Tag: Sleep disorder

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Healthy Tips

Few Tips to Improve Your Slumber Tonight

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Sleep is important for your physical and emotional health. Sleep may help you stay healthy by keeping your immune system strong. Getting enough sleep can help your mood and make you feel less stressed.

But we all have trouble sleeping sometimes. This can be for many reasons. You may have trouble sleeping because of depression, insomnia, fatigue, or Sjögren’s syndrome. If you are depressed, feel anxious, or have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), you may have trouble falling or staying asleep.

Whatever the cause, there are things you can do:

Your sleeping area :
•Use your bedroom only for sleeping
•Move the TV out of your bedroom
•Keep your bedroom quiet and dark
Your evening and bedtime routine

•Get regular exercise — but not within 3 to 4 hours before bedtime
•Create a relaxing bedtime routine
•Go to bed at the same time every night
•Consider using a sleep mask and earplugs
If you can’t sleep
•Imagine yourself in a peaceful, pleasant place
•Don’t drink any liquids after 6 PM if waking up during the night to go to the bathroom is a problem


Your activities during the day
Your habits and activities can affect how well you sleep. Here are some tips.
•Exercise during the day. Don’t exercise after 5 p.m. because it may be harder to fall asleep.
•Get outside during daylight hours. Spending time in sunlight helps to reset your body’s sleep and wake cycles.
•Don’t drink or eat anything that has caffeine in it, such as coffee, tea, cola, and chocolate.
•Don’t drink alcohol before bedtime. Alcohol can cause you to wake up more often during the night.
•Don’t smoke or use tobacco, especially in the evening. Nicotine can keep you awake.
•Don’t take naps during the day, especially close to bedtime.
•Don’t take medicine that may keep you awake, or make you feel hyper or energized, right before bed. Your doctor can tell you if your medicine may do this and if you can take it earlier in the day.

If you can’t sleep because you are in great pain or have an injury, you often feel anxious at night, or you often have bad dreams or nightmares, talk to your doctor.

Source: Health.com April 24, 2008

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Ailmemts & Remedies Pediatric

Adenoids

Alternative Names: :lymph glands or lymph nodes,pharyngeal tonsil, or nasopharyngeal tonsil

Definition:
Adenoids are masses of tissue located high on the posterior wall of the pharynx. They are made up of lymphatic tissue, which trap and destroy pathogens in the air that enter the nasopharynx.

click to see the picture

The adenoids help protect kids from getting sick. They sit high on each side of the throat behind the nose and the roof of the mouth. Although you can easily see your tonsils by standing in front of a mirror and opening your mouth wide, you can’t see your adenoids this way. A doctor has to use a small mirror or a special scope to get a peek at your adenoids.

click to see the picture

Like tonsils, adenoids help keep your body healthy by trapping harmful bacteria and viruses that you breathe in or swallow. Adenoids also contain cells that make antibodies to help your body fight infections. Adenoids do important work as infection fighters for babies and little kids. But they become less important once a kid gets older and the body develops other ways to fight germs.

click to see the picture

Some doctors believe that adenoids may not be important at all after kids reach their third birthday. In fact, adenoids usually shrink after about age 5, and by the teenage years they often practically disappear
Enlarged adenoids refers to swollen lymphatic tissue. The tissue is similar to the tonsils, but found higher up above the throat.

Pathology:
Enlarged adenoids, or adenoid hypertrophy, can become nearly the size of a ping pong ball and completely block airflow through the nasal passages.

Even if enlarged adenoids are not substantial enough to physically block the back of the nose, they can obstruct airflow enough so that breathing through the nose requires an uncomfortable amount of work, and inhalation occurs instead through an open mouth.

Adenoids can also obstruct the nasal airway enough to affect the voice without actually stopping nasal airflow altogether.

Adenoid facies:
Enlargement of adenoids, especially in children, causes an atypical appearance of the face, often referred to as adenoid facies.
click to see the picture
George Catlin, in his humorous and instructive book Breath of Life, published in 1861, illustrates adenoid faces in many engravings and advocates nose-breathing.

Causes of enlargement :
A child may be born with large adenoids, which have developed in the womb.

More commonly, the adenoids become enlarged during the first few years of childhood. Repeated infections of the upper respiratory system cause the adenoids to become chronically inflamed and enlarged. The tonsils are also usually enlarged.

Symptoms:

Swollen or enlarged adenoids are common. When this happens, the tonsils get swollen, too. Swollen or infected adenoids can make it tough for a kid to breathe and cause these problems:
*Bad breath
*Cracked lips
*Dry mouth
*Mouth breathing (mostly at night)
*Mouth open during day (more severe obstruction)
*Persistent runny nose or nasal congestion
*Restlessness while sleeping
*Snoring
*Ear infections (because the drainage tubes from the middle ear may be blocked)
*Disruption of sleep can interfere with a child’s growth.
*Enlarged adenoids can put excessive strain on the heart.

Diagnosis :
The adenoids cannot be seen by looking in the mouth directly, but can be seen with a special mirror or using a flexible endoscope through the nose.

Tests may include:
•X-ray (side view of the throat)
•Sleep apnea studies (severe cases only)

Treatment:
Antibiotics may be used to treat the adenoids when they’re infected but may not have much effect on chronically enlarged adenoids.

Surgery to remove the adenoids (adenoidectomy) may relieve symptoms or prevent complications in those with frequent ear or sinus infections or fluid behind the ears. It may also be done when ear tubes have not successfully reduced infections. It is done to prevent the long-term complications of airways obstruction, such as heart failure. Surgery may lead to improved growth and development because deep sleep is restored

Prognosis: Full recovery is expected.

Disclaimer: This information is not meant to be a substitute for professional medical advise or help. It is always best to consult with a Physician about serious health concerns. This information is in no way intended to diagnose or prescribe remedies.This is purely for educational purpose.


Resources:
http://kidshealth.org/kid/ill_injure/sick/adenoids.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/physical_health/conditions/adenoids2.shtml
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001649.htm
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/imagepages/19259.htm
http://health.allrefer.com/health/adenoid-removal-adenoid-removal-series-2.html
http://kidshealth.org/kid/ill_injure/sick/adenoids.html#
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharyngeal_tonsil

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Healthy Tips

Sleep Habits Linked to Fat Gain in Younger Adults

James Hetfield.
Image via Wikipedia

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Researchers found that among adults younger than 40, those who typically slept for five hours or less each night had a greater accumulation of belly fat over the next five years.
……..CLICK & SEE
But those who logged eight hours or more in bed each night also showed a bigger fat gain, although it was less substantial than that seen in “short sleepers.”

On average, short sleepers showed a 32 percent gain in visceral fat, versus a 13 percent gain among those who slept six or seven hours per night, and a 22 percent increase among men and women who got at least eight hours of sleep each night.

A similar pattern was seen with superficial abdominal fat. Even when the researchers considered factors like calorie intake, exercise habits, education and smoking, sleep duration itself remained linked to abdominal-fat gain.

The study does not prove that too little or too much sleep directly leads to excess fat gain. But the findings support and extend those of other studies linking sleep duration — particularly a lack of sleep — to weight gain and even to higher risks of diabetes and heart disease.
Resources:
Reuters March 1, 2010
Sleep March 1, 2010 :

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Health Alert

Sharing Your Bed May be Bad for Your Health

 

Couples should consider sleeping apart for the good of their health and relationship, say experts.

One study found that, on average, couples suffered 50 percent more sleep disturbances if they shared a bed.

The modern tradition of the marital bed only began with the industrial revolution, when people moving to overcrowded towns and cities found themselves short of living space. Before the Victorian era it was not uncommon for married couples to sleep apart.

Source: BBC News , January 26, 2010

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Featured

Lost Sleep Can Never Be Made Up

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Staying in bed on the weekends won’t make up for a weeks’ worth of sleep deprivation. A new study finds that going long periods without sleep can lead to a sort of “sleep debt” that cannot simply be undone with extra sleep later

Such chronic sleep loss may eventually interfere with a person’s performance on tasks that require focus, becoming particularly noticeable at nighttime. This could be due to the effects of your natural sleep-wake cycle, or circadian rhythm.

Your natural tendency to want to be awake during the day may mask signs of sleep debt when it’s light out. But this protective effect may go away as darkness arrives.

Further, just 10 percent of adolescents are getting the optimal hours of sleep each night.

Here’s how parents can help teens get the most possible sleep, despite the demands of school and work:

•Teenagers should stick to a consistent bedtime, preferably before 10 PM

•Keep sleep and wake times as consistent as possible from day to day; maintaining a more regular sleep schedule makes it easier to fall asleep

•Don’t sleep in — strive to wake up no more than two to three hours later on weekends to keep biological clocks on cycle

Resources:
Live Science January 13, 2010
U.S. News & World Report January 15, 2010

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