I am late. I promised a new entry for this blog every Monday morning. Well I overslept, and because of that I forgot. The reason I overslept was, like most of us, I worked too hard, too many hours, until I finally reached a point where my body said ‘That is Enough’.
There was a national news broadcast last week highlighting a study that concluded Americans, or the American work ethic does not allow enough time for appropriate sleep. This creates a workforce in America that is in a constant search for Starbuck’s, the 5 hour energy drink, or anything that gives a couple more hours of energy to finish that project.
The sad part of the above scenario is that sleep, good quality sleep, is essential to promote good health. Sleep is the time that your body repairs itself, makes new cells, creates hormones, encourages metabolism. That same study mentioned above also concluded that those people who did get appropriate sleep were more productive and in general held higher paying positions.
There are many things that prevent good sleep. The list is almost endless. Most commonly simple adjustments in your life style to schedule 6-8 hours of sleep per night will do the trick. Sleep is as essential to your body as eating. For many others though, medical intervention is needed. Anxiety, hormonal imbalances, genetics, and sleep apnea are the major culprits.
Over the years of treating hormonal imbalances, sleep apnea is the most common problem. Simply put, sleep apnea is disturbances in breathing while you sleep. These breathing problems block the transition into deep sleep or take you out of deep sleep, the part of sleep our body crave and needs.
I look for the signs of sleep apnea with every client, and very often suggest they take a sleep apnea test. Many do take the test, and many do not since they feel they have no problem with sleep, but how do you know? You are sleeping! You do not know what is happening. If you go through my hormonal balancing program to revitalize yourself and be healthier, you may not get full benefit if sleep apnea is lurking in the background, holding you back. Come on people, a sleep test is one of the easiest tests one can take. You go to a lab and go to sleep; very hard.
Look for these hall mark signs of sleep apnea:
1. When you wake up you are still tired, unrefreshed.
2. After you have been up a while, it is easy to get “drowsy” or “heavy-eyed”.
3. Loud snoring.
There are many other signs of this insidious syndrome, the above are just the more common ones. If you can say yes to the three above, most likely it is time to get tested.
That’s all for this week, I think I’ll put my CPAP on and get some ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ’s!
Terry R. Leder B.A.
Clinical Manager & Research
Pointe Medical Services/Live Well MD