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My child isn‘t sleeping

29. September 2015 von Redaktion Leave a Comment

Total exhaustion. And despair. You only realize how nice sleeping is and how limiting missing sleep is when you are not able to sleep. Especially young parents often suffer under too less sleep – well, because the baby isn’t sleeping like it really should. Uncertainty comes along with it: don’t babys need up to 18 hours of sleep?

Need of sleep is depending from the age. Newborns need the most sleep, about 16 to 18 hours, one year old children from 12 to 15 hours and a four years old about 12 hours. But, these are only guidelines -– every child is and sleeps different.

What can I do?
Especially newborns find it difficult to get accustomed to the new surroundings. Here, they need the support of their reference persons. To get used to a regular sleep-wake-rhythm, a regulated daily routine with consistent to-go-to-bed-times is important. Daylight during the day, walks in fresh air -– best in all weathers –- become more quiet towards the evening, rituals like reading or telling bedtime stories, cuddling, singing, … things that show that bedtime is here. Not the number of rituals is important but that you find something, you and your baby are feeling well with and that is giving stability.

A dark, well aired, quiet bedroom supports sleeping. And the security, that someone is here. You can’t await from a newborn to sleep through and calm down by itself. By the way: what applies to the young ones also applies to bigger children -– and yes, also to grown-ups: activity, exercise, daylight and fresh air during daytime, getting calmer, relaxation exercises, darkness and a quiet bed room we are feeling well in support sleeping.

It is important that the day comes to a “peaceful” end. Even when there has been a muddle -– the child always should know and be sure that it is beloved by its parents. Anything else can be dealt with in the mornings. Always take fears serious, even if they might seem impossible for grown-ups. Offer help against the monsters in the closet, a calming scent like lavender, which monsters detest, for example. Or a cuddle toy – as everyone knows, feared by monsters. For older children alterations like a move, beginning of the school term or a forthcoming presentation may care for enough of unease to disturb sleep. Here, a calming conversation or time for writing into a diary may complement the night-time-ritual.

Nasal congestion or tummy ache may also keep from sleeping. When the complaints last, seek advice with a pediatrician or a midwife, especially when it concerns newborns.

But sometimes the reasons are more serious: family disputes, lasting pressure at school, illness or death of a related person. Should the sleeping problems of children last you might need professional help.

Don’t forget yourself
But luckily, most of the times it is very easy: when the parents are relaxed, the children are relaxed, too. Out of this reason, times for oneself are very important, even if it is only 10 minutes now and then. Times, in which you can unwind yourself. And: when you can’t go any longer, seek professional help for yourself, too.

Lack of sleep is anything else but harmless

28. September 2015 von Redaktion Leave a Comment

Although we are sleeping almost one third of our life it is the part in our lives we are neglecting the most. Instead of sleeping sufficiently and caring for our sleeping quality we are sleeping far too less and most of the time bad. The assumption that a grown-up gets along well without sufficient sleep is a wide-spread misbelief. Especially during the last couple of years, neurologists and sleep-scientists increasingly have concentrated on the consequences of lack of sleep. Their findings are alarming:

On the one hand, chronical lack of sleep is leading to a lack of performance. This damages working life as well as private life and the psyche, not least. Furthermore, lack of sleep leads to increased sleep disturbances. Beginning with fall asleep disturbances, to sleep through disturbances and to sleeplessness due to anxiety states more than fifty kinds of sleep disturbances are known. Sleep disturbances damage the cardiovascular system and lower life expectancy. Due to permanent tiredness during the day, people with a lack of sleep are living with an increased accident risk, in traffic as well as on the working place.

The recommended sleep duration for a grown-up is from seven to eight hours per night, but, there are also people who need less sleep. This average value says little about the individual sleep behavior of the single person. Some need more, some need less sleep. But, if you constantly feel tired and worn out you clearly suffer under a lack of sleep. This often leads to unrealistic optimism or misjudgement of reality. Possibly this might be the reason why negative consequences of the own behavior are insufficiently perceived. After staying up too long you will have the same effect like when drinking too much of alcohol, your reaction and your decision-making ability are noticeably impaired.

Further negative effects are overweight or memory-impairment. Since their physical and mental development is slowed down, the consequences of lack of sleep are especially huge for children.

In the beginning, consequences of lack of sleep may seem harmless but sooner or later they develop into severe problems and may permanently damage health.

The pillow might be the reason for pain in the neck

25. September 2015 von Redaktion Leave a Comment

A wrong head positioning may lead to tensions and pain. The choice of the proper pillow provides an essential contribution to a good and recreational sleep.

From the doctor’s point of view
When waking up with tensions and pain in the neck- and shoulder-region, which improve during daytime you should check your head positioning. When having wrong sleeping habits the spine may overstretch or sag.

The role of the pillow
Positioning: As different as the sleep habits are, as different may the choice of the pillow. The most important role of the pillow is the optimal positioning of the cervical spine so that it can stay in its natural S-form. Basically, the pillow should give support to the head and ensure that the cervical spine doesn’t bend. A constantly wrong positioning of the head may lead to pain in the head as well as in the neck and tensions in the shoulder region.

The neck is the most sensitive part of the cervical spine and has to carry the weight of the head. Therefore it needs an anatomically shaped support area. When the pillow is too hard, they are not able to optimally adjust to the sleeper’s shape of the head. Too hard pillows hinder the functions of nerves and blood vessels.

Dermatology and bedding climate: sleeping experts recommend organic sheep wool for bedding content since they are able to absorb humidity 30 % of their own weight. As is well known, down feathers are water repellent. Since especially the neck of people who are sweating strongly is severely endangered, not only the cover but also the pillow should be filled with natural sheep wool. Muscular pains, so-called myalgias and already existing myogelosis may intensify through sweat-attacks.

Recommended size of pillows
The pillow may not be too wide; it is made for supporting the head and the shoulders should not rest on the pillow. When choosing a pillow you should take care that only the head and the neck-area rest on the pillow. Only this way it is guaranteed that the shoulder is able to optimally sink into the mattress/sleeping underlay. Orthopaedics and sleeping experts basically advise against big pillows. Their recommendation: 20 x 31 inches or 20 x 25 inches.

Find your personal pillow
There is no pillow that suits everyone. Depending on sleeping habits, preferred lying position either on the back, stomach or side the sleep-healthy-specialist SAMINA offers a choice of 20 basic pillows with different possibilities of variation through different fillings out of natural material and different sizes. The pillow no longer is a foreign object in your bed. Depending on your sleeping habit a useful position and support of the cervical spine happens.

Pillows for side sleepers
Sleeping on the side is the most popular sleeping position. Almost two thirds prefer it. It is important, that the pillow fills in the area shoulder/throat/neck and that it supports the head to prevent bending or overstretching of the cervical spine. Here you have to take care that pillows too soften often are not having the necessary support strength. The optimal pillow for side sleepers takes away the weight from the spine.

Pillows for back sleepers
When lying in back position the area between back of the head and shoulder should be perfectly filled in so that a pleasant relief is ensured during night. The pillow may not be too high.

Pillows for stomach sleepers
Conventional pillows often don’t offer stomach sleepers the desired comfort and since they sleep with the face “in the pillow” furthermore impair relaxed breathing. Under these circumstances it may lead to burden and overstretching of the spine. Consequences are a restless and non-recreational sleep as well as tensions in the neck-, throat- and back musculature. Out of this reason rather flat pillows are advisable for stomach sleepers.

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Lack of sleep? Hands off the buffet!

24. September 2015 von Redaktion Leave a Comment

Result of a survey of the “Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory” of the University of California is, that lack of sleep has a deep impact on our brain activity, in this case on the frontal lobe. The frontal lobe has significant participation on the behavior control as well as on the making of complex decisions. On the other hand, instinct-controlled brain regions are not influenced. This leads to the fact that higher brain functions are not able to counteract instinctive acts. Simplified, this is the explanation for why our brain is not able to choose appropriate food when suffering under a lack of sleep.

Another study revealed that lack of sleep activates certain reward centers of the brain that demand unhealthy and high-calorie food for reaching rewarding effects. With help of the so-called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) US scientists tracked down the connection between eating behavior and degree of alertness.

The Columbia University Medical Center carried out these investigations and analyzed the brain activity of 25 men and women. There were two different preconditions: once, the participants were well rested and once they had a lack of sleep. In both situations, the scientists showed the participants pictures of healthy and of unhealthy food. After comparing the fMRI-recordings they noticed that the brain areas that were active during watching the unhealthy-food-pictures were inactive while watching pictures with healthy food. This finding is limited to a neuronal pattern limited to lack of sleep, like scientist Marie-Pierre St-Onge emphasizes. Therefore, for tired people unhealthy food is very eye-catchingly and rewarding. Result is an increasing consumption of these foods and the typical ravenous appetite.

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Our pineal gland – a wonder of nature

7. September 2015 von Schlafexperte Prof. Dr. med. h.c. Günther W. Amann-Jennson Leave a Comment

A tiny, about 5 mm big gland, looking like a small pine cone. It is positioned centrally between our both halves of the brain and it is gaining more and more importance. We are talking about the pineal gland (epiphysis; a pine-cone-shaped body).

In the darkness of the night, the so-called “pinealocytes” in the pineal gland are converting the “happy hormone” serotonin –- built in our brains during the day through sun- and daylight –- into the sleeping- and protecting-hormone melatonin. The function of the gland itself and the released melatonin is important for our health of body, mind and soul and has gained importance from the spiritual point of view as well.

Both hormones are so-called neurotransmitters, meaning, they directly go into the bloodstream and therefore are effective in the whole organism. Melatonin is the central hormone for the rhythmic control of the sleep-wake-dream-rhythm. Incidence of light onto certain receptors of the retina is controlling the production of melatonin, the production increases in darkness. Melatonin is especially enhancing falling asleep and regulating the course of the sleep.

Researches in the field of lucid dreaming (dream in which the dreaming person is aware that he/she is dreaming) show, that a well-functioning pineal gland resp. sufficient release of melatonin is enhancing the ability of lucid dreaming.

Important for our „sleep-wake-dream-rhythm“ as well as for our spiritual sensations

Some scientists assume for some time now, that the pineal gland is also able to produce a substance called dimethyltryptamine (DMT). This substance is giving hallucinogenic plants like Psychotria viridis its intoxicating effect. The substance DMT enables our brain to create thought structures, emotions and feelings of a new kind. Amongst others, it is leading to a significant change of the visual experiences.

One of the important DMT-scientists, Dr. Rick Strassmann (author of the book “DMT, The Spirit Molecule”), is convinced that our pineal gland is mainly releasing this hallucinogen substance especially during mystic-spiritual rituals. He also supports the hypothesis that DMT is especially produced during birth as well as upon death. The production of this hormone is mainly happening during the night.

Back to melatonin: melatonin is not only directing our sleep-wake-dream-rhythm but also further time-depending rhythms of the body. According to latest scientific findings, a dysfunction is not only disturbing the sleep-wake-dream-rhythm but is leading to sexual precociousness or cause a delay resp. an inhibition of the development of the gender.

So, the hormone melatonin is playing a significant part in controlling the inner clock and is essential for healthy falling asleep and sleeping through. As soon as the pineal gland is losing activity and therewith functionality the mental and physical aging process is starting.

Basic pre-conditions for healthy sleep

2. September 2015 von Schlafexperte Prof. Dr. med. h.c. Günther W. Amann-Jennson Leave a Comment

It is not necessary that you need to know everything about how sleeping actually works and what is happening in your body and especially in your brain during sleeping. There are millions of people who practically know nothing about their sleep and still sleep reasonably good. Not as good as they might, but at least they are sleeping. On the other hand, more and more people have learnt a lot of details about their sleep and still are not sleeping or are not sleeping well and above all are not having a restful sleep.

Out of this reason, you should get to know the details that are essential to a healthy, restful and especially bioenergetic sleep^®. Only when you really have created the basic pre-conditions for the biologic process sleeping, the epiphyses (pineal gland) is able to properly stimulate production of melatonin and vasotocin.

These hormones in turn are pre-condition for reaching the important deep sleep phases. Because, the pituitary gland (hypophysis) can produce the growth hormone somatropin only during phases of deep sleep. Somatropin initiates rebuilding, regenerating and repairing processes.

Physical and mental performance, joie-de-vivre and well-being are natural consequences. The immune defense – which amongst others is building antibodies to cancer cells (anti-tumor-effect) — gets strengthened. Out of these and a lot more other reasons, it is very valuable to learn step by step to sleep healthy, restful and bioenergetic^® again.