Good Sleeping Habits Linked to Living Longer

Can Sleeping Help You Live Longer?

From an article titled Sleeping Well Linked to Longer, Healthier Life posted on WebMD May 3, 2010 — A study of nearly 16,000 Chinese adults ages 65 and older has found that those who regularly enjoyed a good night’s sleep were also those who enjoyed overall better health and longevity.

Analysis of Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey

Researchers from Portland State University in Oregon analyzed 2005 data from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey to look at which factors were associated with sleep among elder adults. They found that those ages 80 and older were more likely to report higher sleep quality compared with adults ages 65 to 79. Being male, living in a rural area, higher socioeconomic status, and good health conditions were all associated with higher quality of sleep.

Your Living Longer begins with living  A SANER LIFE

(Excerpt from my up coming book: “The 5 Secrets to Living Longer”)

Stress can be reduced by following the acronym SANER LIFE. These are simple, sane, common sense ways to manage stress, and as a whole, to prolong life and improve its quality. The “S” in SANER LIFE stands for “Sleep Soundly”.

Your Sleep habits help you Rejuvenate

Sleeping soundly for enough hours each night is a necessary refreshment of the body and mind. If you are not sleeping well or enough, you are compromising and straining all your systems. Lack of sleep can be an indicator of stress or it can induce stress by leaving you functioning at a lower capacity.

The body rejuvenates during sleep. Blood supply increases while metabolic activity decreases, and hormones and repair processes are activated, allowing the body to repair and replenish. The brain is active during sleep, organizing information and sometimes discharging negative energy through dreams and their symbols.

Lack of sleep causes you stress

People get cranky when they don’t get enough sleep; they are more accident-prone in the car and on the job and they are less sharp and responsive. All these things add to the stress the body and mind are undergoing from not having had proper rest. In spite of some variations, it is still recommended that most adults function best on eight hours a night.

Getting Better Sleep begins with Better Habits

Remember how as a child you had a bedtime routine? You changed into pajamas, brushed your teeth, kissed Daddy goodnight, and said your prayers after Mommy read you a bedtime story. Children are the most conservative of creatures, and a bedtime routine helps reassure them of an orderly life and soothes them into much-needed sleep.

You need to have a bedtime routine too. It is best to go to bed at the same time each night whenever possible and awaken at the same time too. Maintaining this even on weekends if healthful, as, like children, we are creatures of habit and respond positively to the reassurance of routine.

5 Habits you Should Avoid to Ensure Getting a Good Nights Sleep

1.   Don’t use your bedroom for other activities. (Obviously snuggling with your spouse doesn’t count as something you should bar from the bedroom.)

2.  Don’t watch TV there, don’t set up your laptop, don’t make business calls while sitting on the bed. All the associations of the room should be restful and to have to do with the biggest piece of furniture in the room—the bed. It is your bedroom. It is where you nestle down and sleep.

3.  Do not to drink caffeinated substances in the evening (even “decaffeinated” teas and coffees have some caffeine within them that can affect sleep).

4.  Avoid evening exercise.  A rigorous bout of exercise right before bed will also rev up your body and perhaps interrupt sleep, although exercise earlier in the afternoon will promote better sleep.

5.  Avoid a messy décor. Make sure the bed is inviting and not a rumpled mess of tangled sheets.

3 Habits you Should Start for Getting a Good Nights Sleep

1.  Go to your bedroom area early enough to not skimp on night-time routines. Brushing and flossing teeth can actually add years to the life of your teeth and to your life as well, as plaque build-up on the teeth can gravitate into blood vessels and other parts of the body.

2.   Cleaning off makeup before sleeping is very important, especially for women who wear eye makeup. Sleeping with eye makeup still on can cause a chronic condition of bacterial infection called bletharitis, which can make closing the eyes uncomfortable.

3.  Make your getting-ready-for-bed routine as soothing and loving as you would make it for a child, only in an adult version. Then climb in, relax, and log those health-giving Zs.

Sleeping can help you Live Longer

If you are fortunate, you will feel like the supercentenarian from Okinawa who says as he goes to sleep each night looking forward to the activities of the next day. In a recent article at CNNhealth.com “Why we’re sleeping less” it points out how the level of sleep deprivation in America is creating stress and lack of health.  As a Chiropractor, I see the effects of stress on peoples nervous system every day.

Using technology to measure the effects of stress and removing it with Chiropractic care is crucial for your health.  Having your nervous system assessed in our office is quick and easy.

Contact me to schedule your nervous system assessment to see if Chiropractic can help you live a longer, healthier life.  Stay up to date on my latest posts and news about the release of “The 5 Secrets to Living Longer” by subscribing to the RSS feed.

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Tagged as: Living Longer, sleep, WebMD