Sunday, 27 August 2017

Smart Devices Can Mess Up A Kid’s Sleep Big Time

Sleep is important for normal growth and development regardless of age. However, it is more important for kids to get enough sleep each night than adults as their bodies are growing. If you see infants sleeping most of the time and see rapid growth and development over the first year of their life, it is the same for toddler and young kids.

Unfortunately, there are more distractions now than the last time most adults were kids themselves. If play and a little television used to distract kids back in the days making them hate taking naps or sleeping early at night, smart gadgets are the latest craze these days. Most kids now have their own smartphones, iPad or tablet that they can use whenever they want. Parents are also mostly busy and unable to supervise what their kids watch or how often they stay glued to the screen.

Touchscreen devices like smartphones and tablets are now fixtures of many households, so it comes as little surprise to learn that young children who don’t work or go to school are among their most active users. In the first study of its kind, researchers have learned that infants and toddlers who spend more time on these devices sleep less at night. It’s a troubling finding, but the reasons for these sleep disruptions are still unclear.

Traditional screen time, like television and video games, has been linked to sleep problems in children, but less is known about portable touchscreens, such as smartphones and tablets. In the first study to investigate potential links between touchscreens and sleep in young children, a research team led by Tim Smith from Birkbeck University of London has found that the same sleep disruption effect applies to these modern devices. By surveying parents about their kids’ touchscreen use and sleep patterns, these researchers have found that every additional hour of tablet or smartphone use among children between the ages of six months and three years results in about 15 minutes less total sleep. These findings now appear in Scientific Advances.

(Via: https://gizmodo.com/kids-who-use-touchscreen-devices-sleep-less-at-night-1794270842)

Allowing young kids to have daily continuous access to smart gadgets is the norm these days. Parents indulge their kids with unlimited gadget use so the youngsters can pass the time without bothering their busy and often stressed out parents.

There's been a sharp rise in the number of children admitted to hospital with sleep problems, and the North West has some of the worst numbers in the country.

Hospital attendance for sleeping disorders has tripled over last decade and it's claimed there're big gaps in support for parents across the North West.

(Via: http://www.itv.com/news/granada/update/2017-04-10/why-has-there-been-an-increase-in-children-with-sleep-problems/)

Children have a hard time drifting off to sleep at night on a regular bedtime schedule because it’s mainly their parent’s fault for being too lenient. Everyone suffers when they lack sleep and you wouldn’t want to compromise the health of young kids because lost sleep is lost sleep, period.

Ogunbosi told NAN on Thursday that children under the age of five were often admitted into the hospital for sleep disorders.

“The most common cause of their sleep problem is ‘sleep apnoea’, where breathing is interrupted during sleep.

“However, sometimes there is no obvious cause of a child’s sleep problem.

“Children and teenagers need at least nine hours of sleep per night. Sleep problems and lack of sleep can have negative effects on a child’s performance at school.

“It could also affect the child’s extracurricular activities and social relationships.”

According to the paediatrician, accidents and injuries, behavioural problems, mood swings, memory and learning problems, performance problems and slow reaction to issues are often attributed to sleep disorder.

(Via: https://lifestyle.thecable.ng/children-teenagers-doctor-sleep/)

The problem is that kids these days get to tinker with technology at a very young age, which should not be the case. Parents should also enforce a regular bedtime schedule for kids to follow at all cost. Smart gadget use should be limited and they shouldn’t be allowed to access all sites that they want. Kids need enough sleep to rest and recharge like what adults need or they may end up lacking the energy to go through their day and feel tired and sleepy at school that may eventually affect their grades.

There are times when children also suffer from sleep disorders like sleep apnea despite their young age. They can benefit from GMSS: https://snoringmouthpiecereview.org/good-morning-snore-solution or the leader in the MAD field, the SnoreRX: https://snoringmouthpiecereview.org/snorerx to help them sleep better. Conventional treatments like CPAP and surgery are often not ideal for younger children because of the discomfort and risk involved. What’s easier to do is to take that gadget away from your kid and let him/her experience life first-hand and not through games or videos they see on the web. With active play, they would likely end up feeling exhausted at the end of the day and won’t have a hard time falling asleep by themselves.

The following blog post Smart Devices Can Mess Up A Kid’s Sleep Big Time was first published to The Snoring Mouthpiece Review Blog



source https://snoringmouthpiecereview.org/snorerx/smart-devices-can-mess-up-a-kids-sleep-big-time

Sunday, 20 August 2017

How Can You Strike A Balance Between Sleep And Technology?

When you ask any adult what they want most in life but is often out of their reach, their answer would probably be to get a good night’s sleep. We used to hate being told to go to sleep when we were kids and we'd try to wiggle our way out of an afternoon nap. But as we grow older and we take on more life responsibilities, we realize how important sleep is as we desperately try to stay awake through the night because of school or work obligations.

Now, there is also technology that fights for your attention aside from your daily chores and pursuits. Back in the days, we had nothing left to do once the lights go out. But today, we can still stay awake for hours at night because our smartphone gives us access to the World Wide Web and our social media accounts where we live our virtual life. But if technology gets in the way of your sleep, is still there something you can do about this or is this now the plight of the modern human?

We’ve all heard the reports concerning how technology, particularly our phones and tablets, can mess with our sleep cycle through the blue light they emit.

Although there are some very real concerns about how technology affects our rest, not all of it is seen in a negative light, and today I’m going to give you a quick run down of the good, the bad and the very ugly of technology in the bedroom.

The Good

Technology is ingrained into our everyday life with the advancements of high speed connections, affordable internet, instant social connections and even influences how we shop. Therefore, it makes sense that it would seep into our bedrooms in ways we haven’t considered or even paid attention to.

But it also has a bad side to it…

The Bad

Most of us sleep with our phones near us and it is the last thing we look at before we drift off to sleep each night. But how many of you find yourself unable to fall asleep readily, or struggling to calm your thoughts in order to get to sleep? If you’ve ever wondered why you have these issues, look no further than the technology in your bedroom.

(Via: http://southfloridareporter.com/technology-changing-way-sleep/)

It is quite obvious that we lack sleep because we devote too much of our time fiddling with different gadgets. As technology advances and offered us devices like smartphones and tablets where you can do virtually everything and get connected to almost everyone on the web, striking a balance between technology use and sleeping time all boils down to your self-discipline.

There’s an old saying in sleep medicine: bedrooms are for slumber, sex and nothing else. Nowadays, though, that idea is all but obsolete — thanks to the all-invading domination of smartphones, tablets and laptops.

Yet a wealth of research demonstrates why everyone should banish screens from the bedroom — even if they’re switched off. And it’s not just because of the light they generate.

Experts fear the havoc they wreak on our sleep is sentencing us — and our children — to lives dogged by obesity, diabetes and even Alzheimer’s.

The Mail reported on the latest evidence, with NHS data showing that in the past decade, hospital attendances in England for children under 14 with sleep disorders have tripled.

And it’s their use of mobile technology that is being blamed. Phone and tablet screens are now a mainstay of teenagers’ bedrooms. Studies show that seven in ten British children and nine in ten teenagers have at least one device in their bedrooms.

(Via: http://www.iol.co.za/lifestyle/family/sleep/why-your-phone-is-keeping-you-awake-at-night-8077191)

While most findings point to technology as the culprit of sleep deprivation and the worsening of existing sleep disorders, it can also be used to your advantage.

Various sleep apps, which use a motion-tracker and/or a sound-recorder, claim to tap into those circadian rhythms, by apparently monitoring sleep patterns. A “smart alarm” will then wake you in a light sleep cycle that is nearest your ideal wake time.

These apps generally fall into two standard forms: fitness trackers that have sleep-tracking capabilities (typically involving a wearable sensor or wristband that tracks your body movements as you sleep) or smartphone apps that use an accelerometer built to record your movements.

(Via: http://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/can-technology-really-improve-the-quality-of-your-sleep-1.2862604)

There are other options to choose from aside from these sleeping apps. If you find yourself tossing and turning each night and waking up more exhausted than the night before, you are likely suffering from a sleeping disorder like sleep apnea. The usual sleeping tips do not work here because this is a medical condition that needs a medical management as well.

You can try using an anti-snoring mouthpiece like this one: https://snoringmouthpiecereview.org/good-morning-snore-solution to help you beat snoring and maintain continuous airflow during sleep. If you want to find out more alternatives before choosing one, you can likewise check out https://snoringmouthpiecereview.org/snorerx for another anti-snoring device you can use to let you enjoy a good night’s sleep. Of course, minimizing technology use can also help a lot for you to feel relaxed during bedtime, so you sleep better through the night.

How Can You Strike A Balance Between Sleep And Technology? is courtesy of TSMR



source https://snoringmouthpiecereview.org/snorerx/how-can-you-strike-a-balance-between-sleep-and-technology

Sunday, 13 August 2017

Is There Help Available For The Sleep Deprived?

People get grumpy when they lack sleep. You are easily annoyed and everything just pisses you off. You trudge through the day not really fully understanding what’s going on and you feel tired and exhausted all the time. With a good night’s sleep, you’ll have the energy to conquer your day and even have time to hang out with family or friends at the end of the day.

That is how important sleep is. Your day is pretty much ruined if you decide to go to work or school with only a few hours of sleep to fuel you. Sleep deprivation can either be acute or chronic and your lifestyle has a lot of influence over this. A lot of people these days are night owls who are up all night and sleep during the day.

Our nation is rife with over-worked, sleep deprived people. This epidemic seems to have become embedded into our realities, with only one third of adults reporting they get enough sleep every night. What makes sleep deprivation so harmful is that it doesn’t simply impact one area of health, but each physical, mental, and emotional aspect of it.

Our deepest hours of sleep occur during a period called slow-wave sleep. During this time, our bodies are less responsive to any sounds and movements going on around us. Not only is dreaming more common during slow-wave sleep, it’s also when the majority of mental and physical restoration takes place. When someone stays up all night, they disrupt this important period of sleep, potentially disrupting growth and cell-reparation.

In addition to growth and cell repair, a lack of sleep affects metabolism. A study in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine shows that getting four hours of sleep for four nights in a row makes people’s bodies resistant to insulin, which is a common cause of weight gain and diabetes. You’ve probably experienced a craving for junk food after not getting enough sleep. This happens because sleep deprivation lowers levels of leptin and raises levels of ghrelin, increasing our cravings for carbs and sweets.

(Via: http://www.phillyvoice.com/05999-heres-what-sleep-deprivation-does-your-body/)

Gaining weight is a common complaint among people who always pull all-nighters because the body actually has a hard time burning off calories when we lose sleep. Remember that there is a big difference between sleeping during the day and sleeping at night, which is how nature designed for our body to rest and recuperate.

What’s different today is that insufficient sleep — going to bed too late, getting up too early or both — seems to be more common, said B. Tucker Woodson, chief of sleep medicine at Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin.

“A lot of us live on less (sleep) and try to adapt,” he said. “We become used to it. We think we are performing well when we are not.”

The reasons are partly tied to modern life. We are more scheduled than ever; our eating patterns are inconsistent; activities extend into the evening; work never really ends. We live in a wired world, and it doesn't stop at our bedroom door.

A 2014 survey by the National Sleep Foundation found that 62% of parents and 45% of children had televisions in their bedroom, while 45% of parents and 30% of children had a tablet or smartphone.

Only 16% of parents and 28% of children had no electronic device in their bedroom.

(Via: http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/health/breathe/2017/04/17/s-time-wake-up-dangers-sleep-deprivation/99877990/)

It is hard for people to sleep eight hours a day at night anymore. Technology has a lot to do with it so are smart gadgets. Back in the days, you have nothing left to do when you turn off the light at night but to sleep. If you can’t, then you just have to make do and count sheep. Unfortunately today, smart gadgets are everywhere along with access to the Internet. Instead of trying to drift off to sleep when we hit the bed, we can’t resist the urge to tinker with our gadgets and browse the web for the latest in social media.

Sleep deprivation is often associated with too much technology use but sleep disorders used to be the main reason why people have a hard time sleeping back then. Sleep apnea is the most commonly reported along with insomnia and you can usually get a confirmed diagnosis after getting yourself checked in a sleep clinic. https://snoringmouthpiecereview.org/zquiet may offer relief to your long sleepless nights caused by sleep apnea. Meanwhile, you can also try https://snoringmouthpiecereview.org/snorerx, another anti-snoring mouthpiece that can prevent those deadly breathing pauses and stop you from snoring too.

The following blog post Is There Help Available For The Sleep Deprived? was first seen on The Snoring Mouthpiece Review Blog



source https://snoringmouthpiecereview.org/snorerx/is-there-help-available-for-the-sleep-deprived

Sunday, 6 August 2017

How Sleep Affects Your Health

You don’t have to be a genius for you to realize that sleep is crucial to good health. You feel better and more energized if you were able to sleep soundly through the night. It seems like you can conquer whatever the world throws at you during the day. The experts haven’t discovered yet the reason why we sleep but we now know the positive links between good sleep and improved cognitive function, metabolism, immune system, learning, along with other vital functions.

You feel refreshed and energized when you wake up in the morning after at least an 8-hour of sleep at night. You won’t have a hard time doing your daily tasks whether it is at work or at school. Remember that deep sleep at night plays a crucial role in storing and linking memories as your brain is in excellent shape to retain even the smallest of details.

The need for sleep is a critical one. An ordinary people is vulnerable to death due to sleep deprivation rather than having eating disorder problems.

Sleep is also extremely important for our brain. There are brain cells acting as a biological clock to sleep. They are called suprachiasmatic nucleus. When the external environment goes light, it will wake you up. Conversely, when the external environment becomes dark, it will make us sleepy.

During a sleep, your body still works to metabolise energy and restore health. Also, the muscles in the body are grown. If you have a lack of sleep, your body cannot perform these operations well. So, sleep-deprived people often feel fatigued and lack of energy.

In particular, the information acquired through the five senses when you are awake will be reorganised during sleep. Your brain will rearrange what you have seen and heard. All important information will be stored in the memory. Anything that does not matter will be removed out of your memory.

(Via: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sleep-to-healthy-living_us_58f825cae4b081380af518d1)

Getting a good night's sleep should be a conscious effort for all especially that distractions are everywhere. If we can only sleep soundly like babies then we no longer have to deal with the bothersome issues like insomnia, sleep deprivation and other sleep disorders that plague most people today.

When you want to slim down, the plan probably looks a bit like this: Step one, toss out the junk food; step two, pull out the running shoes; and step three, renew that gym membership (and actually use it). But a growing body of evidence suggests that getting a good night’s sleep should be on—or at least near—the top of the list.

Few experts would disagree with the idea that we’ve become a nation in need of a pick-me-up. We stay up too late, we wake up too early and, increasingly, we’re overweight. While there’s plenty of data showing that poor sleep can lead to weight gain and possibly even obesity, some new research also shows that the opposite may also be true: that getting the right amount of good quality sleep may actually help you shed a few pounds.

“Getting a full night of sleep is one of the most under-appreciated factors contributing to healthy weight maintenance,” says Matthew Walker, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies the effect of sleep on weight.

(Via: http://time.com/4757521/sleep-yourself-slim/)

Sleep can also help greatly if you have weight issues. Although it is not a quick fix that delivers instant results, it can help you stick to your weight loss plan with ease. Enough sleep can help curb your appetite so you don’t easily give in to temptations of carbs, sweets, sugared drinks etc. You also feel fuller for longer without the need of drinking weight loss supplements. You can finally say goodbye to hunger pangs without feeling constantly annoyed or irritated.

We all know how energized you feel with the help of sleep. It is but a must to maintain healthy sleep habits now despite the technological distractions or increasing work demands and responsibilities at home because the longevity and quality of your life are affected in the long run. So go get checked in case you are suffering from a sleep disorder like sleep apnea because there is no reason for you to suffer for longer. The ZQuiet mouthpiece: https://snoringmouthpiecereview.org/zquiet can offer relief as well as the no-complaint SnoreRX: https://snoringmouthpiecereview.org/snorerx. There are other anti-snoring gadgets you can also use if you aren’t comfortable with more conventional treatments like CPAP. The bottom line is that your sleep and overall health need not suffer any longer because help is readily available if you just ask.

How Sleep Affects Your Health See more on: https://snoringmouthpiecereview.org



source https://snoringmouthpiecereview.org/snorerx/how-sleep-affects-your-health