Wenatex Blog :: Healthy Sleep for a Better Life

Women definitely don’t have it easy! PMS, the immense pains associated with child birth, enchanting the days and nights of our families, menopause and the list goes on.

If all this is not enough, menopause may be accompanied by unbearable temperature fluctuations… day and night… Or could it be something else?

In an issue of Harvard Women’s Health Watch, February 2008, it was reported that of 102 women with menopause 56% had hot flashes and 53% also experienced sleep troubles.  Although the study is very small it reiterates the need to understand if sleep difficulties could not be the origin of hot flashes in some women.

Talking from experience, I also know of men battling with sleep disorders also complaining about hot flashes…

This study can only reiterate the importance of ensuring that we all find the best possible sleep available.

So to the question….could a healthier sleep environment help menopausal women to achieve better sleep? The answer can only be yes!

Until next time

Be wise and have fun

J. Semo

Hi,

I invite you to watch this amazing video to learn the answer and understand the many things you are capable of doing with your brain.

In tomorrow’s post, I will explain the importance of healthy sleep and relate it to what you saw in the video.

Be wise and have fun!

From the miracles we observe in nature, there is one that fascinates me every time I think about it, that is, the capacity of animals and, potentially, plants to adapt and change themselves because of something they have learned about their environment.

What is learning? In the excellent book, The Executive Brain: Frontal Lobes and the Civilized Mind, By Elkonon Goldberg , I think I found a simple explanation that we can share. He says the following: “ When the organism is exposed to a new pattern of signals form the outside world, the strengths of synaptic contacts (the ease of signal passage between neurons) and local biochemical and electric properties gradually change in complex distributed constellations. This represents learning, as we understand it today.” In other words, every time an organism learns something new, its network of nerves expands to create more complex and capable networks.

Did you know that one of the vital times when this expansion of brain networks takes place is when we sleep? Therefore, if sleep is interrupted for any reason, like for example, pain, illness, noise, bad position bad sleep position etc., learning will be impaired.

Be wise and have fun!

Link:

www.brainrules.net

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.

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

How is it you can learn the tango in the evening and be able to remember it the next morning? When did your brain create this memory? Was it during the lesson? Shortly after it? During the night?

The when and how of memory creation in human brains has been the subject of scientific debate for centuries. Today, the question of how the brain stores or discards memories still remains largely unexplained. However, Nobel Prize winner Bert Sakmann from the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg  and his colleagues demonstrated that those fresh impressions, the tango steps for example, are first stored as short-term memories in an area of the brain called the hippocampus. They are then said to move within hours or a few days - usually during deep sleep - into the cerebral cortex where they enter long-term memory.

This explains why people who have experienced sleep disturbances during the night who perform tasks requiring memory, do not perform as well as those who enjoyed a healthy and continuous sleep.

Can anyone share some personal experience in relation to memory creation?

Be wise and have fun

References:

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1991/
http://wbp.mpimf-heidelberg.mpg.de/
http://www.physorg.com/news84535821.html

IMPORTANT NOTE:

This article is for information only. For health advice specific to you, please consult your Health Professional.