Weight Loss through a Good Night’s Sleep

November 5th, 2008

Reading Level: Leisurely

Your weight gain can be caused by a lack of sleep.

An estimated 50-70 million Americans are suffering mentally and physically from a lack of sleep (1). Though eating habits obviously play a role in weight gain, studies have shown that there is a definite relationship between a lack of sleep and weight gain.

Various hormones released during your sleep regulate your weight and appetite.

Leptin, released during sleep, is the hormone which tells your body that it is full and doesn’t need more food. The lower the levels of leptin in your body, the more of the hormone ghrelin is released to increase your hunger (2). The growth hormone is also released during sleep; while this hormone causes growth in children, it controls muscle mass and fat level in adults (1).

A University of Chicago research found definite relationship between too little sleep and increased appetite/weight gain. The people in the study who slept only 4 hours a night had leptin levels decrease by 18 percent. This caused the ghrelin levels, which stimulate appetite, to increase by 28 percent (2). These results should be motivational in getting a good night’s sleep. Many of us just stay so busy that sleep is the easiest thing to cut back on.

If stress is causing your lack of sleep, not putting into action a plan to deal with stress will only add to your weight problems.

Stress increases your levels of adrenaline and cortisol, mobilizing the body’s sugar supply, for the purpose of quick thinking and action in emergency situations. If you live in a frequent or continual state of stress, Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

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Stress – How to Cope Part 2

September 26th, 2008

Table of contents for Stress

  1. Stress – Its Effects on Your Health
  2. Stress - How to Cope
  3. Stress – How to Cope Part 2

Implementing these 6 daily habits will empower you to better cope with stress.

This is Part 2 of steps for coping with stress. Please read the first 5 steps for coping with stress if you missed them by clicking on the link at the beginning of this post. These steps on how to alleviate stress are condensed from Dr. Don Colbert’s book, “The Seven Pillars of Health.”

Guard Your Mental Intake: What enters into your mind affects your health. Many people begin their day listening to national or world news, soap operas, gossipy morning talk shows, or music with negative lyrics. If your day begins by filling your mind with worries about the economy or other people’s problems and/or dysfunctions, you are bound to be stressed before you even get to work! Wisdom from Prov. 4:23, “Above all else, guard your heart, for out of it spring the issues of life.” What you put into your internal being affects every issue of your life. Does your intake create strength and healing? If not, change to positive input.

Breathe Correctly: Proper breathing is one of the best de-stressing techniques and usually the least used. Dr. Colbert tells of asking a paramedic friend what made the different between a trauma patient living or dying. He answered, “I have seen others with significantly less severe injuries die because they simply quit breathing.” Though we are born breathing correctly, abdominal breathing, most of us end up chest and shoulder breathing using short breaths. Our abdomen should rise and fall when we breathe, not our chest and/or shoulders. Abdominal breathing has a calming effect on the brain and nervous system as well as relieving pain, stress, and muscle tension.

Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

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Stress - How to Cope

September 23rd, 2008

Table of contents for Stress

  1. Stress – Its Effects on Your Health
  2. Stress - How to Cope
  3. Stress – How to Cope Part 2

To avoid living in a constant state of stress and the resulting physical consequences, implement some daily habits to better cope with stress.

These steps on how to alleviate stress come from Dr. Don Colbert’s book, “The Seven Pillars of Health.” If you missed the information on the physical reactions to living life in a repeated state of stress, please read Part 1, “Stress - Its Effects on Your Health,” by clicking this link here or the one at the top of this post.

Practice Mindfulness: This is the concept of letting go of any thought that is unrelated to the present moment and finding something to enjoy in the present moment. Most people do not live well in the present moment; they are always wishing for a different moment in the past when things were happier or simpler, or wishing for a moment in the future when they think they can be happy, such as by getting a promotion, getting out of debt, or buying a new house. Find something enjoyable to focus on in the immediate moment all throughout the day, such as the warmth of the sun, the breeze, music. During breaks at work, don’t think about goals or projects; enjoy your cup of coffee or a magazine. If a stressful thought comes to mind, choose to move on to a thought that is related to what you are presently seeing, hearing, smelling, or feeling that is pleasant. Instead of complaining about what you don’t have, be grateful for what you do have, air conditioning in your house or a car to get to work. Dr. Colbert suggests that his patients go for a walk or go to the zoo to practice focusing on all that can be enjoyed in a moment. “To have complete mental and physical health, mindfulness must become a way of life, a continual pattern for practicing relaxation during your day (p.236).”

Reframe Your Perspectives: Reframing is learning to see the past, present, and future in a positive light by shifting from one’s present point of view Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

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Stress – Its Effects on Your Health

September 19th, 2008

Table of contents for Stress

  1. Stress – Its Effects on Your Health
  2. Stress - How to Cope
  3. Stress – How to Cope Part 2

Reading Level: Leisurely

Some of us go through life in an almost constant state of stress.

Evaluate how often in your daily routine do you allow a variety of little events to trigger stress, such as driving in traffic, a wrongly-filled order at the drive-thru, or a needed call to customer service to resolve a billing problem. The research in these next 2 posts covering the effects of stress and how to better cope come from Dr. Don Colbert’s book, “The Seven Pillars of Health.” In his initial chapter on stress, he says, “The stress reaction, so useful in moments of actual emergency, becomes a self-destruct switch that eventually can lead to exhaustion and disease (p. 229). ”

The body’s response to stress is necessary and healthy when occurring in traumatic moments. When one allows typical daily events to create a recurring traumatic response in your body, the intended healthy physical responses become harmful.

The body’s stress reaction to a perceived threat releases adrenaline and other hormones that increase your blood pressure, heart rate, breathing. These changes give you added strength and mental sharpness for a few moments. The harm comes to us when this response occurs frequently for a long-term basis. Researchers now believe that such recurrent stress actually kills as many or even more people than poor health habits. Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

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