Wenatex Blog :: Healthy Sleep for a Better Life

Over time, we have put up a few blog entries about sleep and how it can help with weight loss. I believe this article is one of the best I have read on the subject so far. The article (and study it is based on) comes from Canada but it is absolutely still relevant to Aussies. Read the article at http://www.canada.com/health/Dozing+diet+Sleep+diet+works+research+shows/2009252/story.html

Please feel free to share your personal experiences on the subject.

If you are like me and prone to the odd snack or two particularly at night, and you are looking for ways to cut down, you might want to get more sleep. This is the message that comes out of a recent study conducted in the USA.

To read more, go to the article at http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20090109/light-on-sleep-heavy-on-snacks?ecd=wnl_day_040109.

So, get more sleep, your body will thank you in more ways than one.

Sleep has been connected with weight loss and a couple of articles on the subject have appeared on a number of credible sites recently. If you are interested in sleeping well and losing weight, you should check them out. Let us know what you think.

http://www.weightwatchers.com.au/util/art/index_art.aspx?tabnum=1&art_id=31701&sc=3045

http://womansday.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=82188

Wenatex has also produced an article on a similar subject, check it out at

http://www.wenatex.com.au/article_dreamdiet.asp

Let me know what you think.

Be wise and have fun

Juan

We know that, in the USA, over 100.000 road traffic accidents a year are due to fatigue. We also know that after two days of sleeping less then five hours each night, our coordination capacity is equal to when we experience a blood alcohol limit that will see us losing our driver’s licence. If we already know these facts, why don’t have laws regulating fatigued drivers? We do not tolerate workers impaired by alcohol, but we have no legal recourse if the impairment is due to sleep deprivation. Will we soon be asked by police officers to “blink” at a machine to find out how many hours we slept and if we are driving “under the limit”?

One of the major restrictions for law makers is the lack of scientific evidence to demonstrate poor coordination skills when we drive and the relationship with the hours we did not sleep. However, good news is on the way.  A scientific study performed by M. Chattington of Manchester Metropolitan University demonstrated that: “…driving a vehicle requires coordination of horizontal eye movements and steering. Recent research has found that even a single night of sleep deprivation can impact a person’s ability to coordinate eye movements with steering.” This study is extremely important because it may allow law makers to start thinking about ways to introduce measurable parameters to regulate people driving under the effects of sleep deprivation.

Did you know that 20 to 30% of truck drivers’ accidents are due to sleep deprivation?

Would you like to know more? One of our Wenatex Sales Consultants, Rachelle from Victoria sent us a fantastic link where you can find excellent information and film in relation to sleep. Here it is and thank you Rachelle!

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20070813/sleep/default.htm

Until tomorrow, be wise and have fun… and watch out for those “sleepwalking” trucks!

Following this newspaper article , a team from the Centre for Community Child Health at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne Australia studied almost 4500 children twice, the first time at age 4 – 5, then again at age 6 – 7. Their sleep behaviour was recorded and analysed.

About one-third of the children in the trial reported poor sleep habits.

Children suffering from poor sleep habits may suffer strong detrimental effects

on their health, behaviour, and learning ability.

A simple check on the ABS website showed that in 2002, there were 4 million children in Australia. This means that there are at least 1.3 million children with poor sleep habits…

Hello… is anybody listening!!!???

Until tomorrow be wise and have fun!

Information provided in this blog is to be used for educational purposes only. It should NOT be used as a substitute for seeking professional diagnosis or treatment of any disorder.

Browsing the net this evening, I found a company that sells dolls with the faces of Down Syndrome(DS) children. The company is called Downi Creation and their website is http://www.downicreations.com/. I didn’t know how I felt about this, so I sent the article to a Mexican friend of mine who has a son with Down Syndrome… I will let you know her answer.

Nevertheless, I realised that I had absolutely no idea about the sleep patterns of children wth DS, so decided to do further research. This is what I have found out. At SLEEP 2008, the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies in Baltimore USA, Dr. Nicole N. Phillips presented a study that she performed comparing the sleep patterns of 38 children with DS with 38 normally developing children.

The results are as follows:

1. Children with DS sleep poorly and have more fragmented sleep compared with normally developing children
2. Children with DS may also have an altered sleep architecture characterized by less total sleep time, more stage 1 sleep, and less REM sleep
3. Poor sleep quality and decreased amounts of REM sleep may further impair cognitive, behavioural, and physical growth. This is important to recognise as it is not only valid for children with DS, but for everybody.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Until tomorrow be wise and have fun

Information provided in this blog is to be used for educational purposes only. It should NOT be used as a substitute for seeking professional diagnosis or treatment of any disorder.

So the situation is this…… you are moving out of home and someone says to you ‘do you need a mattress, we are getting rid of ours if you want it? It’s only a ‘few’ years old?’ Sure you think.  The money I save on a mattress can go towards a couch or a fridge – brilliant!

This is the very situation my friend is currently in. Everyone wants to save money – the question is at what cost? This is the information I have given my friend to help her make an informed choice about whether she should accept the used mattress or buy a new one.

Here are a few scientific facts to ponder, before inheriting or buying a second hand mattress…..

1. Every person loses on average 250mls of sweat EVERY night – in a five year old mattress that is 900 liters of

fluid or 1800 liters if a couple shared that bed!

2. By the age of 70 the average person will have lost 50Kgs of skin –a large portion of this goes into your mattress!

3. Dust mites live in our mattress and feed off our dead skin. Years of dead skin accumulation in a mattress makes

an ideal living environment for dust mites.

4. Dust mite secretion is a HUGE contributor to some allergies and asthma.

A full list of scientific facts can be found on the sleep articles page.

Knowing these facts, will it make you think twice about inheriting or purchasing a used mattress?

Wenatex conducts “Healthy Sleep for a Better Life” Seminars around Australia and New Zealand. If you are interested in attending please register on our website.

Information provided in this blog is to be used for educational purposes only. It should NOT be used as a substitute for seeking professional diagnosis or treatment of any disorder.

With Australia now listed as the world’s fattest nation, it is time to do an audit on ourselves and work out how we can reduce our waistlines and improve the quality of our lives.

One interesting piece of research states that sleeping for 7 – 8 hours each night can in fact help you achieve your weight loss goals quicker, with other pleasant benefits too!

A full article on the subject please read the following article Dream Diet

Forget hitting the gym this afternoon – it will be heads on pillows from now on! Now that would be a dream diet – if only that was all that was involved!

Information provided in this blog is to be used for educational purposes only. It should NOT be used as a substitute for seeking professional diagnosis or treatment of any disorder.

If you are anything like me you would have been shocked to hear the latest news that Australians are now THE fattest country amongst the world’s major economies, bulging past the Americans by 1%. More than one quarter of our population are now deemed to be obese, this is 4 million Australians! Add to this a further 5.4 million who are overweight. Therefore 62% of our population are now overweight or obese! This is one scary statistic!

There are so many contributing factors to our bulging bellies. We can blame it on cheaper prices of fast foods, the rising costs of healthy foods and gym memberships, our fast paced society leaving us with no time for exercise, or poor quality sleep. Whatever excuse you may use, the bottom line is that we are to blame and it is time that we get serious about our health and the huge impact this is having on our society as a whole.

What steps will you be taking to either reduce your waistline or ensure you don’t add to our ever growing overweight/obese population?

Information provided in this blog is to be used for educational purposes only. It should NOT be used as a substitute for seeking professional diagnosis or treatment of any disorder.