muscle and bone strength 10 times faster than on earth. These are all changes you experience on earth as you age, only much more slowly than our astronaut friends. Yet if you asked a doctor about the effects of gravity on human health they would probably look at you blankly. There is nothing in the medical textbooks about gravity.

At NASA we learned that you can produce similar changes on earth by lying in bed continuously.  With the greater inactivity prevalent today from extended periods of sitting and lying down these accelerated age-like changes can be hazardous to your health.  The simple answer for us living on earth is to move more in ways that use gravity.  Children do this spontaneously. Before the advent of Jane Fonda's videos or Gyms and Wellness Centers, our grandparents did it naturally in the course of the day.

Mother Nature's medicine to aging well in technology-rich modern times is a generous daily dose of gravity. For your body to be well and strong it is crucial to use and challenge gravity by moving about throughout the day, every day.

Aging is Not Dependent on Age

We think of gravity as the force that makes apples fall off trees and allows skiers enjoy the thrill of sliding downhill. When it come to ourselves though, we tend to view gravity as the enemy that drags us down and ages us. It makes our body sag, muscles and bones atrophy, we lose our balance and coordination and cannot get a good night's sleep. Did you know that astronauts in space, where they experience almost no gravity-- we call it microgravity -- show the same changes? Do astronauts grow old faster in space without gravity? And if these changes are due to aging, why do they recover once back in Earth's gravity? After all, we presume that you and I grounded here on Earth do not recover from these same changes.These were the perplexing questions I faced in my research at NASA.

Developing a Ground Model
Given the small numbers of humans going into space, experiments on the ground had to be devised where we could study in depth many more people in conditions that mimic the effects of living in space. Healthy men and women, similar in age to astronauts, volunteered to lie in bed continuously for weeks. Lying down decreases the length of the axis in the body through which gravity can act. An even better model  was lying at an incline with the feet up and head slightly down. The first 20 minutes are a bit uncomfortable because the blood rushes to the head but after that it feels normal and astronauts tell us it feels much more like being in space.

After a few days of this bed rest, healthy young volunteers show the same accelerated age-like loss in muscle and bone and the other spaceflight changes we saw in astronauts, except they were less intense. Were these healthy men and women also aging faster merely by lying in bed? Like astronauts, they also recovered once they were up and about and the axis of gravity acted on their body in the head to toe direction.

Answers Came from the Ground
The simplistic answer was that these changes may seem similar but are due to different causes and mechanisms. After all it has been assumed that as we age we do not recover from these similar changes.
While visiting a friend's mother at a nursing home it dawned on me that the question I was asking should be turned around. It was not, " Do astronauts and people on earth grow old under conditions of reduced gravity?" Outrageous as it seemed, what if the question to ask was "Could the physical deterioration associated with the passage of time be reversible as well?" " My research team wondered if it could have something to do with somehow being exposed to less gravity as we age. This consideration raised a highly exciting prospect.

The Theory and the Action
Years after first expressing this theory acceptance is gradually growing that the changes associated with increasing years -- age -- are distinct from aging. They are ageless. They are due to a life of reduced influence of gravity on the body. This means that they are not inevitable, that you can actually do something to prevent, delay and even reverse the changes normally associated with aging. Even though gravity is all around us, from age 20 on when development peaks, we progressively decrease challenging gravity in everyday life. It is not merely about inactivity. Not only do you sit more but the secret from space research is that you need to  move more with respect to the axis of gravity.Think about gravity until using it becomes a habit.