SLEEP MORE, WEIGH LESS?

Dear Readers:

One healthy and relatively easy way to help children prevent or minimize their susceptibility to excess weight gain is to simply make sure that they get a good, full night’s sleep on a regular basis. Sufficient sleep is a very important component of weight management, along with a healthy diet, proper exercise, and positive emotional support.

Most Westernized children get fewer hours of sleep and less quality sleep than they need, which can disrupt the hormones that help control weight gain, says Dr. Shahrad Taheri from Bristol University*. While sleep is only one factor contributing to weight gain, it has ripple effects on nearly all of the other factors. Studies show that sleep deprivation disrupts the production of hormones that regulate both appetite and energy expenditure. For example, the level of ghrelin, a hormone released by the stomach that tells us when we are hungry, was found to be 15% higher in people who have only five hours' sleep per night than those getting a full eight hours. This link between obesity and too little sleep is strongest in children and teens. The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children in the UK (conducted in the 1990s) revealed that insufficient sleep at thirty months was a predictor of the propensity toward obesity at age seven.

How else does the lack of sleep contribute to why we gain excess weight? I’ve come up with some ideas. Let me know what else you’ve observed:

• When you sleep less there is more opportunity to fit in an extra meal or late night snack;
• You don’t burn many calories while you do sleep, so late night food is not being used and is being stored as fat;
• If you eat heavy food late at night, it contributes to troubled sleep quality by causing such problems as heartburn, indigestion, nausea and sometimes disturbing dreams;
• When you’re chronically tired you feel unmotivated to do anything active;
• If you aren’t active, your metabolism is slower and you are more tired and less likely to become active, choosing instead such sedentary activities as watching television, playing video games, emailing or talking on the phone;
• When you are involved in sedentary activities it tends to be easier to lose track of time and stay up too late...you can see the vicious cycle...

From personal experience, I can tell you that making the choice to not eat anything heavy late at night and getting adequate sleep is a great investment in your family’s health. Along with the focus and willpower I gained from my martial arts training, the change in my late night eating and getting better sleep made me more willing and able to exercise. Before martial arts training, I would force myself to be active, and was so tired I would keep pushing the snooze button and get up at the last minute, with very little motivation to get going on my daily activities. I would be so exhausted I would escape by reading or watching tv at night, and before I knew it I was up too late, and the cycle started all over again.

If you exclude late night munching, get better sleep, and incorporate a program that engages you to help you to stay on track with your personal and fitness goals, you and your family will be well on your way to a healthier, happier future.

* “Childhood Obesity Linked to Youngsters Staying Up Too Late," based on UK research in an article by JENNY HOPE -19th October 2006.

--Sifu Cinda Hocking

YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO HEAL YOURSELF...

Welcome!

Before we begin this discussion, I am going to ask you to suspend all of your entrenched and reinforced disbelief in your own miraculous and limitless abilities. I am going to also ask that you relax your body, breathe deeply and fully, and open your mind to the possibility of fulfillment - physical and emotional health and happiness. Visualize a life, your own life, filled with vitality, energy, robust health, enthusiasm and joy. Visualize your life as completely renewed, refreshed...stress replaced with eagerness...fear replaced with confidence...You must awaken your imagination and give it complete freedom to breathe, to grow, to roam...picture your imagination as if it were a giant muscle, becoming more powerful with each visualization, with each positive thought, with each new idea.

Your imagination, and its counterpart, the visualization of success, is immensely powerful. It is the genesis chamber of every success. It is the tool that initiates all accomplishment. Before anything is actualized in your life, it must be visualized (in full sensorial detail!) in your imagination. Every action is preceded by a thought. We become what we think about most. If we merely change our patterns of thinking, we can completely re-design our lives! Every thought mobilizes a field or burst of energy, and this energy has the power to transform every aspect of our lives. It is simple: CHANGE YOUR THOUGHTS --CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

Sickness and health, just as sorrow and joy, are born in the mind. Your mind.

The mind is more powerful than any supercomputer, and each individual has the ability to change the way he or she thinks. When you change the way in which you think, amazing forces are liberated which actually change the way you experience physical reality. The challenge is to proactively re-train your mind to think in a way that is of the greatest benefit to you, and to the attainment of your greatest desires and aspirations. Remember: Every victory, every discovery, every invention, every innovation, and every occurrence in your life begins with a thought. The thought, fully realized, then is followed by actions to manifest it.

Now imagine what a wonderful state of health, happiness and true success you will actually experience when you master your mind, and teach it to be your ally.

These posts are designed help you to dramatically change your life, though leading your thought processes. Master your mind, and ANYTHING BECOMES POSSIBLE.

Thank you for visiting, and check this blog frequently for new posts and updates.

-- Cinda

p.s. By the way, without even consciously trying, simply by reading the words on this page, a positive change has taken root inside of you. Your transformation has begun.

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