Sleep Wiz

How to feel even more amazing with less sleep

2011-11-18T01:00:00.000-08:00

Have you ever thought you need more than 24 hours in your day?

Well I believe I have found a way...

No! Not to get more than 24 hours in a day :) but how to make more time for yourself:

Actually, it's fairly straightforward...

Just get less sleep.

Honestly. My friend, who wrote this guide, has 2 kids, a full-time job, works part-time as a writer, has a great family and social life and still manages to feel amazing every day.

When I first heard him speaking about this, I thought there is no way that is true. When I asked him about it, he told me how he does it, and he didn't really think it was unusual as he has been doing it for years...

But when I questioned further he had to teach himself how to do it and now he has written a guide on how you can do it.

Imagine having an extra 2-4 hours every day....

What would you do with that time?
How much more could you achieve?

More time with your family...
More time to work on your goals in life...
More time to finish work on time...
More time to write that book....

The possibilities are virtually endless.

Read, my friend, Steven's story here.

I honestly think you'll be amazed and excited by the opportunities this can give you in life.

Why hammocks are best for afternoon naps

2011-06-24T18:44:00.000-07:00

It's all in the same swaying motion you use to put fussing babies to sleep.

GENEVA - The mystery of why it is virtually impossible to lie in a gently rocking hammock without falling asleep has been solved.

An analysis of the brainwaves of sleeping subjects revealed that a slow swinging motion both helps us fall asleep faster and slip into a deeper sleep than in a stationary bed.

The findings also help to explain the age-old belief that cradling a baby will send it off to sleep, and why it is so difficult to stay awake in a rocking chair.

The study, published in the journal Current Biology, found that lying on a slowly rocking bed helped each subject in a small test group fall asleep more easily, and spend longer in a deeper stage of sleep.

The Swiss scientists who carried out the research suggested that the swinging motion's effect could help synchronise our brain activity into a pattern associated with sleep.

One of the study's co-authors, Dr Sophie Schwartz of the University of Geneva, said: "It is a common belief that rocking induces sleep. We irresistibly fall asleep in a rocking chair and, since immemorial times, we cradle our babies to sleep.

"Yet, how this works had remained a mystery. The goal of our study was twofold: To test whether rocking does indeed soothe sleep, and to understand how this might work at the brain level."

Twelve volunteers were asked to take an afternoon nap on a custom-made bed or "experimental hammock" that could either remain still or be made to rock gently.

During two 45-minute naps, one with the bed stationary and one with it swaying, their brain activity was monitored. The swaying motion of the bed was found to increase the duration of N2 sleep, a form of non-rapid eye movement sleep that normally accounts for about half of a good night's rest.

While in the swaying bed participants also recorded more slow oscillations in the brain and flurries of activity known as sleep spindles, which correspond with a deeper level of sleep.

Dr Michael Muhlethaler, another co-author, said: "We observed a faster transition to sleep in each and every subject in the swinging condition, a result that supports the intuitive notion of facilitation of sleep associated with this procedure.

"Surprisingly, we also observed a dramatic boosting of certain types of sleep-related (brainwave) oscillations."

The researchers said the results could help them find potential treatments for sleeping disorders such as insomnia. THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

The end of your sleep deprivation

2010-05-28T10:17:00.000-07:00

If you sleep like a baby all night, every night then I’m sorry, but this message is NOT for you!

But if, like me you have ever suffered from insomnia or any other form of sleep deprivation, then I know what you’d give for a good night’s sleep…

** Just about anything, right? **

The endless hours staring at your bedroom ceiling...the thoughts and worries that play full volume in your head and just won’t leave you alone...shuffling aimlessly around the house waiting for sleep to come … trying to cope the next day when everyone else is wide awake and refreshed...

Only to return to bed, exhausted, and STILL not get a good night’s sleep.

Chronic insomnia or persistent sleep deprivation really is a waking nightmare. I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone.

I’ve spent fortunes trying various ‘cures’ over the years.

Nothing ever worked.

Until I got chatting to self-help author and guru Bradley Thompson and found out that he too used to suffer from insomnia.

What’s more, he claimed to have found a cure and to be sleeping the sleep of the just ever since. And he found it by accident!

He told me about his remarkable discovery. This cure is based on a radical new use of a fairly old technology, discovered by a German research scientist way back in 1839. I must admit, if it hadn’t been for his credentials, I would have thought the guy was NUTS for thinking that this could apply to insomnia.

“Yeah, right!” I thought.

Still, I agreed to try it. Like I said, I would have tried anything.

You know what? IT WORKED! And, much to my delight and surprise it has WORKED EVERY NIGHT EVER SINCE!

If you’re a sufferer, you should be dancing on the table right now, because THIS IS THE REAL DEAL – a permanent cure for your sleepless nights.

It is 100% safe, 100% effective, does not involve taking drugs and – this is the bit I like! – requires absolutely *NO* effort on your behalf at all.

I’ve got my life back! I’d love to think I can help someone else get theirs back too. Check out Bradley’s site here.

Sweet dreams!

7 Surprising Facts About Sleep by Barbara Brody

2009-07-26T21:26:00.000-07:00

Can't sleep? You have plenty of company. About half of all adults experience insomnia on occasion, and 1 in 10 battle insomnia on a regular basis, according to the Cleveland Clinic. If you fall into one of those groups, chances are you're already following the tried-and-true rules for a good night's sleep: Don't have too much caffeine (especially late in the day), don't exercise late at night, keep your bedroom at a cool, comfortable temperature, and make sure your bed, pillows and linens are comfy. Those are all good tips, but there are lesser-known things you can try to help you get more rest.

1. Set a Bedtime Alert

Most of us already use an alarm to wake up in the morning, but sleep expert Michael Breus, PhD, author of Beauty Sleep: Look Younger, Lose Weight, and Feel Great Through Better Sleep, suggests setting it at night as well. "I tell people to set their alarm for one hour before bedtime, which reminds them to begin what I call the power-down hour," says Dr. Breus, who is also a spokesman for the Zeo Personal Sleep Coach. He says you should spend the first 20 minutes of that hour taking care of any necessary chores (like walking the dog or making your kids' lunches), then spend the next 20 minutes on hygiene (washing up, brushing your teeth, etc.), and save the last 20 minutes before bed for relaxation. You don't necessarily have to meditate, if that doesn't appeal to you; you can also do deep breathing exercises, read a book or even watch a little TV (as long as it's not too stimulating).

2. Don't Clear Your Mind

Experts say anxiety and depression top the list of reasons people have trouble sleeping. Part of the problem is that many of us just can't seem to quiet that internal voice that starts rambling on about the worries of the day. Of course, if you can clear your mind, go ahead and do it. But if that's impossible, don't force it--you'll only end up panicking about the fact that you're not sleeping, says Paul McKenna, PhD, author of the soon-to-be-released book I Can Make You Sleep. Instead, try slowing down your thoughts. "Practice saying anything and everything that comes into your mind to yourself in a slow, monotonous, drowsy tone," says Dr. McKenna. It doesn't matter if you're thinking about what to buy tomorrow at the grocery store or how a big presentation at work is going to go. If you slow everything down and talk to yourself in an even tone, you'll find it's that much harder to keep worrying (or stay awake).

3. Count Numbers—Not Sheep

Another great way to quiet those racing thoughts is to count backward from 300 by 3s, says Dr. Breus. Unless you're a math ace, you probably won't be able to focus on anything else while you're doing this, which means you'll end up distracting yourself from your stressful thoughts.

4. Get Up a Half-Hour Earlier

Yes, you read that right! If you're suffering from chronic insomnia, try getting up, for example, at 6:30 instead of your usual 7 wakeup time—no matter what time you fell asleep the night before. You may be extra-sleepy for a little while, but this is hands-down the most effective way to reset your body clock, says Dr. McKenna. It works because it teaches your body that it can't catch up on sleep in the morning, so eventually you'll start feeling drowsier earlier in the evening.

5. Consider Seeing a Professional

A sleep psychologist is someone who specializes in gathering info about your emotions and your behaviors specifically as they relate to sleep. Often found at sleep centers, a sleep psychologist can usually help resolve your sleep issues in just four to six sessions, says Joseph Ojile, MD, founder of the Clayton Sleep Institute in St. Louis and a spokesman for the National Sleep Foundation.

6. Don't Worry If You Can't Sleep Right Away

You shouldn't pass out the second your head hits the pillow. If that happens all the time, it's a sign that you're sleep deprived. (Ditto for nodding off during boring meetings and long movies.) Ideally, it should take 15 to 25 minutes from when you lie down to when you drift off to sleep, says Dr. Breus.

7. Go to Bed When You're Tired

If you're having ongoing sleep troubles, don't worry so much about the fact that it's almost midnight and you have to get up in less than seven hours. Forcing yourself to stay in bed when you're not sleepy is just going to contribute to more tossing and turning, says Dr. Ojile. Instead, get up, do something relaxing, and go back to bed whenever you do feel tired. You might end up exhausted the next day (but that was bound to happen either way under these circumstances), and the following night you should have better luck getting to bed earlier.

Poor Sleep Linked To More Colds

2009-01-14T08:39:00.000-08:00

US researchers found that people who slept fewer than seven hours a night, and who spent more of that time awake, were nearly three times more likely to develop a cold than people who had eight hours or more of undisturbed sleep.

The study was the work of Dr Sheldon Cohen, of the Department of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and colleagues, and was published in the 12 January issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Poor sleep is thought to be a predictor of low immunity, and thereby more readily predisposing people to the common cold, although there is no direct evidence tying sleep quality in the weeks leading up to exposure to the risk of infection. The researchers said that studies had also shown that people who slept between seven and eight hours per night had the lowest rates of heart disease, illness and early death.

For this study, which took place between 2000 and 2004, Cohen and colleagues examined the links between sleep quality and sleep duration in the weeks leading up to being exposed to a cold virus, to the susceptibility to catching it.

The researchers recruited 153 healthy male and female volunteers aged 21 to 55 years and interviewed them every day for fourteen days to find out how long they had slept the previous night, how efficient their sleep had been, that is what percentage of the time in bed was actually spent sleeping, and whether they felt rested. The researchers then worked out the average quantities of sleep duration and sleep efficiency for each person for the 14 nights.

The volunteers then went into quarantine and took nasal drops containing the common cold virus (rhinovirus). They were kept under close observation for signs of a cold during the day before their exposure and for 5 days afterwards. They also gave mucus samples during this observation period, which were tested for virus cultures, and 28 days or so later they gave a blood sample that was tested for antibody response to the cold virus.

Before the 14 days of monitoring, each participant also underwent a "pre-challenge" examination, where the researchers obtained information about potential confounders such as virus-specific antibody levels in their blood, demographics, body mass index, psychological variables and health behaviours.

The results showed that:

The less a person slept, the more likely he or she was to develop a cold (there was a graded association between infection rate and average sleep duration).
Participants who slept fewer than 7 hours were 2.94 times more likely to develop a cold than those who had 8 hours or more sleep.
The more efficiently a person slept (more of the time in bed actually spent asleep), the less likely he or she was to develop a cold (i.e. there was also a graded association between sleep efficiency and rate of infection).
Participants whose sleep efficiency feel below 92 per cent were 5.50 times more likely to develop a cold than those whose efficiency was 98 per cent or more.
Feeling rested was not linked to rate of infection.
These relationships could not be explained by the potential counfounders such as levels of virus-specific antibodies beforehand, demographics, the season of the year, body mass index, socioeconomic status, health behaviours, and psychological variables.

Cohen and colleagues concluded that:

"Poorer sleep efficiency and shorter sleep duration in the weeks preceding exposure to a rhinovirus were associated with lower resistance to illness."

The researchers also looked at separate components of illness and how they linked to the variables they measured.

"When the components of clinical illness (infection and signs or symptoms) were examined separately, sleep efficiency but not sleep duration was associated with signs and symptoms of illness," they wrote, but "neither was associated with infection."

"A possible explanation for this finding is that sleep disturbance influences the regulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines, histamines and other symptom mediators that are released in response to infection," they suggested, recommending that seven to eight hours sleep a night would appear to be a reasonable target.

The editors noted that the study was supported by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and by supplementary funds provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Network on Socioeconomic Status and Health.

Sleep Habits and Susceptibility to the Common Cold."
Sheldon Cohen; William J. Doyle; Cuneyt M. Alper; Denise Janicki-Deverts; Ronald B. Turner.
Archives of Internal Medicine Vol. 169, No. 1, pp 62-67, January 12, 2009.

Lack of Sleep Increases Risk of Heart Attack.

2009-01-13T08:43:00.000-08:00

A new study conducted on more than 1,255 men and women patients with high blood pressure, aged between 33 to 97-years, with 70 as the average age, suggests that subjects who did not get the standard 7.5 hours of sleep and witnessed elevated levels of blood pressure on falling asleep, were 4 times as likely to suffer a stroke, fatal or non-fatal heart attack or die suddenly of cardiac arrest. They had a 68% higher risk of any one of these cardiovascular complications, compared to their better-rested counterparts.

The study conducted at Jichi Medical University in Japan, Columbia University Medical Centre, New York City and Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, N. Y. and published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, saw researchers follow their subjects over a 50-month period, during which they compiled data on their sleep duration, their day and night blood pressure, including cardiovascular history.

However, it should be noted that only sleep deprived study subjects who failed to see the normal blood pressure dip that occurs overnight were at risk. Others who slept less than 7.5-hours, but did not witness a spike in their overnight blood pressure, like their counterparts who slept longer, without experiencing heightened levels of overnight blood pressure, were not at risk of a higher rate of heart disease.

The study findings confirm what doctors have known for long: chronic sleep deprivation results in a number of health problems like coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity. Therefore, researchers say, these findings make it imperative that doctors with high blood pressure patients should inquire about their sleep patterns for risk assessment of high blood pressure patients.

Researchers suspect lack of sleep results in increased nervous system activity during the day, which tends to place undue stress on the cardiovascular system. According to study leader, Dr. Kazuo Eguchi of Jichi Medical University, Japan, non-dipping overnight blood pressure is tied to increased nervous system activity during the day, suggesting the combination could have an "interactive effect to increase cardiovascular risk".

Teens might not get enough sleep: study

2008-04-02T03:39:00.000-07:00

PARIS (AFP) - Scientists have confirmed what parents of teenagers have always suspected: adolescents are out of sync with the rest of the world.

Most teens probably don't get enough sleep and suffer in their school work because their internal clocks make them night owls, according to a study published Tuesday.

Researchers in Australia showed the average teenager misses more than an hour of sleep each night and is forced to wake up 2.5 hours earlier than his or her natural rhythms would dictate.

High school students with a late-night "circadian preference," as the biologically-driven cycle is called, reported doing more poorly in school, and feeling more frequently depressed and unhappy.

"For all people, there is a genetic disposition to being either a 'morning lark' or a 'night owl'," explained lead author Suzanne Warner, a professor at Swineburne University of Technology in Hawthorn, Australia.

But when hormonal changes kick in at the start of adolescence, she told AFP, young people start to stay up later and—given the chance—wake up later too.

Most of the students in the study were such "evening persons," she said.

"Teenagers find that they are most alert in the evening and do not feel sleepy until later, and so find it difficult to get enough sleep during school term," she added.

The key is melatonin, a hormone that signals to the body that it needs rest and sleep. In teenagers entering puberty, it is released later and later in the evening.

There are also environmental factors that contribute to the problem, she said.

Ambient light tends to minimize the amount of melatonin secreted, and the constant use of computers could keep adolescents up past their natural bedtime, even after lights are turned out.

"One thing parents can do is to lower the lights, and switch off computers and televisions an hour before bedtime," advised Warner.

In the study, Warner and two colleagues compared the sleep patterns of 310 students during a school term and while they were on holiday.

Whereas the adolescents slept more than nine hours during the school breaks, they averaged less than eight hours when hitting the books.

"Night owls" were more likely than "morning larks" to have negative attitudes about themselves, to express feelings of unhappiness and voice irritation with their classmates, according to the study, published in the Netherlands-based Journal of Adolescence.

They also complained of low energy and "impaired" daytime functioning.

"For classes that start before 9:00 a.m., we have to question whether the students are going to be alert and able to learn," said Warner.

Previous research has shown that nine hours is the optimal amount of sleep time for teenagers.

Circadian clocks are found in organisms ranging from bacteria to human beings, and impose a roughly 24-hour schedule on our activities, such as sleeping and eating.

The mechanism controlling these rhythms is found in individual neurons located in the suprachiasmatic nuclei inside the brain. Scientists have identified at least one gene that determines whether one's "clock" will be naturally set for early or late rising.

The same process is involved in jet lag, Warner points out. "You could say that a lot of young people feel quite jetlagged coming into the school term—it is a very similar feeling," she said.

Parents should rethink a tendency to let adolescents set their own bedtime schedule, she added.

Lack Of Sleep Is Deadly

2007-09-26T23:14:00.000-07:00

PEOPLE who do not get enough sleep are more than twice as likely to die of heart disease.

A British study released yesterday said the reasons were unclear, but researchers said lack of sleep appeared to increase blood pressure.

A 17-year analysis of 10,000 government workers showed those who cut their sleep from 7 hours a night to 5 or less faced a 1.7-fold increased risk of death from all causes and more than double the risk of heart attack death.

The findings highlight a danger in busy modern lifestyles, said Francesco Cappuccio, professor of cardiovascular medicine.

"A third of the population of the UK and over 40% in the US regularly sleep less than 5 hours a night, so it is not a trivial problem," he said.

"The current pressures in society to cut out sleep, in order to squeeze in more, may not be a good idea—particularly if you go below 5 hours."

Previous research has highlighted the health risks of shift work and disrupted sleep.

But the latest study, which was supported by British Government and US funding, is the first to link duration of sleep and mortality rates.

This article is extracted from Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia), dated September 25th, 2007.

Why Poor Sleep Lowers Your Immune System

2007-09-10T08:33:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered 'exactly' why we tend to sleep longer when we're sick? As you might already know, we sleep in "sleep cycles". We can categorize these cycles into "light sleep" and "deep sleep." But just HOW important deep sleep is to our immune system?

As you read, it's during the first 3-4 hours of our sleep that we experience the longest period of Stage 3 and Stage 4 sleep. Stage 3 and Stage 4 Sleep is also commonly termed "deep sleep".

• It's during deep sleep that we experience very low brain waves called Theta and Delta brain waves.

• Our blood vessels dilate and all the blood that is usually stored in our organs throughout the day moves into our muscles to nourish and repair them.

• Our immune system also activates during deep sleep to fight disease. This is why people tend to sleep longer when they're sick.

When you don't take proper care of your inner sleeping system, you're usually at risk of "poor sleep". Poor sleep happens for a variety of reasons which I outline in the Sleep Wiz Revitalizing Program, but the main "symptom" is the inability or the difficulty of obtaining proper amounts of "deep sleep".

It's very common for people who travel across many time zones to get sick very quickly, we usually blame this on "jet lag". However, jet lag happens because of the body's natural body temperature rhythm being out of alignment. Jet lag commonly creates a disruption of deep sleep, added with the stress of travel, this is a perfect mixture for lowering one's immune system.

Most people live without being aware of all the actions they're taking in their lives that are completely detrimental to their sleeping system, which are depriving them of energy, and making them SLEEP LONGER than they really need to. Fortunately, there are simple methods to take proper care of your inner sleep system, and strengthen it for maximum performance.

Kacper Postawski is an innovative sleep science researcher and the creator of the Sleep Wiz, your surefire natural remedy to end insomnia forever and enjoy energizing sleep in as little as 3 days! He can show you how to fall asleep effortlessly, create more time, and an abundance of energy in your body by optimizing your sleep system! He dispels the “8-hour sleep myth”, tells you what most people never realize about sleep, and what the drug companies DONT WANT YOU to know.

Raffles Hospital offers new method to accurately test for sleep apnea.

2007-08-31T04:18:00.000-07:00

SINGAPORE—If you snore when you sleep, you're certainly not alone.

Doctors say one in four snores in his sleep. And the older you get, the more likely you'll snore, due to diminished muscle tone.

Almost one in two older men and women aged 60 and above, snores in their sleep.

What's more disturbing is that snoring can sometimes be due to what's known as "obstructive sleep apnea"—that's when you stop breathing while you're asleep.

Raffles Hospital has introduced a new sleep test that is supposed to be more accurate in pinpointing where the obstruction is.

The test can even be done in the comfort of your home, so there's no need to go to hospital.

Doctors say if you stop breathing in your sleep more than five times an hour, you have mild sleep apnea. If it is more than 40 times an hour, then the condition is considered severe.

Those who have obstructive sleep apnea can be treated by wearing an air mask. Another method is surgery to remove the tissue that is blocking the airway.

Most hospitals that conduct sleep tests require patients to be strapped down to be monitored overnight.

This is uncomfortable and can only tell how often the patient stops breathing in his sleep.

It does not identify where the obstruction to breathing is or what exactly the obstruction is. This could be the tongue, tonsils or polyps in the nose.

But now patients have another option—the Apnea Graph test offered by Raffles Hospital.

A patient needs to drop in at the clinic, so that a doctor can insert a fine catheter down the airway.

He can then head home with the catheter, which is lined with four temperature and pressure sensors. These will track where and when the patient stops breathing as he sleeps.

Dr Stephen T S Lee, who is a consultant ear, nose & throat surgeon at Raffles Hospital, said, "Currently your doctor would generally use a telescope to access your airway, make an eyeball assessment and determine—based on his or her assessment—what's the level of obstruction.

"It has been the only real technique that we had to date to analyse the level of obstruction. That's what we've been using. However when you analyse the level of obstruction based on telescopic examination, you do suffer from a few weaknesses.

"Firstly it's subjective. You're not able to quantify your outcome. It's based on a snapshot, meaning that you take it at one point in time, and it is not being done of a patient who is sleeping but a person who is awake.

"Unfortunately we know that the dynamics of the airway movement in sleep are very different from a person who's awake."

He went on to explain the advantage of the Apnea Graph test offered by Raffles Hospital.

"The advantage of this technique is that your results are based on a continuous six hours of recording, and it's being done in actual sleep condition. And you're able to quantify the problem.

"In other words, the results can come like that—you can say that it might be 90% upper airway obstruction...and 10% in the lower. So a person who comes back with that kind of results would be a patient that's likely to do well in surgery.

"We have very effective surgeries for treating the palate and treating the nose. Such a patient would have his results improved...up to 80% (success rate). With this technique, we can save patients from unnecessary surgeries."

Raffles Hospital claims it is the only hospital in Singapore which has performed over a dozen Apnea Graph tests since May, putting it in the forefront of a sleep apnea treatment that is becoming the standard in Europe. - CNA/ir

This is a news article published by Channel NewsAsia on August 31st, 2007.

3 Breathing Techniques to Improve Your Life

2007-08-28T00:14:00.000-07:00

Few people know how to breathe correctly and this can cause fatigue and unnecessary feelings of stress. It can also cause you to have difficulty falling asleep at night. The human body was designed to breathe using the diaphragm muscle rather than the chest. When you breathe using the diaphragm, your stomach will expand as the diaphragm extends into the abdomen, allowing the lungs to fully expand. This is known as “deep breathing”.

Shallow breathing, or “chest breathing”, is the technique most people use most of the time. This prevents the person from getting a true lung-full of air. The more stress you experience, the more shallow your breathing will become. This is where the feeling of tiredness comes from after a long, stressful day.

Everyone should practice deep breathing as a mean of reducing fatigue during the day. The technique is simple. Simple sit back in a comfortable chair anywhere and for five minutes practice deep breathing. This flood of oxygen coming into your body will bring feelings of energy and refreshment. As you go through the day, try to remind yourself to breathe deeply and at day’s end, you will feel much less tired.

Stress can be relieved using breathing techniques along with visualization. Simply sit or lie down and get comfortable. Begin breathing deeply, fully utilizing the diaphragm to breathe. Imagine yourself in a peaceful, stress-free place of your choice. For many, the beach or a mountain stream may be a choice location. Whatever place makes you feel relaxed and happy is the place to allow your mind to take you. As you breathe out, imagine yourself releasing all the pent-up stress in your body. As you breathe in, imagine yourself finding peace and calmness. This technique can be practiced for a few minutes during the day, or for as much as 15 minutes at a time. If you continue much longer than 15 minutes, you will most likely find yourself drifting off to sleep.

Speaking of sleep, many people find getting to sleep after a busy day very difficult. By using the technique of correct deep breathing, sleep can come much more easily and sleep will then to be much deeper. As you relax in bed, begin breathing with the diaphragm. Starting with your toes, tense them then relax them. Move to the calf muscles; continue on to the tight muscles. Then tense and relax the buttocks, abdomen and back, shoulders, neck, face and scalp. While remaining in this newly relaxed state and still breathing properly and deeply, allow your mind to take you to your special peaceful place. If the tightness in all your muscles is not completely gone or you begin to tighten up again, you can perform the tense-relax technique while in your peaceful place in your mind. Stay in that peaceful place and allow relaxation to flood over you live a wave. If sleep still does not come, you can always use the Buddist meditation, “Breathing in I calm myself; breathing out, I find peace.” Soon you will drift away into sleep.

The more you practice these techniques, the better you will become at achieving fast results. These are learned techniques, and therefore require practice. Soon you will find within only minutes of using the chosen technique for your situation at the moment, your mind, in conjunction with proper breathing, will allow you energy, lowered stress and faster, better-quality sleep.

Kacper Postawski is an innovative sleep science researcher and the creator of the Sleep Wiz, your surefire natural remedy to end insomnia forever and enjoy energizing sleep in as little as 3 days! He can show you how to fall asleep effortlessly, create more time, and an abundance of energy in your body by optimizing your sleep system! He dispels the “8-hour sleep myth”, tells you what most people never realize about sleep, and what the drug companies DONT WANT YOU to know.

The ONE Thing That Keeps Us Sleeping Longer

2007-08-26T09:29:00.000-07:00

Probably one of the biggest challenges people have is getting themselves out of the bed! This really has nothing to do with understanding sleep science or any of the information I teach, It has to do with your will power, and a little bit of strategy.

You've probably had many times in your life where you just couldn't get yourself out of bed. The biggest reason why we tend to stay in bed is because we "rationalize". For instance:

"I'll just sleep for 10 more minutes..." or

"It's okay. The alarm is early by 2.5 minutes anyway..." or

"I'll get up when the room warms up a bit..."

Haha! Well, whatever you've rationalized not getting out of bed with, I'm sure it was very creative too, because as human beings we're really great at coming up with reasons for NOT DOING THINGS! The reason why rationalizing makes us stay in bed, or prevents us from achieving many other goals in our lives is because it creates negative momentum. The law of momentum states: Once something gets into motion, it tends to stay in motion. The opposite is also true: Once something STOPS, it tends to STAY THERE!

Once you make a decision to keep your butt in that bed for "a few more minutes..." It tends to STAY THERE, and it usually stays there for A LOT LONGER THAN A FEW MINUTES! That's why I teach people to create a momentum strategy to get out of bed as quickly as possible, and START MOVING, start moving around the house, go for a run, make love with your partner, whatever it is you need to do to start moving and stop sleeping. When you create positive momentum it will be TOO LATE to rationalize about sleep because you'll already be out of your bed! So here are just a couple of strategies YOU could use to get out of bed quickly and get more out of your day:

1) The "Distant Alarm" Method

Most people place their alarms right next to their bed within reach. This is a BIG no-no if you want to avoid staying in your bed. Why? Because most of the time YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO ROLL OVER to press the alarm. That doesn't create a lot of movement and definitely doesn't stop you from sleeping your life away.

Instead of placing your alarm clock by your bed, place it far away, like at the end of your bedroom by the corner of the wall! By doing this you'll be forced to get up out of your bed to turn it off! By the time you're out of bed it will be too late to rationalize staying longer in bed, you'll be out already.

I even once duck-taped my alarm clock to the ceiling, so every morning I had to get up and get a chair right underneath it to turn it off. Where there's a will, there's a way.

2) Rehearsing

The reason why we "rationalize" morning after morning is because we've done it so long that we do it without even thinking about it. Rationalizing becomes a learned and rehearsed behavior.

A good way to STOP rationalize is to rehearse jumping out of your bed in advance. When you're ready to go to bed, simple do this this exercise: lie down in your bed as if you were sleeping, close your eyes...Then pretend you've just woken up in the morning, and JUMP RIGHT OUT OF BED saying "YEAAAA!!!"

Repeat this exercise at least 5-10 times, or as much as it feels good! I know it sounds stupid but it works! Your mind does what you tell it to do in a given situation. Doing this exercise will teach your mind a new behavior. In order to stop "rationalizing" you must replace the old behavior with a new behavior :o)

When you think about it, we're taught how to brush our teeth, we're taught how to take proper care of our bodies, and some of us are even taught proper nutrition skills, but NO ONE is hardly ever taught how to take proper care of their inner sleep system, which is responsible for your energy and your health more than you know! Whatever rationalizations you've come up with, allow me to suggest that you forget them and take some positive momentum in your life RIGHT NOW.

Kacper Postawski is an innovative sleep science researcher and the creator of the Sleep Wiz, your surefire natural remedy to end insomnia forever and enjoy energizing sleep in as little as 3 days! He can show you how to fall asleep effortlessly, create more time, and an abundance of energy in your body by optimizing your sleep system! He dispels the “8-hour sleep myth”, tells you what most people never realize about sleep, and what the drug companies DONT WANT YOU to know.

The 30 Second Secret To Blasting Your Energy Levels Through The Roof In The Morning

2007-08-23T02:55:00.000-07:00

There is an underlying inner sleep system which the quality of your sleep and your daily energy levels highly depend on.

It’s this inner sleep system that plays a key role in:

• When you go to sleep and when you wake up.
• How energized you feel in the morning, and throughout the day.
• When your body produces feelings of “sleepiness” to send you a signal that you later interpret in a way like…“I feel tired, I better get to bed…”

Most people don’t know how to use this system to their advantage…

You’re about to discover how you can use a simple ‘little-known-about’ method in the first 30 seconds after waking up to your advantage and boost your energy levels in the morning dramatically.

You’ll be able to learn how this works very easily (you’ll fully understand in a moment), and notice results immediately when you apply it into your life.

Your Body’s Natural Body Temperature Rhythm Plays A Key Role In How Much Energy You Have!

Let’s first review your body temperature rhythm.

In grade 5 science class, most of us are taught that our body temperature stays at a constant 98.5 degrees Fahrenheit (36.6 Celsius). In reality, this is false. Your body temperature varies by about 6 degrees every day.

Your body temperature rises and falls by about 6 degrees everyday, this rise and fall of your body temperature is known as your body temperature rhythm, or as some like to call it your "circadian rhythm".

Your body temperature usually rises in the morning around 6 AM, and begins to rise until the afternoon, where it takes a slight "slump." It then recovers from this slump and continues to rise until the evening hours, where it drops all through the night as you sleep.

Believe it or not, it’s this rise and fall of your body temperature that plays a major role in:

• When you feel sleepy.
• When you feel energized.

When your temperature is dropping, you feel “sleepy” and more towards the “tired” side. This is like a cue for your body to create feelings of sleepiness.

When your body temperature is rising, you tend to feel energized, alert, relaxed, and more “awake”.

The 30 Second Method To Boosting Your Energy In The Morning

There is a hormone in your body called melatonin. It’s also sometimes called as the “vampire” hormone, or the “sleep” hormone.

The longer your eyes are exposed to darkness, the more of this hormone is released inside of your blood.

The instant your eyes are exposed to light, the level of melatonin in your blood begins to decrease rapidly.

It’s this hormone that contributes a lot to the drop in your body temperature. Melatonin also makes you feel “sleepy”.

When you wake up in the morning, you have A LOT of melatonin inside of your blood. This is the main reason why you may feel like a “zombie” when you wake up.

Combined with a low body temperature in the morning, most people are so low on energy that they mistake the tired and drowsy feeling in the morning as the need to sleep, and end up sleeping longer and doing more damage to their sleep systems.

In reality, this is not the need to sleep, but actually the result of sleeping!

The 30 Second Trick To Rapidly Lowering Your Melatonin Levels And Boosting Your Body Temperature In The Morning

Here it is…When you wake up, you MUST expose your eyes to natural sunlight within 1 minute of waking up for AT LEAST 30 seconds.

As you do this you will notice the drowsy and tired feeling you usually get in the morning fading away, as your body feels more and more energized.

At first glance this sounds very simple, but hundreds of people who apply this technique from the Sleep Wiz Revitalizing Program system achieve incredible energetic results instantly in the morning.

Here’s How And WHY This Works

As you already know, when you expose your eyes to light your melatonin levels begin to drop and your body temperature begins to rise, as you slowly feel more awake in the morning.

But… have you ever wondered why you feel less energetic on cloudy and rainy days?

Why does this happen?

Because LIGHT Comes In Many Intensities.

Most people don’t realize that spending the day in-doors is the equivalent for your eyes as spending the day in darkness.

Let me explain…

Light intensity is measured in units called “luxes”. 1 Lux is about the light your eyes would get if you were to sit in a pitch dark room with 1 candle.

• During sunrise and sunset, your eyes get about 1,000 to 5,000 luxes of light!

• During the afternoon on a sunny day your eyes get about 100,000 luxes of light!

• Inside your home, or in an office, your eyes get about 100 to 500 luxes of light.

The level of melatonin in your blood always depends on the light intensity coming into your eyes.

For your eyes, being indoors and not being exposed to high intensity light is the equivalent as being in complete darkness. This has huge effect on your melatonin levels and your body temperature rhythm.

When you expose your eyes to high intensity light such as natural sunlight in the morning you drastically lower your melatonin levels right away, and your body temperature begins to rise as a result.

However, most people spend the first hour or two of the morning sitting indoors, and wondering why they feel “so tired” while they gobble down another cup of coffee (later on, you’ll be shocked when you find out what coffee really does for your sleep system).

When you’re sitting in your home in the morning, half of the light outside is being blocked by your windows, drapes and shades. Your eyes get at most maybe 200 to 300 luxes of light. This keeps your melatonin levels high, stops your body temperature from rising and keeps you low on energy. This does further damage to your sleep system in a perpetual loop, lowering your energy and immune system day by day.

I hoped you really enjoyed the information in this special report. This is just one of the MANY techniques and inner sleep system secrets you’ll learn in Sleep Wiz Revitalizing Program which you’ll use to supercharge your sleep system and blast your daily energy levels sky high, so you can wake up fully energized and live your whole day with passion!

The Sleep Wiz Revitalizing Program also teaches you how to optimize your sleep and have more time and energy than when you slept longer. Grab it today and start to revolutionize your life by super-charging your energy levels and getting more out of your sleep than you ever thought possible.

Kacper Postawski is an innovative sleep science researcher and the creator of the Sleep Wiz, your surefire natural remedy to end insomnia forever and enjoy energizing sleep in as little as 3 days! He can show you how to fall asleep effortlessly, create more time, and an abundance of energy in your body by optimizing your sleep system! He dispels the “8-hour sleep myth”, tells you what most people never realize about sleep, and what the drug companies DONT WANT YOU to know.

The 8 Mistakes Most Insomniacs Make

2007-08-16T10:39:00.001-07:00

As a result of “Learned Insomnia”, people usually try to re-cooperate by taking actions to work around their Insomnia. All these actions actually make Insomnia worse, by drastically weakening the sleep system and perpetuating it instead of solving the problem, because they do not attack the “cause” of Insomnia, only its symptoms.

Here are some of these actions, you'll probably notice what you're doing right now falls somewhere on to this list. Being aware of these actions and their effects will give you a better perspective on your Insomnia:

1. Taking Sleeping Pills. As you will soon see in the next section, this is the death rattle, which in most cases turns Insomnia into a lifelong condition. We'll explore all the effects of pills on Insomnia in the next section.

2. Going to bed early, and sleeping late on weekends to “Make up Sleep”. This makes Insomnia even more likely to happen as you are putting your body temperature levels out of wack. Creating the same effect that jet lag produces. This weakens your body's natural sleep system. You will also limit your exposure to sunlight, which plays a key role in your melatonin hormone levels.

3. Trying to “make up” sleep with long naps during the day. This also weakens your body's natural sleep response, as you will be less likely to fall asleep later. Naps are okay, and actually part of a way to cure Insomnia, only if you take them properly, as I'll show you later on.

4. Eating large amounts of food, sugar, or candy before going to sleep to try to make yourself sleepy or tired. Doing this does not solve the “cause” of insomnia, which is a weakened sleep system and a non-responsive “natural sleep response”. You may feel sleepy, but you will still wake up un-rested. Nearly all the sugar you eat is turned into fat by your body, will in turn can create risk of Sleep Apnea.

5. Drinking alcohol before going to bed to induce sleep. Many people think that drinking a glass of wine before bed is a good idea. It might make you feel sleepy but the disadvantages are many. Alcohol dehydrates your body, making it more likely you will wake up during the night thirsty for water. You will also most likely feel un-rested, drowsy, and dis-oriented the next day (hang-over). Drinking alcohol before bed will also increase fat gain drastically.

CAUTION: Alcohol should NEVER be combined with sleeping pills, it is extremely dangerous, and it has caused death.

6. Not exercising, and using your “lack of sleep” as an excuse not to exercise. Lack of exercise plays a key-role in chronic Insomnia. Not exercising due to Insomnia only makes the Insomnia Cycle stronger; not exercising weakens the natural sleep response, as well as the sleep system. Not exercising weakens your metabolism, weakening your heart, creating respiratory problems, making you more likely to wake up during the night, or suffer from sleep apnea.

7. Trying to force sleep. This will only increase your anxiety and frustration, weakening the “natural sleep response”, and making the “SLEEP = PAIN” anchor stronger and more apparent for your mind.

8. Reading a book or watching TV in bed to induce sleepiness. Not only does watching TV or reading keep your “conscious” racing mind active, it also diminishes the “natural sleep response”. As this supports the negative anchor in your mind that the process of falling asleep is something you have to AVOID. The more awake time you spend in your bed, the more your mind associates that the BED = AWAKE, SLEEP = PAIN.

Kacper Postawski is an innovative sleep science researcher and the creator of the Sleep Wiz, your surefire natural remedy to end insomnia forever and enjoy energizing sleep in as little as 3 days! He can show you how to fall asleep effortlessly, create more time, and an abundance of energy in your body by optimizing your sleep system! He dispels the “8-hour sleep myth”, tells you what most people never realize about sleep, and what the drug companies DONT WANT YOU to know.

How to relax and prepare the best atmosphere for your bedroom.

2007-08-05T22:48:00.000-07:00

People spend around a third of their lives in their bedroom. This has to make it one of the most important rooms in the house, yet it’s often not a room that people give much thought to. All too often bedrooms are used to store things that need to be out of public view, or to keep laundry, books, ironing etc. Clothes can pile up if allowed to, and the bedroom soon begins to be somewhere not particular restful and inviting.

Does your bedroom say “Come and rest here”? Is it cosy and inviting?

Making a good atmosphere

The atmosphere in your bedroom has a profound effect on the type and quality of sleep you get. The overall impression should be soft and inviting—rugs, soft bedding, long curtains etc. Use your favourite restful colours—blue or pastels works best—nothing too bright to stimulate your vision last thing at night…Make the bedroom welcoming, containing nice things you’re attached to and pleasant memories, but not too cluttered. Simple things such as closing the door makes the room more enclosed and cosy. Natural fabrics on the bed and for your nightclothes are best, as they don’t raise static electricity and the fabric breathes. Above all, have a good mattress and pillows—the best you can afford.

Heating and lighting

Bedroom temperatures should be comfortable, neither hot nor cold—scientists say 65 degrees Fahrenheit is ideal for sleep. Electric blankets may be warm, but they generate electromagnetic radiation, and they interfere with the body’s natural tendency to reduce temperature while you sleep.

Bedroom lighting should be soft and gentle. Try using lamps rather than full lights—it’s more restful on the eyes. Or use candles at night before bedtime—the soft flickering light has a hypnotic effect and can train the brain to relax and start slowing down for sleep.

Remove stimulation

Ban all devices such as telephones, TV and DVD/video, which are distracting, can stimulate your mind, and give off electromagnetic radiation. Similarly, remove books, magazines etc.

Fresh air…

If you have an ensuite toilet or bathroom, keep the door closed so steam and odours don’t come into the bedroom. Smells of toiletries may be wonderful and invigorating in your morning shower, but they are not going to help you sleep at night! Stagnant air can be stuffy. If this bothers you, try an ioniser or air purifier in the bedroom. NASA scientists found that plants clean air pollution, so plants are a good idea, as well as being welcoming and inviting (so long as you don’t choose spiky varieties!), but not too many, as they do give off carbon dioxide at night.

Light and Dark

Our bodies have a natural rhythm called the circadian rhythm. This is reset each day by light. If we are exposed to too much light, such as skylights, thin curtains etc, our rhythms become out of synch and we can feel lethargic. Have curtains that keep out the light, and put blinds on skylights.

The bedroom is for sleeping

The bedroom is for sleeping, and not other activities (except sex!). If you read, watch TV etc in the bedroom, you may find your brain starts to associate the room with those activities. This can lead to difficulty sleeping, or sleep being lighter than you need. If you need to nap during the day, don’t do it in the bedroom, use somewhere else if possible. You want your mind to associate the bedroom with restful sleep, not cat-napping. Similarly, don’t read or watch TV in the bedroom, or work or do any other activities but rest.

If you have trouble sleeping...

· The best way to relax and sleep is to stop trying to sleep and just allow yourself to sleep.

· Get up at a regular time every day, regardless of how tired you feel or what time you went to bed. This helps your "body clock" establish a pattern it can work to.

· Lavender fragrance is said to assist sleep and relaxation. If noise keeps you awake, tune a radio to a soft hiss between stations. This "white noise" distracts the brain from external noises.

· If you can’t sleep, get up and leave the bedroom—remember you want to create a powerful mental association between that room and sleeping. Go and read, watch TV, have a hot drink, and return when more tired. If you still can’t sleep or wake again, leave the bedroom again! Staying in bed when unable to sleep only creates a mental association between lying in bed and not sleeping.

Kacper Postawski is an innovative sleep science researcher and the creator of the Sleep Wiz, your surefire natural remedy to end insomnia forever and enjoy energizing sleep in as little as 3 days! He can show you how to fall asleep effortlessly, create more time, and an abundance of energy in your body by optimizing your sleep system! He dispels the “8-hour sleep myth”, tells you what most people never realize about sleep, and what the drug companies DONT WANT YOU to know.

How To Fall Asleep In Three Minutes—Beyond Counting Sheep

2007-08-04T09:52:00.000-07:00

The inability to fall asleep can be frustrating and greatly impede one's ability to function on a day-to-day basis. The following tips will help you to fall asleep in no time. Pleasant dreams!

1. Food That Can Help You Fall Asleep. Trytophan is an amino acid that helps the brain produce serotonin, which helps you relax. Found in such things as turkey, milk, chicken, ice cream, tuna and peanuts, the soothing effect of trytophan can help you put your day's worries behind you and allow you to fall into blissful slumber. On the other hand, avoid spicy and fatty foods, which can give you heartburn and keep you awake. Similarly, too much liquid before bedtime can leave you running to the bathroom all night rather than sleeping.

2. Relax. One of the biggest culprits of sleep deprivation is the inability to stop the mind from racing with the day's event and ongoing worries. The key is to slow down, and try to leave your troubles behind. A warm bath, meditation, peaceful music, a good book and dimmed lights can have a soothing, therapeutic effect.

3. Avoid Stimulants. Caffeine, found in coffee and soda, and nicotine, found in cigarettes, are stimulants that inhibit your ability to slow down and get some rest. Herbal energy boosters can also keep you awake. Try to avoid stimulants for eight hours prior to bedtime.

4. Get On A Schedule. Regulating when you go to bed and when you wake up is important to establishing a regular sleep pattern. Go to sleep and rise at the same time every day, even on weekends. Don't nap during the day, as this inhibits your ability to fall asleep at night.

5. Cool Things Off. Your body temperature naturally drops when you are sleeping. To imitate this pattern and help to induce sleep, keep your bedroom temperature lower. Use an air conditioner or fan to reproduce these conditions, and wear light clothes.

6. Avoid Alcohol. Alcohol can temporarily help you fall asleep, but actually interferences with the quality of your sleep. It impairs your ability to achieve REM sleep, which is deep sleep. Instead, you remain in a lighter sleep, from which you can be easily awoken.

7. Be Sure You Are Getting Enough Iron. Women with an iron deficiency tend to have more trouble sleeping. Check your iron level and start taking an iron supplement, if needed.

8. Make Your Bed A Pleasant Place To Be. Take the time to make your bed every day, making it a more appealing place to go to. Make sure you have a good mattress, comfortable sheets, and fluffy pillows. Also, only use your bed for sleeping, so that your body registers that the bed is a place to sleep.

9. Exercise. Exercise three to six hours before bedtime can help you relax, and tire you out, enabling you to fall asleep more easily. Plus, regular exercise increases the quality of your sleep.

10. Get Out Of Bed. Sometimes, staying in bed and worrying about falling asleep can actually put too much pressure on you and prevent you from falling asleep. Get up, do something else, and try again in a little while.

Kacper Postawski is an innovative sleep science researcher and the creator of the Sleep Wiz, your surefire natural remedy to end insomnia forever and enjoy energizing sleep in as little as 3 days! He can show you how to fall asleep effortlessly, create more time, and an abundance of energy in your body by optimizing your sleep system! He dispels the “8-hour sleep myth”, tells you what most people never realize about sleep, and what the drug companies DONT WANT YOU to know.

How To Create Energy From Nothing

2007-08-01T23:17:00.000-07:00

A lot of people feel "tired", and blame it on getting not enough sleep, or other external factors. Basically, the fact that they're tired is always "out of control". What they don't know is that there's a reason for feeling "tired", and that there's a simple method to change "tired" to "energized" in a heartbeat...

Most of us feel tired during one of the four:

1) After waking up in the morning.
2) After intense physical activity, or long hours of work.
3) After sitting in one place for a long period of time.
4) During the evening, or in the late evening hours.

What do all four of those have in common? There's one very common process that happens in our bodies in all four cases. During all of these we all experience very similar"symptoms" of tiredness. These include yawning, rubbing our eyes, feeling sllooowww, and having the urge to just get into bed and sleep.

Why Do We Get These "Symptoms"?

Our bodies have a natural temperature rhythm. Our body temperature rises when we are awake, and promotes feelings of alertness. Our body temperature also falls when we're sleeping, and promotes feelings of drowsiness, and a desire to sleep.

The natural DROP of body temperature in our bodies is a CUE for our body to produce feelings of tiredness, drowsiness, and the strong urge to sleep. I call this the "natural sleep response". When we're exercising, or putting excessive physical demand on our body, our body temperature RISES rapidly, however when you END the physical activity, there is a RAPID body temperature DROP until your body temperature regulates sometime after. It's during this DROP that most of us think there's no other way out but to sleep, and we usually jump into bed and do just that.

The feeling of the body temperature drop after long hours of work is usually mistaken by us as a deep need for sleep. In reality, we don't need to sleep, we just need to "cool down". Allow me to give you a personal example:

As a kid I used to work at a FULL SERVE gas station for 8-9 hours in a row. This meant I had to be on my feet running around pumping gas for 8-9 hours with one 10-minute break. It was hell! Even when I had the early morning shift I would come home and feel TOTALLY DRAINED and TIRED, I usually fell asleep and slept till the evening.

However, as I began learning the inner science of our sleep system and the inner sleep clock, I tried a little experiment one day. Instead of going to sleep I came home and played fetch with my dog out in the yard for about 45 minutes instead. To my surprise, after just a few minutes of a little light activity (throwing a plastic chewed up Frisbee across the backyard), the feeling of tiredness faded and I was able to stay awake and alert WAY into the early morning hours.

How did this work?

I simply allowed my body temperature some time to return back to the normal pattern it proceeds. I gave it time to "come down". When it returned back to normal, I didn't feel tired and the intense pressure to sleep faded.

This same body temperature drop happens after you sit in one place for a long time. Listen, you could take a person who is robust, athletic, and naturally energetic, but if you put them in front of a TV for 3 hours, THEY WILL GET TIRED! This is simply because our body temperature drops when we're NOT MOVING.

That's why the biggest antidote to feeling tired is exercise and movement, NOT SLEEP.

During the morning our body temperature is low too, which creates feelings of drowsiness and tiredness, however, most of us chose to mask this feeling by consuming large amounts of caffeine. The other main temperature drops happen in the afternoon, and in the mid-evening.

In the Sleep Wiz Revitalizing System I describe the EXACT methods to gain a full understanding of your body temperature rhythm, so you can create a quick RISE of body temperature in the morning, and delay the body temperature drop in the evening. This allows you to stay awake and ALERT longer, have more energy and MORE TIME (time is a precious commodity!).

Kacper Postawski is an innovative sleep science researcher and the creator of the Sleep Wiz, your surefire natural remedy to end insomnia forever and enjoy energizing sleep in as little as 3 days! He can show you how to fall asleep effortlessly, create more time, and an abundance of energy in your body by optimizing your sleep system! He dispels the “8-hour sleep myth”, tells you what most people never realize about sleep, and what the drug companies DONT WANT YOU to know.

Can Sleeping 8 Hours Kill You Faster?

2007-07-30T07:08:00.000-07:00

A recent study done by the University of California and the shocking finding of it: "People who sleep 8 hours or more have a 50% higher mortality (death) rate than people who sleep less."

However, does this mean that sleeping longer will create a higher chance of death and disease for you?

No. There's no solid proof for that, but as you read about this study, you might have realized the connection between less sleep, your daily energy levels, and the strength of your immune system.

As you might notice, it's during deep sleep that your body undergoes major physiological changes to repair your muscles, power up your immune system and replenish your energy.

The question really isn't "how long should I sleep?" The question really is...

"How can I optimize my sleep system to gain POWERFUL and QUALITY sleep?"

You see, there is a difference between quantity, and quality. The problem, and the challenge is that most people don't understand sleep. They think sleep is a very basic thing that happens to us every night. I mean, think about it, we sleep, we wake up, and we magically feel refreshed, right? Because of this misunderstanding, many people live today with very out-of-balance sleeping systems that deprive you of your energy, without even being aware of it.

Sleep is actually quite a complex and fascinating system. Here, briefly, are the effects of sleeping longer:

1) Sleeping longer than you need to will weaken your sleep system, as you reduce your prior wakefulness, exposure to sunlight, activity levels, and your body temperature at a low for too long.

2) As a result, your melatonin hormone levels will stay high longer, you'll be more tired and drowsy during the day.

When you sleep for long periods of time, your body temperature doesn't rise as quickly in the morning. This results in feeling very drowsy and tired for the early part of your day. If you stay inactive, this body temperature pattern will lead to poor sleep, which will prevent you from sleeping deeply.

This weakened sleep system and inability to get proper restful and energizing sleep creates low energy levels and a weakened immune system.

People usually sleep longer because their sleeping system is not being taken proper care of. They feel low on energy during the day, and think they need more sleep. In actuality, they feel low on energy because they have a weak sleep system, not because they're sleeping too little.

If you're currently sleeping around 8 to 10 hours and you feel LOW on energy during the day, it's not because you need more sleep. YOU NEED LESS SLEEP, and MORE ENERGY from your sleep.

Sleeping less actually INCREASES the strength of your sleeping system. The problem is, most people don't know anything about proper sleep system hygiene, or how to strengthen their inner sleep system. Only with the proper knowledge can you learn to optimize and strengthen your sleeping system, to have more energy and a higher level of health. Only once you've optimized your sleeping system for maximum performance can you reduce your sleep.

Kacper Postawski is an innovative sleep science researcher and the creator of the Sleep Wiz, your surefire natural remedy to end insomnia forever and enjoy energizing sleep in as little as 3 days! He can show you how to fall asleep effortlessly, create more time, and an abundance of energy in your body by optimizing your sleep system! He dispels the “8-hour sleep myth”, tells you what most people never realize about sleep, and what the drug companies DONT WANT YOU to know.

Surefire Way To Battling Against Tossing And Turning

2007-07-27T19:49:00.000-07:00

We've all had those nights that we just couldn't find the comfortable part of the bed and spent hours tossing and turning till the break of dawn. Why does this happen?

Well, your desire to “toss and turn”, really isn't the result of you not being comfortable, it's the result of you not feeling relaxed. On a deeper feeling our mind wants to relax, but most of the times we interpret the message as “find a comfortable spot on the bed”. True relaxation comes from within you, and has to be triggered by your inner thought process.

For example: You could be in a hammock on a hot summer day in Hawaii, but if you're thinking about whether the stock market will rise or fall, and you've got a 100 million dollars on the line and it's REALLY bothering you, it won't matter what position you're in that hammock, you won't relax!

If you're lying in bed and you get the urge to toss or turn, wait it out, you'll be surprised how quickly it fades! When you get the urge to toss and turn, ask yourself “How can I focus on something else right now to feel more relaxed?” As you lie there for about 15 seconds, you'll be surprised at how the urge to toss and turn simply fades, and you realize that all you really want to do is relax.

Understand that if you do start tossing and turning, it will not end with just ONE toss or turn, because of the momentum effect, you will just keep tossing and turning till the break of dawn!

Sometimes the urge to move is really intense, or maybe you really are in a very painful position on your bed. If you absolutely MUST move, do it in this way:

1) Move, but move very slowly. Remember what it feels like when you wake up in the morning and you're very sleepy, do you move very quickly then?

2) As you move very slowly, put a big bright smile on your face, and take a deep breath.

Another reason why tossing and turning keeps us awake is because we do it very quickly, and the more we do it, the more it agitates us! So do it very slowly, and make sure to smile and breath deeply, you will feel the difference.

Kacper Postawski is an innovative sleep science researcher and the creator of the Sleep Wiz, your surefire natural remedy to end insomnia forever and enjoy energizing sleep in as little as 3 days! He can show you how to fall asleep effortlessly, create more time, and an abundance of energy in your body by optimizing your sleep system! He dispels the “8-hour sleep myth”, tells you what most people never realize about sleep, and what the drug companies DONT WANT YOU to know.

Power Napping: How To Fall Asleep Anywhere

2007-07-26T01:02:00.000-07:00

Today, I’d like to continue by talking about how you can fall asleep no matter where you are. This is useful for napping in airports, couches, or at your desk if need be.

The trick is the use sleep MP3s such as these. They are essentially MP3s that play white noise for the duration of the nap, and then slowly wake you up by playing a variety of sounds. What's great is that you can play them on your computer speakers, or make them portable by putting them on your iPod or cell phone.

They are so helpful (and far superior to a traditional alarm clock) for a few reasons:

It's too easy to make mistakes when setting an alarm for a nap. Alarm clocks are designed to be changed rarely, and used over and over at the same time each day. The math that is required to count x minutes ahead and get all the buttons right, while being sleep deprived, is just asking for errors.

Napping is not dependent on the time of day, it’s dependent on the length. The length of the MP3 never changes, so it is as simple as pressing play to get it right.

These MP3s use white noise to block out other sounds and and soothe you to sleep. When I first heard it, I found it a little bit annoying, but I quickly grew to enjoy the sound, and it works better than earplugs to block out unwanted noises.

They wake you up gradually. Some start with relaxing clucking of chickens or a rooster, then play some music, and end with loud explosions and a human voice letting you know it's time to get up if you still haven't gotten up. This is much more effective (and pleasant) than a single tone that you will angrily turn off.

They are portable. I have one of these MP3s on my blackberry so if I need to fall asleep, I just put in my standard headphones and I'm out. You can also carry them on your iPod.

Some finals tips for the perfect nap:

If you are sensitive to light, you may want to combine this with a sleep mask which will block out the light.

Make sure you are as warm as possible, since just having cold feet or hands can be enough to prevent sleep.

Finally, if you normally like to sleep on your side, and you don’t have a pillow handy, you may have to try sleeping on your back. This will allow your head to be in a natural position without a pillow. Even though I never sleep on my back in bed, I’m able to nap in this position, so give it a try.

Using these simple techniques, you will likely be able to fall asleep in most environments, and wake up ready to take on the day!

Brian Armstrong is an entrepreneur who sleeps 2-3 hours per day using polyphasic napping. He became financially free running his own business at the age of 23, and today seeks to help others quit the 9-to-5 corporate world to start their own business. For more great tips visit his blog.

How To Design The Perfect Nap

2007-07-25T00:54:00.000-07:00

Most people enjoy a good nap now and then, but are you really utilizing their full power?

A correctly performed nap can give you a great boost in energy, focus, and concentration, but a poorly executed nap can leave you groggy and more tired than when you started.

Several cultures around the world use a “siesta” in the afternoon to stay productive, and many workers in the U.S. have reported success avoiding afternoon drowsiness with a nap. Some people (myself included) have even excelled at nothing but six well-timed naps per day, during polyphasic sleep.

Taking six naps per day has given me a chance to design the perfect nap. The single most important aspect of a nap is making it the right length, and it requires a little background explanation to understand why.

It turns out that dreaming is the most important part of sleep. Test subjects who were deprived of dreams (meaning they were woken up when they started to dream, but otherwise allowed to sleep as much as they wanted) performed on tests as if they had not slept at all. Furthermore, the longer they were deprived of dreams, the more frequently their brains attempted to start dreaming. Mice who were deprived of dreams for more than a few weeks died!

You may have noticed this on your own if you ever took a quick nap, and vividly remembered your dreams afterwards. When exhausted, you will tend to dream more.

So what does this all mean? It means that your goal during a nap is to enter the REM sleep phase quickly (this is where most dreaming occurs), and to wake up as soon as the REM sleep phase is over. If you sleep past the REM phase you’ll enter deeper phases of sleep and it will be really difficult to get up!

The only reason this is difficult is that everyone sleeps differently. For most people, their optimal nap time (where they can wake up just as they finish REM) is between 15 and 30 minutes, but you’ll have to test to find yours precisely.

What makes it more difficult is that you have to take into account how long it takes you to fall asleep. When you are first perfecting your naps, it could take quite a while to fall asleep, so I’d suggest starting with a 30-35 minute nap, and working your way down.

Don’t be surprised if after a 30-minute nap you are exhausted. You may have gone right through REM into a deeper sleep phase. It will feel like being woken up in the middle of the night, and during these times I’ve had trouble with even the most basic tasks like keeping my balance or forming sentences.

Each day, try a different length of nap, reducing the time by 3-5 minutes, and record your energy levels. As you learn to fall asleep quicker, and close in on your optimal time, you’ll notice a remarkable thing: it’s possible to wake up from a nap totally refreshed and alert!

This is the sweet spot you are searching for. Next week, I’ll delve further into optimal light and sound conditions for power napping, and show you a little trick I use to fall asleep anywhere (airports, desks, couches, etc).

Brian Armstrong is an entrepreneur who sleeps 2-3 hours per day using polyphasic napping. He became financially free running his own business at the age of 23, and today seeks to help others quit the 9-to-5 corporate world to start their own business. For more great tips visit his blog.

Sleep Too Much – 9 Practical tips for eliminating dark, under-eye circles

2007-07-19T09:24:00.000-07:00

Getting great night sleep is important but not always possible. Recent surveys suggest as many as 45% don’t get adequate sleep each evening. The reasons are as varied as the individuals. They include worry/stress/anxiety, studies, parenthood, jobs, insomnia and countless others.

Sleep too much ends up giving you the panda look due to poor sleep quality. But you can still look your best if you try one of the many tips that follow and see if you don’t look like you’ve been cuddling with the sandman instead of burning the midnight oil.

Topical Tips:

1. Try a light application of almond oil before retiring. Be careful not to stretch or pull the skin. Eyelids and the under eye area need gentle, delicate treatment to look their best.

2. Lie down with your feet elevated. Apply a cotton ball moistened with rosewater or cold milk and leave in place for about ten minutes.

3. Purchase an over the counter eye gel remedy. There are a number of great products on the market, most $10 and under. Look for products with soothing botanicals such as chamomile. Again, remember to apply gently without stretching the skin.

4. Buy an eye mask – if you don’t have one use a cool cloth. Keep this on your eyes for about five minutes. This strategy will help constrict blood vessels under the eyes as well as eliminate some of the darkness.

5. Apply a quality moisturizer to the under eye area before you shower. Your skin will drink in the moisture and the appearance of lines and circles will be minimized. Gently remove the moisturizer with a damp cloth after your shower.

6. Opt for regular application of Vitamin K cream, which is thought to reduce pigment, and thus dark coloring, around the eyes.

7. Keep a collagen boosting, anti-aging remedy such as alpha-hydroxy acids around to plump up your eyes helping them look younger and more rested.

8. Try Preparation H (believe it or not!) for a quick fix, eye energizer.

9. Lie with your feet elevated. Place cool tea bags over your eyes for about 5 minutes. You can also try this remedy with cool cucumbers.

Kacper Postawski is an innovative sleep science researcher and the creator of the Sleep Wiz, your surefire natural remedy to end insomnia forever and enjoy energizing sleep in as little as 3 days! He can show you how to fall asleep effortlessly, create more time, and an abundance of energy in your body by optimizing your sleep system! He dispels the “8-hour sleep myth”, tells you what most people never realize about sleep, and what the drug companies DONT WANT YOU to know.

The 3 Shocking MYTHS About Sleep That You Don't Know About—Which Are Depriving You of Your Life Energy.

2007-07-17T04:48:00.000-07:00

MYTH #1: “If you sleep longer, you'll be more awake and have more energy in your life.”

TRUTH: Sleeping Longer ROBS You of Energy and Damages your Sleeping System.

There are several reasons why sleeping longer damages your sleep system. What most people don't know is that there is a very important element of your inner sleep clock which is prior wakefulness. When you sleep longer you limit your prior wakefulness which puts stress on a number of other factors such us your melatonin hormone levels, your exposure to sunlight, and your body temperature rhythm.

Getting longer sleep or "catching up on sleep" only weakens your sleep system, which in turn can even lower your immune system. The common belief that trying to sleep less makes you tired and low on energy is simply because people don't understand how the bio-temperature rhythms work (what you will learn soon).

MYTH #2: You need to “Catch Up on Sleep” if you missed some before.

TRUTH: Unless you...

Unless you go on a huge sleep deprivation marathon, you do not need to "catch up on sleep", if you downloaded the 2 free chapters of the powerful sleep eBook, you learned precisely why this is true. It is only during the first 3–4 hours of sleep that we experience most of State 3 and Stage 4 sleep. Sleeping longer than you usually do isn't physically beneficial to you in anyway, and puts your body temperature rhythm out of balance.

MYTH #3: “I feel so low on energy, I Must Get More Sleep.”

TRUTH: More Sleep DOES NOT Provide You With more Energy!

You don't need MORE sleep, you need QUALITY sleep.

People think that sleep is a very basic thing. We don't really think about it do we? We sleep, we wake up, and we magically feel refreshed, don't we? In truth, sleep is actually quite a complex and fascinating system that most of us take for granted. Because most of us don't understand how our inner sleep system works, we aren't even aware of all the actions we're taking in our lives that are damaging our sleep systems and depriving us of energy. There is a difference between MORE sleep, and POWERFUL sleep. The only way to make your sleep more physically energizing is to learn about the inner science of sleep! Only once you learn how to optimize your sleeping system for maximum performance, can you try to get some restful sleep.

We barely scratched the surface of these vitally important understandings here. What we briefly talked about here is completely covered in rich detail in the Sleep Wiz Revitalizing system.

Kacper Postawski is an innovative sleep science researcher and the creator of the Sleep Wiz, your surefire natural remedy to end insomnia forever and enjoy energizing sleep in as little as 3 days! He can show you how to fall asleep effortlessly, create more time, and an abundance of energy in your body by optimizing your sleep system! He dispels the “8-hour sleep myth”, tells you what most people never realize about sleep, and what the drug companies DONT WANT YOU to know.