Food Wednesday
For many people, eating good food in a balanced diet, is an area of personal well-being that can be difficult to maintain. Like goals, if you make some poor food choices, it’s not 100% failure. Just try and understand why those poor choices were made ie tiredness, not prepared the food, lack of nutritional information, alcohol, etc. Since my stress and panic attacks, I have tried to eat better, yet I still have temporary setbacks. For those people who have experienced panic attacks, I found that cutting out fried foods, caffeine, processed foods and alcohol really helped me not only manage my weight, but made me feel so much better.
Sleep Thursday
It seems that as we get older we have more interrupted sleep that can leave us feeling tired and frustrated in the morning…when it eventually arrives. There is scientific data that suggests we need less sleep as we get older, with some experts saying that 6-7 hours is ok rather than the normal 8 hours. Getting quality sleep, with no or little interruptions is essential.
According to The Sleep Foundation, sleep can be divided up into REM (Rapid Eye Movement which is when the brain is active and is evaluating/thinking = 25%) and NREM (Non Rapid Eye Movement which is when the body repairs itself and energy is restored = 75%).
As we begin to fall asleep, we enter NREM sleep, which can last for 90 minutes and is followed by the first period of REM which recurs about every 90 minutes interchanging with NREM. Without the deep NREM we will feel tired in the morning and susceptible to poor food choices and perhaps don’t exercise. So, if you find yourself waking up regularly or even struggling to go to sleep here are a few tips:
- Don’t have caffeine after 12 noon
- Don’t eat at least 3 hours before sleep
- Quiet room, no white noise and a touch colder than warmer ambient temperature
- Use of Lavender oil on the pillow
- If you wake up don’t fret. Just accept it and try and get back to sleep. If this doesn’t work, get up and do something for 20 / 30 minutes which will distract you from focusing on sleep, then return to bed.
Say Goodbye to Stress 