From an Article I read:
Sleeping well is one of the cornerstones of optimal health, and if you ignore your poor sleeping habits, you will, in time, pay a price. In general, you will feel best and maintain optimal health when your lifestyle is in line with your circadian rhythm. It's wise to establish healthful routines of eating, exercising and sleeping, and to stick to them every day, including the weekends.Unfortunately, sleep deprivation is such a chronic condition these days that you might not even realize you suffer from it. Your circadian rhythm has evolved over many years to align your physiology with your environment. However, it operates under the assumption that you are behaving as your ancestors did. Historically, humans have slept at night and stayed awake during the day. If you stay up late at night, depriving yourself of sleep, you send conflicting signals to your body.As a result, you body gets confused and doesn't know whether it should be producing chemicals to help you sleep, or gear up for the beginning of a new day.
Melatonin:
Among its many functions, it slows the production of estrogen and is well known to suppress tumor development, which is why insomnia may increase your risk of cancer. Melatonin also helps suppress harmful free radicals. Melatonin production can be severely disrupted simply by exposing yourself to bright light late at night. Just switching a bedside lamp on and off in an otherwise pitch-black room produces a drop in melatonin levels. This is why it's so important to turn off the lights as the evening wears on, and avoid watching TV and working on the computer late at night.
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As a result of not sleeping right, the following could happen:
Increase your risk of heart disease. | Harm your brain by halting new cell production. Sleep deprivation can increase levels of corticosterone (a stress hormone), resulting in fewer new brain cells being created in your hippocampus. |
Aggravate or make you more susceptible to stomach ulcers. | Contribute to a pre-diabetic state, making you feel hungry even if you've already eaten, which can wreak havoc on your weight. |
Raise your blood pressure. | Contribute to premature aging by interfering with your growth hormone production, normally released by your pituitary gland during deep sleep (and during certain types of exercise, such as high intensity interval training). |
Worsen constipation. | Increase your risk of dying from any cause. |
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Improving you Sleep:
[Black is the rules, Red is what I think or am doing.]
-Avoid watching TV or using your computer at night— trying to do it.
-Keep the temperature in your bedroom no higher than 70 degrees F (Studies show that the optimal room temperature for sleep is between 60 to 68 degrees) - Mine's at 74 right now, guess I'm going to lower it down
-Take a hot bath 90 to 120 minutes before bedtime - I take it 30-50 min before bed...need to change this
-Check your bedroom for electro-magnetic fields (EMFs) - uh-oh, my cellphone is on and is on my bed. Guess need to move it elsewhere. But how will I turn off the alarm now...
haha, I didn't even see this...
-Move alarm clocks and other electrical devices away from your bed- keep it at least 3 ft away...(Cell phones, cordless phones and their charging stations should ideally be kept three rooms away from your bedroom to prevent harmful EMF's)- ...wtf
-Avoid using loud alarm clocks. - Maybe in the future...