How to Sleep Good

When you were kid, everything was fine. You sleep good. Now? You sleep like a man loudly. At age 20, your sleep is reduced by 6 hours. And over the years, it will not by arranging ... Learn how to sleep good at any age.

Here are the causes. Within each brain, lies an internal clock. It is what wakes you up. At birth, she is mute. But as you grow, your clock is changing along with your hormones and your metabolism, so as to shorten your sleep. Then, each decade brings its own problems: alcohol at age 20, children 30, 50 bladder ... not to mention high blood pressure, decreased resistance to microbes, a strong tendency to fall asleep when your boss speaks, etc.. ! For all these reasons we have developed strategies to cope with the worst sleep saboteurs. Get ready to yawn!

At 20

We sleep about seven hours, which is 2 hours less than what is recommended. Indeed, experts say that our body needs from 9am and not 8am to sleep to rest completely. "From puberty until our 25 years is the age when we most need sleep," says James Maas, a researcher.

The solutions:
1. Spend at least half past nine in bed. This is a program unattractive but you can be fresh and ready the next day. If you go out on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, you go to bed an hour earlier on Tuesdays and Thursdays. "This, far from optimal, will help you rest without you being forced to spend all your weekends sleeping" suggests Michael Vitiello, a professor at the University of Washington.

2. In the evening, stop drinking three hours before bedtime. If you do not drink, your sleep will be even better. If this is not the case, have a drink with fructose (sugar found in fruits and honey) can pass the alcohol more quickly into the bloodstream, which helps you reconcile your pillow.

3. Every night around 11 o'clock, your internal clock secretes the "sleep hormone" melatonin. Researchers have found that taking 0.3 mg of melatonin can help you fall asleep faster. Swallow these tablets half an hour before bedtime. To do this, consult a doctor.

4. If you follow our advice and as the weekend you still want to sleep, do not! You then you beat against your internal clock. Instead, wake up at a reasonable hour and your internal clock will thank you plunging into a deep sleep the following night. Awake but you have the feeling that a thick fog surrounds you? Wait until noon. Japanese researchers found that an employee who was a 15-minute nap after lunch was more effective for the rest of the day.

The thirties and forties.

You managed to nibble a few minutes of sleep over the last decade, but little else. Worse, a recent study, men of that age lose 82% of their deep sleep, called REM sleep, which your body needs to recover.

The solutions:
1. Before you go to bed, take some vitamin B5. This is your antidote to too high levels of cortisol, a stress hormone that floods the brains of men-average age. Aspirin may also help to lower it.

2. Until you manage to get your cortisol levels in step, your sleep will be slow and limited so you will spend the night in REM sleep (this is the last phase of sleep where you dream). To remedy this, here is the shopping list: earplugs foam, a sophisticated machine called SleepMate (for sale on ebay) you can muffle the sounds around you and darkening curtains to fall asleep in a bubble of sweetness!

3. Children wake you up? Consult your doctor because they may be suffering from sleep disorders. If the child is older, remove from his room playing video games, computer and TV!

4. Go to a good five laps of the block. Exercise is the best way for a man to sleep. Get active in the late afternoon, when out of work for example. This will lower your body temperature a few hours later and will make you drowsy before bedtime.


At 50 years and over.
No more (encouraging, does not it?)! According to researchers, men who exceed fifty sleep 28 minutes less and that each passing decade. Between 50 and 60, men almost never reach REM sleep. At 50 we have a cortisol level 12 times higher than 30 years. At this age, almost one in 25 men also suffers from "sleep apnea", that is to say, interruption of normal breathing during the night. On the other hand, prostate problems develop, which greatly increases the number of round trips to the bathroom.

The solutions:
1. Do you offer vitamins B5 (see above), and drink a carbohydrate-rich drink half an hour before bedtime to reduce your cortisol levels.

2. With regard to sleep apnea, if it is simply because of a persistent snoring, consult your doctor. Also consider the injections Snoreplasty (ask, this is still rare in France): simply injected into the soft palate causing a chemical cauterization of flesh. They shrink and become firmer. The technique is rather inexpensive compared to a divorce ...

3. Check your medications. A study published in the European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology found that beta-blockers, used in the treatment of hypertension, result in decreased production of melatonin (sleep hormone), 80 to 90%. Prozac and other medications can cause up to 30% increase in awakenings. Ask your doctor as it may prescribe Paxil, a drug that may help you sleep more quickly.

4. If you get up at least three times a night, see a urologist. Before considering surgery right away, talk of saw palmetto fruit extracts of a palm tree that reduces 25% of the symptoms of benign prostatic hypertrophy.

Now, sleep soundly!

Posted in: Sleep