Our bodies change as we age, and so do our sleep needs. Snoring, newly diagnosed sleep apnea, and nasal congestion can cause you to experiment with different sleeping positions. Recovering from an injury or pregnancy could be another reason.

Reasons to change how you sleep

<ul><li>Side sleeping is ideal for back or neck problems, GERD and sleep apnea.</li><li>Snorers may benefit from turning over onto their side.</li><li>There is also some evidence to suggest sleeping on your left side is better for circulation, particularly during pregnancy or for anyone with high blood pressure or circulatory disorders.</li></ul>

Side sleeping

<ul><li>Sleeping on your back relives pressure points and is orthopedically more stable. You may want to sleep on your back if you are struggling with shoulder, hip or knee pain.</li></ul> <ul><li>Stomach sleeping works well for those suffering from sleep apnea because your airways are more likely to stay open.</li><li>The free-fall stomach position, with your hands above a supportive pillow, is the best sleeping position for digestive issues like indigestion and heartburn. However, it can be difficult to align your spine and potentially result in muscle and neck pain.</li></ul>

Back and stomach sleeping

<ul><li>Use a tennis ball. Side sleep training was traditionally done by taping a tennis ball to the back of the pyjama top. When a person turns on their back, the ball makes it uncomfortable, so they turn on their side again.</li><li>Put a pillow between your knees. Sleep with your knees drawn up slightly towards your chest. Or, place a pillow between your knees to help your spine correctly align.</li><li>Using a device. Sleep backpacks and belts are designed to help you sleep in a particular position.</li><li>Build a pillow buffer: Use pillows to provide proprioceptive reinforcement to sleep on your side.”</li></ul>

How to switch to side sleeping

Try putting a soft pillow under your stomach to make it more comfortable. It is easier to adjust to a new position if there is a strong incentive such as a tennis ball keeping you from your desired position.

Adjusting to stomach sleeping

Starting out on your back: Try to fall asleep on your back, then turn back if you wake up on your side. Buying an adjustable bed: Some beds allow you to put your body into specific positions, like zero gravity. Sleeping on an incline can make your bed mimic lying back in a recliner chair.

To learn to sleep on your back

Stashed ideas

How To Change Your Default Sleeping Position To A New One

What's Going to Happen to All Those Empty Office Buildings?The broad shift to working from home during the pandemic may haunt the commercial real estate market for years to come, making it harder to fill vacant office buildings that were once brimming with tenants.

Those Empty Offices

Workers have proven they can function remotely, and they are demanding their employers keep the option of remote or hybrid work.Over the next few years, as tenants start to rethink space needs and their leases roll over, they'll go into better buildings, and the worse buildings will be in trouble.

Survival Of The Fittest

Older buildings that go dark will become expensive eyesores. A reduction in workers flooding into office districts each day will squeeze city wage tax revenues, mass transit ridership, and the local economy. Restaurants, boutiques, and businesses within walking distance of an office will lose the daily foot traffic that keeps them in the black.

The Likely Scenario

The demand for office space is unlikely to rebound to pre-COVID levels because workers want flexibility, says Wharton real estate professor Joseph Gyourko.

What’s Going to Happen to All Those Empty Office Buildings? - Knowledge@Wharton

Over 30% of Americans get less than 7 hours of sleep each night, and in a lot of industries (consulting, investment banking) a lack of sleep is even considered cool and productive.
Yet, across the board, more sleep leads to better results. For young kids in school, for students in college, for professionals and CEOs, for lovers, athletes and artists. In case you’re part of that 30%, I hope these lessons will turn you over to the sleep side of the force.

The Madness Of Sleep Deprivation

The benefits of sleeping right don’t stop at productivity, but also extend to your relationship. A 2014 study among 1,000 people found that couples are happier if they:<ul><li>Sleep next to each other.</li><li>Have body contact while being asleep.</li></ul>But it doesn’t just matter whether you sleep next to your partner or in separate beds altogether – how close you are matters too. 85% of those who slept less than an inch apart reported being happy in their relationship. This percentage kept decreasing the further apart people slept.

Sleeping Is Ideal With A Partner

One of the best ways to spend more quality time with your partner at night is to ditch electronics after a certain time each day altogether.The least you can do, if you “wind-down” using electronic devices at night is to install an app that tints the colour of your screen in sync with the sunset (and sunrise in the morning). So whenever the sun sets, your screen colour turns a more reddish colour.By removing the blue part of the spectrum from the light your screens emit at night, your body stops suppressing its melatonin production.

Removing Blue light from Electronic Devices

Even if we think we don’t have it, we actually do. The thing is, for example, to put sleep above watching the latest episode of your favorite series. 
Getting your priorities straight and valuing your shut-eye time is adamant in your quest for a [healthy lifestyle.

Spend Your Discretionary Time Wisely

Changing your sleep habits can be a challenging process. Still, you need to commit, to take it day by day, cheer yourself for every victory and be indulgent when you fall off the wagon. 
It will take time to redesign your sleeping patterns through a trial and error process. Our lives are unique so it’s understandable if our sleeping habits need to be custom made.

Be Your Own Cheerleader

Children are told off by being sent to bed early. So it’s no wonder that from a young age sleep is associated with something we don’t want to ‘engage’ with. It becomes the enemy of fun and games. 
But while we sleep, our brain and body wash away the toxins accumulated during the day. Kids need to understand that they gather lots of energy to play with and also assimilate information much easier afterward.

Eliminate Sleep As a Punishment

When the alarm starts blaring in the morning you wake up with your body inundated with cortisone causing the flight or fight response. So your feet didn’t even touch the floor and you’re already stressed. 
You can begin by forsaking the snooze button, and then in time, you’ll wake up on your own. It’s recommended to pause for a couple of seconds, to find your bearings before getting out of bed.

No Alarms

Take your iPhone, laptop, and iPad out of the bedroom at least half an hour before you put your head on the pillow. 
The blue light that these indispensable devices emit is causing alertness in your brain, translating into waking up in the middle of the night or staring tens of minutes at the ceiling.

No Electronic Devices Before Bed

Never underestimate the power of dreams. Waking up in the middle of the night from one is not ideal. So why not develop a habit of having a notebook and pen on your nightstand to write them down? Don’t turn on the lights. It’ll be easier to recall the details. 
If you don’t wake up during the night, then in the morning you can describe what you dreamt about, be it the entire sequence, a tumult of emotions, or just an image that’s stuck with you.

Dreams As Guidance

When you’re suffering from a poor night of sleep you go after sweets, doughnuts with all the various toppings, or that precious mug of coffee (you don’t even care that’s meant to be in a little fancy cup, you need your fix in triple dose right now) and maybe a double latte later. 
And there’s also the 3rd option of combining the two: sugar and caffeine, which can be found in enormous dosages in energy drinks. Why not take a 20 – 30 minute nap instead?

Sleeping Instead Of Sugar Or Caffeine

It is our collective delusion that overwork and burnout is the price we pay for success.

Acupuncture is an efficient and natural way to improve your sleep. People have used it for centuries, but now modern medicine already confirms its effectiveness.Researchers at Emory University conducted research on ancient sleep studies and found that about 93% of research confirms that acupuncture is an efficient way to cure insomnia.Also, several studies have found that ear acupuncture points are helpful in encouraging deep sleep.

Acupuncture

Dioscorides, a physician from ancient Greece, wrote about the tranquilizing properties of lavender at the beginning of the first century.It was widely used in ancient Greece and Roman baths to help guests relax.Modern science has already confirmed the powers of lavender as well. It has already been proven that it can lower heart rate, lower blood pressure and skin temperature – another important factor to sleep well!So you can try different herbs and aromas such as lavender or valerian root, and find out which oils work best for you.

Lavender And Deep Sleep

You can use technology to access tools for meditation or to help you relax. Forgetting the daily stresses and anxiety is an important part of a good night’s sleep.And meditation can help you with that. There are many meditation guides available online, like Louise Hay’s videos that can be accessed on YouTube.Methods such as conscious attention to breathing or Feldenkrais can help you fall asleep.

Meditation

It turns out that nothing is more critical to our health, happiness, and productivity than having a good night’s sleep, with adequate quality and time.

Arianna Huffington, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, and the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Thrive delves into the sleep revolution that is happening all across the world - a revolution that can transform our lives.

The Sleep Revolution

Natural sugar can be found in most nutritious foods like fruits and vegetables, and if you're looking for added sugar, it goes by 61 different names and it's quite hard to memorize them all.
The two most common sources for processed food sugars are sugarcane and sugar beets, but the cheapest to produce is corn syrup. Due to the desire for sweet-tasting food, there is now an overproduction of corn to satisfy the need for cheap sweets.

Natural Sugar and Added Sugar

The recommended amount of added sugar to be consumed is a maximum of 5-10 teaspoons per day; to put this in perspective, an average American consumes about 17 teaspoons of added sugar per day.Listed below are sweeteners that are FDA approved and can be used as a substitute:<ul><li>Aspartame</li><li>Sucralose</li><li>Neotame</li><li>Ace-K</li><li>Saccharin</li><li>Advantame</li></ul>Other common sugar substitutes are stevia, sugar aclcohols, honey, and agave nectar.

Sugar Consumption

Juice cleanses are known to be sold as "detoxifiers" by cleansing our organs with natural fruit juices. However, juice cleanses offer a rush of sugar without the fiber that slows down its absorption into your bloodstream, and it is fiber that is the most important part of the fruit.

Fad Diets and Sugar 

Although we must consume sugar -- because sugar is a carbohydrate and it fuels our bodies, overconsumption can lead to various illnesses such as:<ul><li>Cardiovascular diseases</li><li>High blood pressure </li><li>Diabetes</li><li>Fatty liver disease</li><li>Inflammation </li><li>Dementia</li><li>Tooth decay</li></ul>

Too Much Sugar is Bad for you

Due to the increasing addiction to sugar and sweet-tasting food many companies are now trying to develop a healthier form of sugar.Companies like DouxMatok, founded by Professor Avraham Baniel, is applying his 75 years of industrial chemical research experience in order to create healthier sugar. Even Nestle is in on the quest for sugar alternatives.

The Race to Developing Healthier Sugar

Consumers are fed a lot of nonsense about sugar and fad diets. Our bodies must consume sugar; the question is how much and in what form. Companies are trying to develop healthier sugars to combat our "sugar addiction."

Health

Is healthy sugar possible — and would you eat it?

<ul>
<li>There is a complex hormonal reaction that affects those who are in love, and also their food choice.</li>
<li>Even early on in a romantic relationship, food plays an important role, as one can cook for their partner or buy them a fancy dinner.</li>
<li>The quality of the food and how it is presented is crucial as it affects the quality of the relationship.</li>
<li>New research points towards a ‘reward hormone’ called norepinephrine that shoots up in new romantic relationships, increasing the feeling of euphoria, while also suppressing appetite.</li>
</ul>

The Link Between Food And Love

<ul>
<li>A study showed that married women are more likely to become obese, due to more food intake.</li>
<li>Once a person settles down, they are less likely to stay in shape and work towards looking their best, as there is no competition in the dating field.</li>
<li>Couples spend more time on the couch having food, leading to weight gain.</li>
</ul>

Love Hormones: Eating More Than Before

How Food And Relationships Are Linked In The Brain

Margarine is marketed as a healthier alternative to butter, which is not true. It may seem like butter but is mainly manufactured using vegetable oils, salt, emulsifiers and trans-fats. Most of it isn’t healthy.
Butter, on the other hand, is made from milk, which is a topic of a lot of health debates but has been used without any problem for thousands of years. It is a good source of vitamins and calcium while being high in fats.

Margarine Vs. Butter

<ul>
<li>The butter substitute made mostly from vegetable oils is not really a healthy food option.</li>
<li>It was initially created as a cheap butter substitute by French chemist Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès for Emperor Napoleon III, from milk and beef tallow.</li>
<li>The margarine in the market today hardly has any milk, and most varieties are vegan.</li>
<li>It is good for lactose intolerant people, who cannot consume milk and milk products.</li>
<li>People who are having problems with saturated fats and animal fats can switch to vegan margarine.</li>
</ul>

About Margarine

Butter and margarine are made from different ingredients, but that doesn't automatically make one product healthier than the other.

Margarine vs. Butter: What’s the Difference—and Which Is Healthier?

Shut down those activities that stimulate your mind, such as work, emails, internet browsing and even watching TV. Try reading a book, <a href="http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-13952/why-everyone-should-try-an-epsom-salt-bath.html?mbg_ifs=0&mbg_p=a&mbg_ref=body&mbg_a=20076">taking a bath</a>, listening to music or practicing some gentle yoga or meditation. Develop rituals that work for you.

Make "power down" time a priority

Dump it all out. Write some lists, or simply use the "worry diary" technique and jot down all of the things you’re stressing about. Do this before your "power down" time. This helps your mind let these things go. Once they're written down, <a href="http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-14116/10-simple-ways-to-relax-every-day.html?mbg_ifs=0&mbg_p=a&mbg_ref=body&mbg_a=20076">you can relax</a>; there's no chance you'll forget them.

Try a brain dump

If you’re experiencing sleeping problems: <ul><li>Cut back on caffeine (particularly after midday). </li><li>Avoid eating a particularly heavy meal late in the evening.</li><li>Meditation and supplements can also affect sleep so it’s best to get educated about what you’re taking.</li><li>Intense exercise late at night isn't recommended.</li></ul>

Eat, drink and move mindfully

Ensuring your bedroom is sufficiently dark enough, quiet enough and well ventilated to allow for good sleep.You might discover that your stress levels increase according to how much mess is in your personal space.

Create the right environment for sleep

Aim to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day. If you’re experiencing sleeping difficulties it’s also a good idea to keep a record of exactly when you do get to bed, how often (and for how long) you wake during the night and what time you get up. This information will be helpful for your clinician if you decide to visit your GP or a psychologist for help with sleeping.

Keep a sleep schedule

The quality of your sleep has an enormous impact on well-being (both physically and psychologically), and is partly affected by your bedtime routine. Most people recognize the need for bedtime routines in children, but so often forget to honor the need for these routines as adults.

5 Tips To Create An Evening Routine For Great Sleep

Many people continue to practice the same diet fad or routine to lose weight even after the effort is proven to be ineffective. This mentality of dieters is called the False Hope Syndrome and happens due to:
<ol>
<li>Overestimating the weight loss amount.</li>
<li>Misjudgement of the time it would take to lose weight.</li>
<li>Not knowing how easy or difficult it would be.</li>
<li>Unrealistic expectations of the result of weight loss.</li>
</ol>

False Hope Syndrome In Dieting

A dieter often believes the diet is the cause of failure, and he or she hasn’t tried hard enough. They overlook their own habits and behaviours and blame their intake.
We like to be in control of any situation, and have false hopes about the benefits of the ‘perfect diet’ we are consuming. The media and marketing companies are also contributing to plant unrealistic expectations in many people trying to lose weight.

Searching For The "Perfect Diet"

Dieting is not as easy as portrayed by the media. Many people abandon the process midway or replace them with realistic and scaled-down versions.
<ul>
<li>One has to realize that dieting is a long-term process and one has to create systems that encourage habitual and behavioural changes that are not abandoned after a month.</li>
<li>One should not see a failed effort as something to be ashamed of, but try to learn and evolve from it.</li>
<li>One has to let go of unrealistic expectations and be practical.</li>
</ul>

How To Diet Successfully

Why do people continue to use the same strategy to lose weight time and again, even though it repeatedly fails? 

False Hope Syndrome Reveals a Big Problem with Dieting

Okinawa, an island in southern Japan is known for the longevity of its population and has an extremely low rate of heart disease issues. The elderly are active and happy in the 80s and 90s.
Part of the secret of their longevity and happiness is their varied diet, rich in fruits and vegetables.

The Japanese Island Of Okinawa

A rich and varied diet, comprising of 18 different foods is the key to a healthy stomach, activeness and longevity among the Okinawans.
The main focus of the diet is a large, diverse assortment of fresh fruits and vegetables, instead of gorging on a single superfood or avoiding something (like butter or bananas) just because everyone says so.

The Okinawa Diet: A Large Variety Of Food

Okinawa, an island prefecture in southern Japan, stands out among a country that is already well known for longevity. They have a much lower rate of coronary heart disease compared to mainland Japan…

The Biggest Reason Why the Okinawan Diet Works

<ul>
<li>Plato's cure for headaches involved a leaf coupled with a charm. Without uttering the charm at the moment of application, the remedy was not effective. We would call Plato's "charm" a placebo.</li>
<li>In the 18th century, the term "placebo" was used to describe a doctor. In his 1763 book, Dr Pierce describes a visit to his sick friend, saying that he found "Dr Placebo" sitting at her bedside. She said she was well, and Pierce seems to imply that the positive effect Dr Placebo had was due to his great bedside manner, rather than the drops he gave.</li>
<li>Eventually, the word "placebo" started being used to describe treatments. In 1752, the Scottish obstetrician William Smellie used some innocent Placemus that his patient "may take between whiles, to beguile the time and please her imagination."</li>
</ul>

Placebo's as pleasing treatments: History of the concept

Placebos were used in clinical trials in the 18th century to debunk "quack" cures. The so-called "non-quack" cures included bloodletting and feeding patients the undigested material from the intestines of an oriental goat. These needed no trials because they were considered to be so effective.
An example of how powerful placebos are is during the second world war. Supplies of morphine were running out, and a nurse was seen to inject a wounded soldier with saltwater instead of morphine before an operation. The soldier thought it was real morphine and didn't appear to feel any pain.

Placebos in clinical trials

Early placebo trials that tested the effects of homoeopathy tablets revealed that doing nothing was better than both homoeopathy and allopathic (standard) medicine.
In the 1990s, Danish medical researchers compared people who take placebos with people who take no treatment at all. They concluded that there is little evidence that placebos, in general, have powerful clinical effects, but the researchers made incorrect comparisons. Today it is widely accepted that placebos are effective for some things, like pain, but not for everything.

Testing if placebos really work

A review of over 50 placebo-controlled surgery trials shows that fake surgery worked as well as the real surgery in more than half the trials.
One famous study is from an American surgeon Bruce Moseley. 180 patients had such severe knee pain that even the best drugs failed to work. He gave half of them real arthroscopy and the other half placebo arthroscopy, where the incision was made, but no real procedure was performed. The placebo surgery worked as well as the real surgery.

Placebo surgery

A placebo can work even if the patient does not believe it is a real treatment.
This can be because patients have a conditioned response to an encounter with their doctor. Just like an arachnophobe's body can react negatively to a spider even if they know it's not poisonous, so a person can react to treatment from a doctor even if they know the doctor is giving them a sugar pill.

Honest placebos

A comprehensive study published in 1999 found that placebo effects were caused by both expectancy and conditioning.
But some researchers argue that there is something mysterious about how placebos work. While it is easy to see what happens inside the brain to the amygdala, or the other bits involved, it is less clear what moved the amygdala in the first place.

The history of learning how placebos work

It is accepted that placebos are not ethical because they require deceptions. But this view does not account for the evidence that we don't need deception for placebos to work. Further mistaken claims:
<ul>
<li>We can only trust placebo controls. New treatments that come along can be compared with a proven effective method. To be effective, it should be at least as good as the old one.</li>
<li>Placebo controls provide a constant baseline. This view is based on the view that placebo treatments do not work. It is mistaken. In a systematic review of placebo pills in ulcer trials, the placebo response ranged from 0% to 100% (complete cure.)</li>
</ul>

Placebo ethics

A whistle-stop tour of the history of placebos.

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Mila W.
@mil_sww

How To Change Your Default Sleeping Position To A New One

What’s Going to Happen to All Those Empty Office Buildings? - Knowledge@Wharton

The Sleep Revolution

Is healthy sugar possible — and would you eat it?

How Food And Relationships Are Linked In The Brain

Bite-sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

Mila W.@mil_sww

How To Change Your Default Sleeping Position To A New One

What’s Going to Happen to All Those Empty Office Buildings? - Knowledge@Wharton

The Sleep Revolution

Is healthy sugar possible — and would you eat it?

How Food And Relationships Are Linked In The Brain

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Mila W.
@mil_sww