Just a short note to let you know that I have updated the Sleep Sound site and added previews to all the audios.

The original Sleep Sound with hypnosis plus brainwave entrainment is back. Please let me know if you find any problems on the new site.

You can get the sleep program on CD or download sleep mp3 files to use on your iPhone or other mp3 player.

Do you ever have trouble sleeping due to allergies? In the Spring, which it is now in New Zealand, hay fever can be a real disturber of sound sleep.  Taking an antihistamine at bed time is a good solution.

But for me the problem is a little more difficult;  I am allergic to my cat’s fur! Cat allergies are actually caused by the protein in the cat’s saliva. Their fur is covered with it because cats lick themselves so frequently. The only solution would be to bathe the cat every day. That would get rid of the build up of allergens and should make a big difference. But, cats hate to be washed and have a lot of weapons to at hand to let you know how he feels about it. Bathing a cat is not for the feint hearted.

Now you may think the answer to this is perfectly simple; exclude the cat from the bedroom.

Easier said than done though if you are a cat lover. I like to have him purring happily on the end of my bed as I go to sleep. It is a very calming sound and I am sure it helps me to drop off to sleep.  has always slept on the bed and so would be very surprised if he found the door shut on him. It is only recently that my allergies have worsened and I haven’t the heart to shut the door on him at this late date.

I think I lost  my immunity because I have been away for 3 months.  I am hoping to get it back eventually. Meanwhile my eyes are red and itchy and I have mascara smudges under them!

I know, you are thinking I deserve everything I get and I suppose that is true but I just can’t do it. Listening to him mewing at the closed door wondering why he isn’t allowed in any more also gives me insomnia!

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Just to add to the general confusion about scientific findings on sleep and other health issues there is a new sleep study that found that in women 6.5 hours sleep was a good predictor of survival to the 14 year follow up.  Recently I posted that a study that showed that men getting less than 8 hours sleep  were less likely to survive to the age of 65 than those who did get 8 hours.

Does this make you want to throw up your hands and declare you will just ignore the lot of them? If so that might be the best route to take, because you can’t base your life style around a newspaper or blog report of a single study. For a start you do not know enough about the study. With any study you need to look at the type of study conducted, how many subjects were studied, age group and gender.

You need to know whether the study was a meta analysis, that is was it a review of all the studies on the topic or a single new study. Other aspects of a study that are important are the variables that the researchers took into account when assessing results, the margin of error of the results, whether it was a double blind controlled trial or not, whether the  facts were measurable or were self reports.

The study I reported last which showed that men were more likely to die before aged 65 if they slept less than 8 hours a night used self reported sleep times, whereas this more recent study used scientific measurements  to gauge length of sleep. Which method do you think would be more accurate?

This is why I believe it is impossible to make any sensible decision about how to live based on such scantly information as a newspaper report of a study. Even though quite often the researchers interviewed will hand out such advice as if their study was the last word on the topic. If you have been bewildered by contradictory reports don’t be. Simply ignore them until more evidence is available.

Insomnia  Tips

How to Relax for Sleep

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Does it matter whether or not you get 8 hours sleep each night? If you have insomnia and find it difficult to get enough sleep each night there are immediate risks in that you are going to be more likely to have an accident. There are also well known health risks for those who can’t sleep. Risk has been shown again in a recent study which followed people with insomnia for up to 14 years. Men were shown to be at the greatest risk of dying prematurely when they got less than 6 hours sleep a night.

In the study 1,741 randomly selected people with an average age of 47 years were tested in the Sleep Lab. They were divided into those who slept more than 6 hours a night and those who slept for less than 6 hours. The men were followed up for 14 years and the women for 10. The mortality rate was 5% for the women but 21% for the men.  The results were adjusted to take account of variables including: age, race, education, body mass index, smoking, alcohol, depression, sleep disordered breathing, and weight.

This shows that insomnia should never be ignored. It is important to get a full night’s sleep every night. If you can’t sleep you must get help.

jet lag remedies

I have just returned home after a 10 week trip to the other side of the planet and I have jet lag! It is really horrible rather like being laid low with a winter virus. We spent 4 weeks in Mexico City visiting our younger daughter and then 6 weeks in the UK where our older daughter and our little 2 year old granddaughter live.

We had a wonderful time but it is nice to be home. The best bit about coming back home is a decent sized bed- we are too old for a standard double!

I think jet lag must be worse the longer you are away because I do not remember it being so bad last time I went to England when it was only a month. Or maybe age makes it worse.  I have been taking 5 mgs melatonin each night since we got home and I am sleeping much better than Granddad who refused to take it. He did finally agree to trying it last night and for the first time he slept right through the night. But of course now he says it was coming right anyway as we have been back for one week. Some folk just don’t want to be helped!

I would love to hear your experiences with jet lag . Do you find it worse going East or West? Some say that recoverytime is 1 day for each dateline crossed. We crossed 12 date lines so should be totally normal by Tuesday if this is the case.

Valerian Herb

Herbal Remedy for Insomnia-Valerian

Are you having trouble sleeping even after implementing good sleep hygiene practices?  If so you may be  considering asking your doctor for prescription sleeping pills. Before going down that route why not give one of the natural herbal remedies for insomnia a try?  There are natural remedies for sleeplessness that are very effective yet much safer than prescription drugs.

Doctors very rarely mention herbal remedies for insomnia because they are not included in doctor training. Drug reps visit doctors to talk to them about prescription drugs but no one comes to tell them about these safer alternatives. Pharmaceutical companies are not interested in natural remedies since that is no how they make their money.

It is tempting to think of herbal medicine such as Valerian  as old fashioned and ineffective but that is very far from the truth. In Europe herbal medicines are still prescribed by doctors because they are safe and many of them work.

Valerian’s folk name is “All Heal”  and it was widely used in the Victorian era, as its name implies, for all sorts of aches and pains.Valerian  is considered to be perfectly safe and non addictive.  When taken for insomnia its calms, soothes, and promotes a good night’s sleep naturally.

Valerian root is dried to make the active ingredient of the supplement. The dried root has a rather unpleasant smell which has been compared to “dirty socks” ! I think that my cat would agree because he goes crazy when he smells my Valerian supplement and we all know how cats love the smell of worn shoes and socks. Trouble is when he finds the tablets he has no idea what to do with them!

How To Take Valerian

If you purchase Valerian it will nearly always be in the form of tablets or capsules. Valerian can also be taken as a herbal tea or a tincture. It is better not to use the tea as it may be old and so will have lost some of its potency.If you can grow and dry, or purchase Valerian root then you can make your own tea.  To improve the taste mix with other soothing herbs such as camomile. Sometimes you can buy Valerian combined with other sedative herbs such as hops which make a very effective combination.

Usually 2 capsules or tablets are to be taken at night. If using in the daytime take only 1. The effects of Valerian may be delayed so you need to be patient as you wait for it to work. Studies show that it will improve sleep if taken every day for two weeks. So if it fails you on the first few nights do not give up but keep taking the same dose each night for at least 2 weeks before you decide whether or not it is helping you to sleep.

Do you have trouble falling asleep? I do and I want to share a sleep tip that will help you to fall asleep more easily. This pretty much works every time for me. It is based on the fact that relaxation is a must for falling asleep. This relaxation exercise helps you to clear your mind of everyday affairs by simply watching your breath. You may have come across this before as it isn’t new, .

How to watch your breath and fall asleep:

Make yourself comfortable in bed and then begin to notice your breath as it flows into your nostrils and down into your lungs and then as it is expelled again. You don’t have to change your breathing in any way at all. Don’t try to take deeper breaths or anything, just ‘watch’ the breath as it flows in and then out again. You may feel the air flowing into your nostrils or consider the air filling your lungs as your belly rises and then falls. You can attend to the watching of your breath in these areas if  you like.

Now you are bound to find that your mind wanders away from this breath watching. This is normal and happens to everyone. So don’t give up when this keeps occurring and don’t be irritated by it. Simply notice that this has happened and come back to watching your breath as it flows in and out.

This is all you need to do. The the breath watching clears your mind of other things and allows you to become relaxed enough to fall asleep. You can go further though if you wish.If you want to you can begin to concentrate on your body beginning with your toes and working up to the top of your head. Simply observe each part  scanning  for any discomfort or tension and releasing any tension. This will allow you to fall asleep. (As long as you haven’t been drinking coffee!)

Mindfulness For Falling Asleep

Sleep Tips

I learned about mindfulness from Jon Kabbat Zinn’s CDs and books.

Who is Jon Kabat Zinn? He is Professor of Medicine emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where he was founding executive director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society, and founder (in 1979) and former director of its world-renowned Stress Reduction Clinic. He is also the author of many wonderful books on mindfulness in every day life:

Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting. Everyday Blessings was rated by Amazon.com as one of the top ten books of 1998 in the inspirational category. Another is Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness and The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness, Mindfulness for Beginners and many others. I am a great fan!

Meditation can be tricky as you will know if you have ever tried it. I have always found that my mind- what they call ‘the monkey mind’ just won’t stop wandering.

This is a very common problem  and we are told that you must simply refocus without any fuss. Well I don’t know about you but it bothers me. Sometimes I was thinking of other things the whole time and made no progress that I could tell.

I have always wanted to get the benefits of meditation and so when I came across brainwave entrainment for meditation I decided to try it. The idea is that it is OK if your mind wanders when listening. The entrainment will work by sending your brain waves into a deep alpha rhythm- just like the Zen monks!

You have to set time aside and relax quietly alone of course. But if you do that regularly every day you begin to see some benefit.

If you have trouble sleeping then meditation will help you especially if your insomnia is caused by stress or anxiety.

I have made a video that you might like to look at. It gives you 5 minutes of the ‘Meditate ‘ mp3 and some relaxing pictures to watch as you listen. Meditation Video

Why is it known as beauty sleep? If you have trouble sleeping you already know that this can leave you looking a little ragged.  But the effects of insomnia or too many late nights goes far deeper than that. In fact getting your beauty sleep is more beneficial than the most expensive beauty treatment.

Growth hormone, released during deep sleep, is used to repair cells and to build lean muscle and bone. There is also reduction in the breakdown of proteins during this stage of sleep. A recent study at the University of Chicago has found that a reduction in deep wave, or stage 3 sleep, contributes to increased body fat and reduced lean muscle.

So without enough sleep you will get fat and flabby and the structure of your skin and other organs will deteriorate. In other words, a lack of deep sleep causes premature aging and that is why we call it beauty sleep.

Make sure that you are getting enough beauty sleep every night.

Working hours other than Monday through Friday from 9 am – 5 pm on shift work means greater flexibility for workers and for employers. Shift work can be very convenient for parents as it means they can work rosters that allow at least one of them to be at home when the children are.   To employers, shift work means staying competitive, especially in an increasingly global marketplace.

But there is a down side to shift work if night shifts are worked. Shift work is often associated with sleep deprivation leading to an increased likelihood of human error and decreased productivity. The reason for this is simple: many key bodily functions take place according to a natural cycle and any disruption to this natural cycle can throw the bodily systems out of balance.

This natural cycle is commonly  known as the Circadian rhythm. In human beings this natural rhythm is responsible for signaling when the body should wake and when it should sleep. It signals these actions by releasing and withholding various hormones and neurotransmitters. When sleep patterns are disrupted, as they are when a person working the night shift sleeps during the day, lower quality or fewer hours of sleep are likely consequences.

Typical symptoms of sleep deprivation include a diminished ability to concentrate or to focus on the task at hand. Insomnia can also cause irritability or feelings of tenseness and inability to cope or even clinical depression.

When employees experience these symptoms while at work, it’s no wonder there’s a higher likelihood of mistakes, accidents and injuries  and even fatalities. Besides sleep deprivation those involved in shift work also tend to have more gastrointestinal problems, more trouble blood pressure problems and a greater likelihood of developing other sleep disorders.

Many  people  work nights on shift work. Health care professionals and in those involved in law enforcement  may be on duty any time during the day or night. Those working in mines, factories,  customer service, as well as those in  transportation from taxi drivers and dispatchers to airline pilots and controllers must also be available for work around the clock, every day, including week-ends.

If you are involved with shift work, there are measures you can take to help yourself to  adjust. The most important is to ensure your sleep area is dark and quiet. Darkness releases melatonin, a hormone that plays a pivotal role in the Circadian rhythm because its job is to initiate sleep. It’s also important to get an adequate amount of sleep, 8 hours if possible.

Don’t drink caffeinated beverages for several hours prior to sleep, either. You might even ask your employer about the possibility of taking a brief nap during work hours. You should also try to take a nap during the day.

Another thing that is useful is to ensure your sleeping environment is dark. If your night time shift work allows you to work in a brightly lit environment that is also very helpful. It isn’t always possible of course.