Can a mattress do more than deliver a good night’s sleep?

By Well+Good NYC

We spend about a third of our life in bed—most of it sleeping, or tossing and turning, as the case may be. So it’s hardly surprising that furniture-makers keep trying to improve the experience with new materials meant to get us better shut-eye. One way to build a better bed is to make it healthier. “Mattresses are no longer just about comfort, they are about choosing materials that are good for both the environment and your body,” says Andrea Mugnai, the GM at Magniflex’s new Manhattan showroom located in the Casa Poggesi shop in Soho. He’s referring mostly to the flame-retardant chemicals here, which holistic manufacturers tend to swap for incorporating non-flammable wool into the mattress design. (Mattresses must be fire-resistant by law.)

With Americans willing to do just about anything for a good night’s sleep, lavender-infused mattress covers and organic lambswool stuffing are a fast-growing market. Often the health claims of these mattresses sound as ridiculous as the price tags, which can run as high as $10,000, and often more, if you go the Hasten’s route. So Well+Good went shopping for the most intriguing new holistic mattresses to see what a good night’s sleep is worth. Here’s what we found:

•    Magniflex’s mattresses use a memory foam core sans toxic chemical flame-retardants. They’re covered with renewable fiber fabrics, like soy, corn, and bamboo. The newest Lavender Comfort mattress ($2,299 for a Queen ) comes with aromatherapy built right in. “The concentrated lavender oil in the cover activates the relaxation response, helping you to achieve a deeper, more well-rested nights sleep,” explains Mugnai. We buy that. Though a vial of Essence of Vali Sleep remedy would also do the trick.

Keep reading for more here…

How to eat for better sleep

By Markham Heid for Prevention.com

Is there anything more elusive than a good night’s sleep? Ask most people, and the answer is a big, sleepy no. But here’s the good news: The foods you eat and—and more importantly when you eat them—can help “reset” your body’s sleep clock, according to a new study from the United Kingdom.

A single night of poor sleep is enough to throw off your body’s circadian rhythms, which determine when you feel sleepy and when you feel alert and awake, says study author Felino Cagampang, PhD, a senior lecturer at the University of Southampton. While exposure to sunlight plays a large role in regulating your sleep cycle, Cagampang’s research team found that your diet can actually override your circadian clock, and can help you overcome jet lag, a wonky work schedule, or a few nights of inconsistent sleep.

• Are You Dead Tired?
• 9 Sleep Myths That Make You Tired
• 11 Fast Fixes for Instant Energy

More from Prevention.com: The Noise That Will Help You Sleep Better

How? It’s complicated, but it has to do with something called the “food entrainable clock,” which is regulated by your brain’s hypothalamic region, Cagampang says. Put simply, eating trumps sleeping when it comes to your brain’s survival hierarchies, and so your body’s food clock is able to dictate terms to your body’s sleep clock, says Cagampang.

He offers the following advice for those of us hoping to corral wayward sleep patterns:

• Stop eating 12 hours before breakfast. As the word “breakfast” implies, your body recognizes morning as the time when you “break” your longest “fast” of the day, Cagampang says. So for optimal sleep, you should be eating during daylight hours and fasting when it’s dark.
• Your morning meal should be the biggest. Morning is the optimal time to power-up on carbs, proteins, and other nutritional energy sources, Cagampang says. You need that energy while you’re awake, not at night when you’re preparing to sleep. Try to cut back on carbs and protein in the late afternoon and evening as you prepare to sleep, or else you’ll signal to your body that you plan to be awake for a while, he says.
• Avoid saturated fats—especially at night. Studies have shown that foods containing saturated fat, such as red meat, pork, lamb, and most dairy products, disrupt circadian rhythms, and so eating them near bedtime may prevent you from falling asleep, Cagampang says. (See how even a little saturated fat can damage your heart.)

Dream Water: Do you need this souped-up water to sleep?

Bottles of Dream Water. It also comes in a 2.5-ounce shot for air travel and those that have to pee a lot in the middle of the night

By Well+GoodNYC

Considering that almost 70 million Americans don’t sleep well—and that we’re addicted to coffee and energy drinks—we shouldn’t be surprised to see bottles of Dream Water in every Duane Reade.

The opposite of wire-you-up beverages, Dream Water wants to knock you out when the clock strikes bedtime and you’re still staring at the ceiling, going over today’s anxieties and tomorrow’s to-do list.

So what’s in this sleeping-pill-in-a-bottle? Three “naturally occurring chemicals” that can help bring about sleep (so it might be a step in the right direction if you’re using drugs like Ambien):

1. Melatonin, which the body produces to regulate your sleep cycle

2. 5-HTP (5-Hydroxytryptophan), the amino acid that’s released from warm milk and gives a metabolizing assist to L-tryptophan found in turkey.

Keep reading…

Get your beauty sleep with the overnight facial

By Well+GoodNYC

Turbo charge your beauty sleep with this two-step over-night facial. It capitalizes on a biological fact—your skin, like the rest of your body, renews itself while you sleep.

The first step takes place before you go to bed, and step two takes place the next morning. Consider it the express train of DIY skin-care treatments, and you scored the sleeping car.

Here’s how it works:

P.M. Apply the fruit acid peel

1. Before bed apply a fruit enzyme peel. Leave it on for about five minutes and wash off. Then apply a facial oil, serum, or night moisturizer that’s suited to your skin type and hit the hay.

Why: Exfoliating at night to rejuvenate the skin is super important because this is when your skin repairs itself, explains Jillian Wright, the facialist-founder of Jillian Wright Clinical Skin Spa. A gentle fruit acid peel (or a chemical exfoliant) dissolves the glue that bonds the skin cells together. “Removing dead skin makes room for new healthy skin cell production,” she says.

Natural peels to try:

Ren F10 Enzymatic Smooth Radiance Facial Mask ($37)
Rhonda Allison Cherry Jubilee Enzyme Mask ($50 at Jillian Wright Clinical Skin Spa)
Tata Harper Resurfacing Mask ($55)
Suki Spa Renewal Bio-Resurfacing Facial Peel ($74.95)

Keep reading to find out about natural scrubs…

Managing Stress: 6 Good (And 5 Bad) Things To Do When You Can’t Sleep

By No More Dirty Looks

When my insomnia hit the other night, I did everything wrong.

I’d managed to work myself up about something before bed, but because I have the stamina of a toddler when I’m upset, I tired myself out quickly and crashed hard around 11:30pm. Then, at 4:30am, my brain went on like a light. There I was, in that strange time when “tonight” becomes “tomorrow” and the last thing in the world you should be doing is witnessing it. (Unless of course you’re doing something really fun—which I wasn’t. I was lying there with looping thoughts, the lights on, a search window open on my laptop, and Twitter fired up on my phone…)

We have written plenty about sleep hygiene here. We polled you once to find out how much you sleep (a lot!); we asked you guys to share your bedtime rituals with us (they were great!); we’ve explored how sleep can help your looks (duh); and we’ve covered ayurvedic principles about sleep before, as well.

But isn’t it funny (dumb) that no matter how much you know about the Right Thing To Do for your wellbeing, it’s often exactly when you need that advice the most that it escapes you?

With that in mind, here’s a primer, filled with things you already know, on the best and worst things to do when you can’t sleep. Obviously this advice is highly subjective. Where appropriate, we’ve mentioned some actual science to back us up. And, as always, we want your tips in the comments.

The Bad

1. Tweeting, emailing, checking your stocks, approving comments on your blog etc. Research shows that light-emitting devices can suppress the production of the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin—which means when you wake up to check your cell, or simply have it on blinking at you from the bedside table, you’re sending signals to your brain that it isn’t time to chill out. Turn them off, use airplane mode, or put them on the other side of the room. When you wake up, try your best not to check them.

2. Watching scary TV shows. I can’t watch scary things at night anymore without getting nightmares and waking up a lot. Granted I’m on the sensitive side (cough), but there is good research that shows how disruptive this can be. It can spike stress hormones in the body and put you in an excited state (not the good kind) that doesn’t bode well for rest. Some people can watch anything before bed and fall asleep, but if you wake up in the middle of the night and decide to flip on the tube, maybe don’t try to catch up on a season’s worth of Boardwalk Empire?

Keep reading for more bad and good things to do here…

Yawning Yoga: A new book and bedtime ritual for kids

By Well+GoodNYC

Can’t get your kid to stop asking for another drink of water after lights out?

Have a friend who’s nodding off every time you have lunch together because of a monster-spooked toddler?

Yawning Yoga, a new bedtime book by Laurie Jordan, a New York yoga instructor and creator of Little Sprouts Yoga, tries a new approach to soothing a child to sleep: yoga.

It’s like Go the F**k to Sleep with better karma.

“By incorporating yoga into the bedtime routine, children of all ages will be stretching, twisting, and breathing their way into dreamland,” Jordan says on her website.

While we can’t guarantee Yawning Yoga’s effectiveness (especially since we don’t know how many sugary lollipops your kid sucked down at school), it seems like a smart approach.

After all, yoga is great at calming our nerves and minds, so why shouldn’t it help a child’s?

Know someone who needs to know about this book? Email them this article. Or to purchase a copy of Yawning Yoga, $17.95, visit www.yawningyoga.com

Three must-have minerals for more energy

By Well+GoodNYC

You might count on coffee, tea, or (your dirty little secret) Diet Coke to put that morning pep in your step.

But if you’re regularly tired or exhausted, it could be that your thyroid, responsible for energy, is running on fumes. (Even if you—and your thyroid—are pretty healthy.)

And a shot of caffeine just can’t help with that.

Susan Blum, MD, a functional medicine physician (and a Dr. Oz Disease Detective) says three overlooked minerals are helpful to all women—not just those hitting the snooze button and using Starbucks to get through the day.

“Even within the normal range of healthy thyroid function, there is better and still better,” says Dr. Blum, who checks for low T3 hormone levels in her patients. (The T3 hormone is the “gas” hormone in your BMW of a body, which increases metabolism, energy, and heat in cells. When it’s low, it’s a cause of sluggishness and weight gain.)

Better than a Starbucks run for energy? Brazil nuts

“Minerals keep the thyroid functioning optimally, which is really good for energy,” explains Dr. Blum, adding that a multi-mineral is more important than a multi-vitamin in this case. —Melisse Gelula

Keep reading the rest here…

Essence of Vali

I recently tried some samples from Essence of Vali which is a NYC based company that sells 100% natural aromatherapy products. They carry oils, mists and balms that does magic on you, they can solve all of your problems such as, sleep problems, stress, pain or if you want balance in your life get the Balance Restore Mist or if you want some passion in your life try their Passion products and so on. I highly recommend them to you. Their mists can be used as a body spray as well

I fell in love with the Sleep Bedtime Balm: Sleep Bedtime Balm is used to help ease you into a peaceful sleep and comfort you during times of stress. Some people report that it helps unclog their sinuses. Dab the balm above the upper lip and on pulse points. Some people like to use it as a lip balm. It is wonderful to use during the day when you are feeling anxious or stressed out.

Relief Massage and Bath Oil: The ingredients of this mixture contains: Jojoba oil, essential oils of lavender oils, peppermint leaves and birch bark. This mixture combines together to help relax the body, penetrate into the muscles and soothe away pain.

Check out the other products here.

 

Jao Limited

Jao Limited is dedicated to bringing 100% natural ingredients to their products. Jao brand products are the creation of Gale and David, a daughter who got lucky enough to have an amazing chemist for a father. It is a must have brand in your purse

My favorite product is the Goe Oil: it’s a mixture of 28 plant, fruit and flower oils. The most important one is not actually an oil at all (Jojoba oil) , but a special liquid wax that closely resembles our bodies natural protecting agents. We can lose the ability to produce these agents over time, with stress and other environmental factors.  Goe oil replenishes the bodies need for these agents in a 100% natural and botanical way.

I also love their Hand Refresher: this one kills germs and freshens hands with ethyl alcohol (less drying). It’ll feel like you just washed with an herbal lavender soap without drying your hands. Get the products here.

Sleeping Beauty

When it comes to our beauty and health we focus more on our beauty products, food,and exercise but what about sleep. Sleep is like food that we need. In the absence of good sleep, science says we are at the mercy of cascading hormones that trigger food cravings, cause irritability, lack of focus, emotional fluctuations, and sap our energy—making it harder to do all those other things we know help us feel our best. We are all different in our own way. Some of us require less sleep, some 8 hours and some more.

I am on of the 8 hour people. If I don’t sleep for 8 hours my mood seems to change and my skin changes, especially my under eye circles (they go dark). But when I do sleep for 8 hours I am more confident, relaxed, my skin looks naturally beautiful and I focus well on everything.

Ladies you can compare yourself to Sleeping Beauty, you get the picture. We need more sleep, try it and you will definitely see huge differences in your skin and moods. But it’s not going to change you within one night, it needs to be your everyday habit.

Here’s what I do to get my brain to rest (sleep): I close my eyes and imagine some kind of serene environment like nature and I send nice thoughts in my head to people I love or to people who need it, this work for me and I love doing it (weird). It’s kind a like meditation for me