Time and the quality of sleep could affects your weight. Enough sleep  for about 7.5 hours each night will not only help you stay healthy, but also ideal.

A number of issues about the relationship between sleep and weight loss may be going on inside of you. Therefore, a number of studies and research began to discuss these two things and the results began to be launched to the public.

The first question, is it true lack of sleep will cause weight gain? You try to think about it. If you feel sleepy at work, you may be tempted to grab a cup of coffee (or a few glasses) and a donut to increase your energy quickly.

Then, you neglect to go to the gym and take your family to eat outside, because there is no time to cook at home. When it’s time to sleep time, you will be hard for it. Of course this will cause bad effect to your body, lack of sleep can make a stretchy waist size and other health problems.

Of course it was easy to be understood. “While lack of sleep and felt tired and exhausted, you will automatically get a bag of potato chips or other foods that make comfortable. And started snacking, “said Susan Zafarlotfi PhD, Director of the Institute for Sleep and Wake Disorders, Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, United States.

A direct result? You may be able to fight drowsiness. But the end result, consuming unhealthy foods as snacks, plus lack of exercise, it will lead to obesity and other losses.
“Lack of sleep such as credit card debt,” said Zafarlotfi. “If you continue to pile up credit card debt, you will pay a higher interest rate or your account will be closed until you pay for this. If the debt piled up too much, your body will break down, “he explained.

Lack of sleep is common in American society. In fact, proudly tells everyone about the shortcomings. “We appreciate to the ‘bat’, but we pay more for staying up late and getting up early,” said Mark Mahowald, MD, director of the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center at Hennepin County, the United States.

Then, how to understand the relationship between sleep and diet? The relationship between sleep and diet today is the most common issues raised in the books and magazine articles. Maybe you’ve heard about the diet to sleep, which allows you to lose weight while you sleep. That is true.

“It’s not just when you sleep will lose weight, but if you lack sleep, which means that you simply take a nap every day or sleep quality was not good, your metabolism will not function properly,” explains Michael Breus, PhD, author of Division Director Sleepdan Beauty Sleep Issues in Health Arrowhead, Glendale, Ariz..

According to Breus, the average man needs about 7.5 hours of sleep per night. “If you’ve got this, half an hour sleep will not help you lose 10 pounds. But if you usually sleep for five hours each day, then suddenly sleep for seven hours a night, then you will begin the process of weight loss, “he said.

The fact that lack of sleep affects our ability to lose weight, he added, related to the hormone at night. Two hormones that are key in this process is to ghrelin and leptin.

“Ghrelin is a hormone that serves to inform you when the time to eat. And if lack of sleep, you’ll have a lot of ghrelin. As leptin is a hormone that tells you to stop eating. And when you lack sleep, leptin in your body just a little, “he explained.

If the hormone ghrelin in the body more than leptin, it would be related to weight. “You’ll eat more, but that the metabolism will slow when you lack sleep,” said Breus.

So, what can you do when lack of sleep? Of course a lot. According to Breus, observe how many hours you sleep with your sleep quality. “Some people like a new woman who has a baby, probably only slept for four hours. there are some people who are sleeping during the 7.5 hours, but less well because of pain or have a sleep disorder. This has the same effect as a lack of sleep. Most of these problems would improve with increasing environmental hygiene, “he said.

To overcome the lack of sleep, as a first step to avoid the late afternoon caffeine, because it will make your stay in the stage of lighter sleep are associated with less sleep at night. Exercise also helps you to improve the quality of sleep. How long before we have to exercise to sleep? That depends, and each person is different.

Even more important is that you are doing sports, not the time for how long. However, to be safe, he recommends that you do not exercise right before bed. “But there are many people who do exercise before he slept, and did not affect the quality of their sleep,” says Breus.

Consider also what you eat before bed. “Pizza and a beer before bed is not a good idea,” says Breus. “So eat a big meal close to bedtime,” he added. He suggested that we should eat some healthy snacks and eating snacks like a bowl of cereal before bed. Eating a heavy meal close to bedtime will increase the risk of heartburn, which will make you awake all night.

What if you’ve slept enough, but when I woke up still feeling sleepy the next day? “Talk to an expert physician about sleep problems,” says Breus. After conducting an evaluation and tracking your sleep rhythm, where you’ll always be monitored during sleep, your doctor will help identify the fundamental problems of this disorder. With the doctor, you can develop a treatment plan so that the front will get quality sleep better.

The latest research shows that a nap proved to make a person smarter. Napping can refresh and boost the capacity of the brain’s ability to learn dramatically.

Maybe for you who too busy, it is difficult to use the time for a while for a napping. However, from now on that activities should be prioritized. A recent study states that a person who can nap to revive their brain is able to learn more. Your body will be fresher.

Researchers who are also assistant professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, United States, Matthew Walker, PhD said, the results of this study showed participants who did nap brain perform better in the afternoon. This discovery he presented last week at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego, United States.

“The brain’s ability to learn a new information was not stable throughout the day. Part of the brain that stores memory can be blocked in one day, like a full e-mail inbox in your computer, “he said as quoted by WebMD.

The researchers found that napping for an hour is enough to increase the brain’s ability to learn new facts in the next hours. On the other hand, the longer we stay for literacy, the more sluggish minds.

These new findings support previous data from the same research team that stayed up all night can reduce the ability to incorporate new things almost as much as 40 percent. This is due to the closure of parts of the brain during sleep we lose time.

When the brain’s ability to absorb the lessons continue to deteriorate in the middle of the day, the light of Walker, with a nap activities known to remove the old brain memory is not very important in order to make room for new information. “Sleep is not just for the body. It is also useful for the brain, “he said.

Some of the most influential figures in the world also known as “day sleepers”. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once claimed that he only slept four hours each night, but always take a nap during the day. Meanwhile, Bill Clinton was also always taking the time to sleep for half an hour after lunch.

In this study, Walker and his colleagues asked 39 young participants, an average of 21 years. They were given a test that aims to find out how much memory in the hippocampus of absorption of the human brain where the memory stores the information-they. Tests carried out by matching a person and his image. This activity is carried out in the afternoon, after naps.

The researchers divided the participants into two groups namely the nap group and does not nap group. At two o’clock in the afternoon, the first group were given the opportunity to take a nap for 90 minutes. While the rest is left intact.

Then, at six o’clock, the test starts. The result, people who fall into the group did not nap decreased about 10 percent on their learning abilities during the day. While the group that slept in the daytime, even increased to 10 percent.

The study also found that total sleep time during the day either for 90 minutes or more is not too affected human brain performance. Interestingly, the phase of non-dreaming sleep were able to increase the memory to be better.

From the results of this study can be concluded that prior to learn, you should sleep first. Just as some studies say that sleep after learning is also important to strengthen the absorption of information that has been learned.

In a previous study, Walker and other colleagues have discovered the fact that all of our memory that the information can be stored in the hippocampus are then sent to a part of the brain known as the prefrontal cortex, an area suspected to have larger storage.

“Maybe this happened during the hippocampus is actually a transit station for the memory in the brain,” Walker said. Hippocampus could absorb all the information in large numbers, but a time due to excess weight, “he” also need to transfer the information to the prefrontal cortex.

Someone who sleep before learning, the light of Walker, can help clean the hippocampus from a number of memory and sends the data to the prefrontal cortex, allowing him to receive the new information.

“The new and interesting, this study shows that sleep, in addition to helping the process of memory consolidation, also helps the brain to learn new information,” said Jessica Payne, PhD, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, United States, which also examine this issue.

According to him, a memory has three stages. First, accept the initial memory, after you learn something new. Second, memory storage or consolidation. And last, the memory retrieval.

Payne says, most research is focused on sleep over the consolidation process, although the new study looks at how sleep affects memory revenues in the early stages. The findings of this new study, he added, may be the perfect answer for older people who has a short memory. Short nap can help them learn and remember things in the future.

Both Walker and Payne admitted that 90 minutes of sleep during the day may be considered inappropriate for many people. “But maybe at some point a short nap in the middle of the day will become a habit that ultimately profitable,” said Payne.

More than 41 million women in America suffer from heart disease. The number of people with heart disease in women over time, more and continues to grow. Even people with this deadly disease experienced by more women than men.

However, based on tests conducted in the Swedish study, heart disease problems can be overcomed by performing five healthy lifestyle, for an example, non-alcohol, healthy diet, exercise every day, normal weight and not smoking can prove to expel the risk of heart attack.

This method is believed could overcome the problem of heart disease as much as 92 percent. This research has been tested on 24,000 women.

Here’s how health designed to help you reduce the risk of heart disease. Try to start doing a series of healthy patterns for a week, and feel the benefits for the long term:

Day 1: Drinking Green Tea

This potent beverage contains several powerful antioxidants that can reduce cholesterol and even lower blood pressure. To make this healthy drink, prepare 20 ounces of boiling water, put three bags of green tea without caffeine, and let stand for 10 minutes. If visible change color, you can serve it in a teapot. Could also add ice cubes. Enjoy the aroma and taste intensity throughout the day.

Day 2: Consumption of Low-Fat Healthy Foods

To keep your heart health, fat consumption which is recommended not exceeding 30% of calories. And more importantly, avoid using saturated oil and replace it with unsaturated fats that can be obtained from olive oil, nuts, dark chocolate, avocado and polyunsaturated which can be obtained from salmon, flaxseed, and walnuts.

Limit your intake of saturated fat to 7% of total calories (1600 calories to the diet, it was about 12 grams per day). Avoid Trans fats are commonly found in cakes, biscuits, baked goods and other processed foods. Both these fats can increase LDL cholesterol that can clog the arteries, cholesterol.

Day 3: Healthy Cooking

Use a MUFA-rich olive oil in your food preparation whenever possible. Heart healthy fats can lower “bad” LDL cholesterol and raise “good” (HDL). Olive oil rich in antioxidants, which can help reduce the risk of cancer and other chronic diseases, like Alzheimer’s or dementia.

Provide always substitute olive oil for butter or margarine on the table, and use it to replace vegetable oils in cooking.

Day 4: Provide adequate rest periods

According to a study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, each additional adult bedtime can reduce the risk of coronary artery calcification, the cause of heart disease, by 33%. When you have less time to sleep, your body releases stress hormones that constrict blood vessels and cause inflammation.

If you regularly feel tired when getting out of bed and always feel sleepy in the daytime, you need to be alert, so you can not sleep. Most adults need 7-8 hours a night to sleep.

Day 5: Consumption of many fiber

Studies show that the more fiber you eat, the less likely you are to have a heart attack. Reduce consumption of wheat bread and cereals that contain wheat, wheat bran. Expand consuming beans, soups, and salads. Within a day, you must consume 25-35 grams of fiber per day.

Day 6: Fish Feast

Meat saturated fats can clog your arteries. On the other hand, fish such as salmon and other fish species believed to be rich in omega-3 fatty acids that will help keep your heart still beat. Eat fish-fisheries that contain omega-3 may reduce the risk of death from heart attack by 52%!

SLEEP is not only a perfect rest for body and soul, but also makes you enjoy life more. Conversely, lack of sleep not only affects your chance to enjoy life, but also create a threat to health.

Lack of sleep at the age of approximately 20 did not show side effects that are too visible. In fact, when enough time to rest overnight, it will give a dramatic effect on your face.

There is a clear correlation between the time sleeping with one’s appearance. A recent study found that poor sleep has hormonal effects that are similar to the aging process. In fact, increasing the possibility of disease associated with age, according to quotes from Legal Daily Mail, Tuesday (16/2/2010).

“We suspect that loss of sleep not only accelerate the aging, but also enhance the disease, such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and memory loss,” said Eve Van Cauter, a scientists who led the research path.

Furthermore, other studies found in the fact that lack of sleep could trigger the stress which would  react on the body, increase cortisol levels, the emergence of stress hormones, and glucose. Please note, the increased levels of glucose in the body indicated a greater risk of heart disease and stroke.

In addition, a more worrying again, the woman who has a habit of approximately five hours of sleep a night, was tantamount to raise herself to the risk of heart disease. Disrupted sleep also affect blood pressure (which usually falls at night) and make us susceptible to colds and flu.

A study which is done by Europe Sleep Research Society found that people who sleep less tend to be judged less attractive and has a paler color. Cause, during deep sleep, that’s when skin cells are newly produced.

The reason why so many of us feel and look 10 years younger after the holidays is because, when on vacation, we have enough time to sleep.

“One of the primary functions of sleep is to allow the brain to repair themselves,” says Professor Jim Horne, director of the Sleep Research Center at the University of Loughborough.

During sleep, the cortex [the largest part of the brain, which regulate the functions of higher, such as thoughts and actions] went into recovery mode. Without a break, you may wake up in the condition irritable, depressed, forgetful and unable to concentrate on the task.

Well, of course is not unreasonable if you have to spend a lot of money to become a member at the gym and buy expensive face cream to look young, but all you need is at least six hours of sleep each night.

The mixing of caffeine in energy drinks and alcohol is popular among American youth. In fact, this practice resulted in the incidence of drunk driving getting higher.

The University of Florida researchers has surveyed more than 800 people which are regular college age go to the bar and out of the bar, at approximately 22:00 and 03.00. The participants were asked about their consumption of energy drinks, caffeine, and alcohol. Their breath odor of alcohol is also measured.

Based on Health24 which is launched on Monday (15.2.2010), as much as 6.5 percent of participants who said that drinking alcohol mixed with energy drinks three times more often than those who consume alcohol only, without any mixture. Meanwhile, the measured of alcohol breath to those who consume alcohol and energy drinks is 0.109. Yet, limits authorized by the United States government is 0.08.

Common misconceptions

The researchers also found that regular bar customers who mix alcohol and energy drinks will stay at the bar until late at night and drinking for longer periods, and four times more likely say that they will drive a car after drinking. According to a report in the journal Addictive Behaviors.

“There’s a common misconception that if you drink caffeine with alcohol, the stimulant effects of caffeine counteract the depressant effects of alcohol. That’s not true,” said study co-author Bruce Goldberger, Head of the Department Toksiologi at the University of Florida College of Medicine.

In simple explanation, caffeine reduces the feeling of drowsiness caused by alcohol. This condition will cause risky behavior. Therefore, affirmed by Goldberger, further study is necessary to measure how safe levels of caffeine consumed along with alcohol or energy drinks.