Heena Sharma Blog

Healthy sleep habits can make a big difference in one's life but work week keeps us all a bit short on sleep, which can be severely harmful, says a study. In the Journal of Lipid Research, researchers at Pennsylvania State University reported that just a few days of sleep deprivation can make participants feel less full after eating and metabolise the fat in food differently. Sleep disruption has been known to be having harmful effects on metabolism for some time. Orfeu Buxton, a professor at Penn State and one of the senior authors of the new study, contributed to a lot of the research demonstrating that long-term sleep restriction puts people at a higher risk of obesity and diabetes. However, Buxton said, most of those studies have focused on glucose metabolism, which is important for diabetes, while relatively few have assessed digestion of lipids from food. Kelly Ness, now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington, ran the study when she was a grad...

Men who sleep less than six hours a night may be at an increased risk of cardiovascular disease compared to those who sleep between seven and eight hours, a new study suggests. The study showed that poor quality sleep of less than six hours increases the risk of atherosclerosis by 27 per cent compared to seven to eight hours of sleep. Atherosclerosis refers to the build-up of fats, cholesterol and other substances in and on the artery walls throughout the body. On the other hand, women who slept more than eight hours a night had an increased risk of atherosclerosis . "Cardiovascular disease is a major global problem and we are preventing and treating it using several approaches, including pharmaceuticals, physical activity and diet," said Jose M. Ordovas, researcher at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III (CNIC) in Madrid. "But the study emphasizes we have to include sleep as one of the weapons we use to fight heart ...

Kicking and yelling during sleep? You may want to know the risk factors of a violent sleep disorder . According to a recent study, taking antidepressants for depression, having post-traumatic stress disorder or anxiety diagnosed by a doctor are risk factors for a disruptive and sometimes violent sleep disorder called rapid eye movement ( REM ) sleep behavior disorder. The study was published in the journal of ' Neurology ', the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study also found that men are more likely to have the disorder. REM sleep is the dream state of sleep. During normal REM sleep, your brain sends signals to prevent your muscles from moving. However, for people with REM sleep behavior disorder, those signals are disrupted. A person may act out violent or action-filled dreams by yelling, flailing their arms, punching or kicking, to the point of harming themselves or a person sleeping next to them. "While much is still unkno...

Whether you’re a morning person or love burning the midnight oil, we’re all controlled by so-called “body clocks.” These body clocks (which regulate your circadian rhythms) are inside almost every cell in the body and control when we feel awake and tired during a 24-hour period. But as it turns out, our latest study found that our body clocks have a much bigger impact on us than we previously realised. In fact, our body clocks actually effect how well a person performs on both mental and physical tasks . Our circadian rhythms are controlled by the brain’s suprachiasmatic nucleus, which detects light. When cells in your eyes register that it’s dark outside, they send these signals to the suprachiasmatic nucleus. It then releases the hormone melatonin, which makes you feel tired. Your chronotype is another factor that determines how your biological clocks affect your daily behaviours. For example early chronotypes (“morning larks”) rise early and are most active in the mornin...

Turns out, exercising four hours before going to bed does not have a negative effect on sleep. Even among sleep researchers, it is a widely held belief that sleep quality can be improved by avoiding exercise in the evening. However, according to researchers from the Institute of Human Movement Sciences and Sport, it is not generally true. The scientists concluded that "If doing sport in the evening has any effect on sleep quality at all, it's rather a positive effect, albeit only a mild one." By combining the data from the different studies, the researchers showed that in the night after study participants had done some sport in the evening, they spent 21.2 percent of their sleeping time in deep sleep. Following an evening without exercise, the average figure was 19.9 percent. While the difference is small, it is statistically significant. Deep sleep phases are especially important for physical recovery. However, vigorous training within an hour befor...

According to a recent study, having a fixed bedtime and getting sufficient amount of sleep from early childhood may lead to a healthy body weight in adolescence. The results of the study were published in the journal 'Sleep'. The researchers at Penn State identified groups of children by bedtime and sleep routines and tested longitudinal associations for each group with adolescent body mass index (BMI). The findings suggest that childhood bedtime and sleep routine groups predict adolescent sleep patterns and BMI. In a national study of urban households, one-third of children consistently adhered to age-appropriate bedtimes for ages five through nine. Those who had no bedtime routine at age of nine had shorter self-reported sleep duration and higher BMI at age of 15 when compared to those children with age-appropriate bedtimes (after adjusting for age 3 BMI). "Parenting practices in childhood affect physical health and BMI in the teenage years. Developing a...

It's not just the right sleepwear that plays an important role to experience uninterrupted sleep, bedtime is also the perfect instance to take immense care of your luscious locks and skin and to rejuvenate from the harm caused by the pollution around you. Jagadeesh.P, Trainer, Paul Mitchell India, and Karan Behal, CEO and Founder of PrettySecrets, have a few recommendations for a healthy sleep. It is important to keep your scalp hydrated with anything that is soothing and provides proper nourishment. An overnight treatment is very effective for damage control for those of you who witness overly dry hair or split ends on a regular basis. A nourishing treatment and a satin soft pillow case will ensure you wake up like a diva each morning. For easing the tension before you sleep, tying your hair in a loose bun or braiding it is an advisable option. Massaging your scalp on a regular basis with tea tree oil stimulates the blood circulation which leads to healthy gr...

Sleep length can be associated with an increased risk of fractures, a recent study has suggested. According to the findings of the research, compared with women who slept seven to eight hours each night, women who slept for 5 hours or 10 hours had about 25 per cent increased odds of experiencing recurrent falls. Short sleep was associated with an increased risk of all fractures , and upper limb, lower limb, and central body fractures, but not with an increased risk of hip fractures. The findings of the study are published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research. The analysis included 157,306 women enrolled in the Women's Health Initiative, with an average follow-up time of 7.6 years for falls and 12.0 years for fractures. The annualized rate of recurrent fall events was 10.6 percent among women reporting 5 hours of sleep per night, 7.0 percent among women sleeping seven to eight hours per night, and 11.8 percent among women sleeping 10 hours per night. ...

While insomnia is one of the most common symptoms of menopause, undergoing surgical menopause is likely to worsen the sleep disorder , warns a new study. Surgical menopause is often accompanied by more psychological and physical difficulties and nearly 20 per cent of post-menopausal women reported sleep disturbances. Research has linked insomnia to high blood pressure, congestive heart failure, diabetes and other ailments. "Early surgical menopause is known to be associated with more severe menopause symptoms," said JoAnn Pinkerton from the University of Virginia in the US. "That is why it is important to assess sleep quality in women after surgery that leads to menopause, because insomnia and disrupted sleep can cause fatigue, mood changes and lower quality of life," Pinkerton added. Read Complete Article Business Standard