Your Pet May Be Causing You Sleepless Nights

Our pets are always happy to see us. Whether you are coming home from work, school or you just ran to the mailbox, they always meet you with a smile and an upbeat mood. They can become your best friend and help you get through tough times when you may feel all alone. But what about those long sleepless nights you seem to have? Fact is, even though your pet loves you, they may unknowingly be contributing to your restless nights.

Do you let your pet sleep in the bed with you? According to a study, 56% of dog owners said their dog sleeps in the bed with them, and 62% of cat owners said their cat slept in their bed. Whether your pet is sleeping on the floor or in your bed, you may face some sort of sleep disturbance. Let’s discuss some possible issues of sleeping with pets.

Restless Leg Syndrome

Unlike some other common sleep disorders, RLS or Restless Leg Syndrome is a neurological disorder that affects a person during an unlikely time, while resting. RLS is characterized by an unpleasant feeling, sometimes throbbing pain, a pulling or tugging sensation, all which seem to be uncontrollable. To further look into how RLS affects people, it is a disorder where a person has an uncontrollable urge to move their legs. Instances when RLS can occur are most commonly found to be at night, while lying still in bed and getting ready to sleep. This disorder can pose health concerns not only for the person who is suffering with RLS, but also for anyone who shares a bed with them.

We all know sleep is essential to a productive day and better health, but what happens when quality sleep is out of your control? It can be hard to cope with fatigue and exhaustion, especially if you are not the person suffering from RLS. This disorder may sound humorous, but it is not at all funny.

Understanding the Causes and Symptoms of Insomnia

Insomnia can be quite tricky to get a handle on, as it can affect anyone at any time. Insomnia is classified as the inability to fall asleep or stay asleep throughout the night.  Many people may experience this trouble sleeping and attribute it to a rough day at work, or to the anxiety of an upcoming vacation. Most of the time, people ignore the tell-tale signs of insomnia, and it will progressively get worse and even wreak havoc at home and work. Having trouble sleeping can greatly affect your concentration, memory and focus.

Insomnia is also known to accompany health concerns and other sleep disorders that may interrupt your sleep. Insomnia is not the reason you cannot sleep, insomnia is what we call your inability to sleep.

A great way to start minimizing the effect insomnia has on your life is first understanding what can cause insomnia. Once you understand what causes insomnia, you can take preventative measure to help safe guard your sleep by reducing these causes. If you are overly stressed, you can try stress relieving activities such as meditation, aromatherapy or exercising. If a medication you are taking is known to disrupt sleep,  it may be time to consult your doctor about an alternative that will not disrupt sleep.

Is Your Child Sleep Deprived?

It doesn’t matter what how old you are, getting enough sleep is vital to memory development and living a healthy life. As you age, the amount of sleep required to function at optimal performance decreases, yet you may overlook sleep deprivation as a reason your days are sluggish and you feel unmotivated. But let’s focus on how sleep deprivation can affect our kids; it may be worse than you previously thought.

The average child, aged between 3 and 12, needs roughly 10-13 hours of sleep per night. The younger the child is, the more sleep they will need. Sleep plays an important role in brain development, coordination and can often cause developing attention disorders like ADD (attention deficit disorder). One issue parents may face is not recognizing if their child is sleep deprived. It can sometimes be hard as we mistake these telltale signs for normal child-like behavior. Some of the signs to watch for are:

Effects of Snoring on Your Health and Relationships

Do you or someone you know snore during the night? Having to deal with a person who snores can be a huge pain in anyone’s side. But if you are the person who snores, you may not be aware or know that it is bothersome to others around you. The effects of snoring are two-fold. Not only can it be a sign of a more significant disorder, sleep apnea, it can wreak havoc on personal relationships.

Now to be fair, since a person whom snores is not aware of this loud disturbance, treat them no differently than you would someone who doesn’t snore. For the most part, it is out of their control. Snoring is caused by blockage of the airway. When sleeping, tissue in the throat begins to relax as your body relaxes. The deeper the sleep, the more relaxed a person becomes. This blockage is what causes the loud “snores.”

What is Fatigue and How to Beat It

Two common phrases that often times gets confused are “I feel weak” or “I am fatigued.” Knowing and understanding the difference between weakness and fatigue are important in figuring out possible causes and reliefs from such symptoms. Weakness is a lack of physical strength in your muscles as well as the need to exert more effort to move your limbs. Possible causes may be over working, poor diet or exerting too much force. Fatigue is generally the feeling of being tired or exhausted, and having a lack of energy or motivation.

Understanding the Different Stages of Sleep

We all know that sleep is an important part of living a healthy life. What we may not fully understand is what goes on while we sleep. To help understand what goes on in the human brain during sleep, we must first understand the different sleep stages that are cycled through. The brain has 5 sleep stages it enters into throughout the night to help ensure you wake up rested and energized. Non-REM sleep and REM sleep are building blocks to our sleep cycle, and typically follow a predictable pattern, going from light sleep to deep sleep several times during the night. To help understand why 8 hours is recommended as the proper sleep duration per night, we need to first understand our sleep cycle.

Stage 1:

4 Conditions For A Better Night’s Sleep

Do you wake up in the middle of the night? Do you have trouble falling asleep? Have you ever sat down and considered the conditions in which you sleep? Many people feel that having a comfortable mattress and pillow is enough to get a good night’s rest. This is, in many ways, incorrect. Several factors are attributed t

o a peaceful and fully relaxed sleep.

#1 – Room Temperature