5 tips to get a better night’s sleep

Skipping out on sleep impacts your short-term productivity and can harm your long-term health. I hope you pick up a few pointers here to help you get a better night’s sleep!

Oddly enough, I recorded this in Maine while visiting with my daughter, Sam, her husband Andrew, and 4-month old Brooke. I may be a little sleep deprived by the time I return next week 🙂

Need motivation to get more sleep?

Deborah Kris had an article in The Washington Post last week on the importance for teens to get enough sleep. The thing is, sleep isn’t just important for teens! More and more research is being done on the impact of sleep deprivation across all age categories.

We’ve all experienced periodic lack of sleep and you know the feeling.

  • Your cognitive functioning is impaired.
  • It’s hard to focus, to concentrate.
  • Your body feels heavy, achey, and clumsy.
  • You feel grumpy and might have head spins and negative thoughts.
  • You feel more sensitive and impatient.

One teen in a recent study summed it up beautifully: “When I don’t get enough sleep, everything is harder.” Continue reading

Hot tips from the Food Revolution Summit

I am loving listening to the free, online Food Revolution Summit this week. The Summit runs 3 hours a day for 8 days each spring. Each day, there are three presentations from a mix of presenters – doctors, nutritionists, disease survivors. I don’t catch all of the sessions and some resonate more than others, but I have to say that listening to the Summit over the past couple of years has drastically changed how I eat and how healthy I feel.

We’re about half way through this year’s Summit and here are my key take-aways compiled from listening to a number of speakers. Continue reading

The impact of sleep on your ability to organize

Getting enough sleep is a vital part of being organized. If you head isn’t clear, you can’t plan, you can’t focus, and it’s hard to get anything done.

Besides messing with your ability to organize, lack of sleep makes it hard for you to learn and retain information, affects your judgment, and makes you more forgetful. It has a clear impact on many aspects of your health, messes with your immune system, can decrease your sex drive, and your skin ages faster. Studies have also found direct links between lack of sleep and depression. AND you are more likely to have an accident.

So how can you add some sleep magic to your life? Change your sleep habits. Continue reading