Staying active cuts your chances of insomnia, says new study

Leading an active lifestyle results in better sleep, according to new research from Reykjavik University in Iceland. The study, published in the journal BMJ Open, found that people who engage in regular exercise, like jogging or swimming, at least twice weekly were 42% less prone to insomnia and more likely to sleep at least six hours a night. The research demonstrates how maintaining good exercise habits is “vital to preventing insomnia from taking hold,” The Times said.

Fishes, swimming and diets

Why we eat too much: the new science of appetite (and what it tells us about losing weight) Interviewing bariatric surgeon Dr Andrew Jenkinson about his first book introduced me to a whole new way of thinking about why some of us are, shall we say, bigger than others. A compassionate and intelligent take on the obesity crisis.

The eating habits we need to bring back from the 1950s Genetics, of course play, a part in our health, but the world we live in has changed beyond all recognition. If you’re fed up of hearing about UPFs, cast yourself back to a time before supermarkets had its plastic wrapped grip on our stomachs.

The nine rules to follow if you want to live to 100 Prevention is better than cure. Make sure you’re standing up while you read Sir Muir Gray’s advice on how to live to 100, or at least longer than you otherwise might!

Despite hating the idea of ‘dieting’, Stefanie Calleja-Gera lost two stone in three months. She reveals how using a combination of calorie-restricted eating and swimming allowed her to shed unwanted pounds.

‘I lost two stone in three months – without stepping into a gym’

The 60p oily fish that could save your life That 60p tin of sardines sitting in the cupboard is set to become a trendy ingredient of choice after a new study in the BMJ concluded that replacing some of our red meat consumption with healthier “forage fish” could save up to 750,000 lives per year globally. Forage fish are the smaller, cheaper varieties such as sardines, mackerel, anchovies and herring that serve as a food source for larger fish. They have one of the lowest carbon footprints of any animal food source with a recent study estimating that replacing 10 per cent of the world’s ruminant meat consumption with forage fish could lower global greenhouse gas emissions by up to 15 per cent.

Vietnam’s ‘dramatic’ rabies surge kills 29 people in four months Experts have blamed a lack of animal vaccination as well as the country’s prominent dog and cat meat trade. Hepatitis on track to overtake TB as world’s biggest infectious killer The B and C strains of the virus now claim as many lives as tuberculosis, with 1.3m deaths in 2022, WHO data shows. Ground-up chicken waste fed to cattle may be behind bird flu outbreak in US cows Experts warn that lax regulations could also see the virus spread to US pig farms, with serious consequences.

Why the Mediterranean diet is the only low-carb diet that works

Healthy Living

Three stories you should read today I’ve tried almost every cure for thinning hair — this is what worked Forty per cent of midlife women experience hair loss thanks to hormonal shifts – here’s how Brigid Moss dealt with it The golden 90 minutes of deep sleep and how to get it An extra hour of sleep doesn’t mean anything, unless it’s the right kind. Here’s how to get restorative, deep sleep that makes a difference slow wave sleep (SWS) – the ideal amounts are 20-25 per cent or 1.4-2 hours according to The Sleep Foundation. – deep sleep is restorative + REM sleep is an active time for the brain, and great for innovation, creativity and emotional regulation Deep sleep is thought to be the most restorative stage for the brain, when the body removes potentially harmful materials from it. A study published in the journal JAMA Neurology in October last year found not getting enough deep sleep could have serious long-term effects on our cognitive health. The research from the Monash School of Psychological Sciences and the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health in Melbourne, Australia, showed that a lack of deep sleep could even increase our risk of dementia. pressing snooze prolonged sleep inertia for up to 20 minutes. Sleep inertia is that groggy feeling you get when you wake up. Dear Rachel: I want caveman sex, but my fiancé never seems to want me In her new column, Rachel Johnson advises a woman whose relationship has become sexless, and a gay man looking for a long-term relationship My OCD made me feel like my brain had been taken hostage Intrusive thoughts have taken me through pure hell, but I’ve finally learned how to weaken the OCD that has plagued my life To help you out today Like Victoria Beckham, I’m hobbling around with a midlife injury from doing too much exercise This is what croup sounds like – and how to cure it Ask Dr James: Can you explain my nocturnal hip pain that’s wrecking my sleep? Getting into gardening? Here’s how to avoid injury

The healthiest convenience foods and the ones to avoid – from baked beans to supermarket bread

Recent top picks Why scents are being used to treat dementia and depression We all know the power of smell to evoke memory. Liz Hoggard reports on how scents are being used to treat dementia and depression ‘I was a healthy Parkrunner, how could I have incurable cancer?’ We can do everything ‘right’ but still end up facing a life-changing diagnosis. Read Eleanor Bailey’s unflinching account of going from a Parkrun lover to myeloma patient ‘Why we think we’re more beautiful than we are after 50’ I enjoyed this fun reminder from Shane Watson that ageing is a glorious thing

‘As a straight woman I thought I was immune to HIV but I was so wrong’ Emily Cawston, 35, was diagnosed HIV positive in 2016. She speaks openly about living with the condition

Five gynae red flags women should never ignore From period cramps to intimate dryness – a woman’s health niggles are seemingly endless, but when should we worry? You probably aren’t getting enough fibre – here’s how to up your intake New research shows fibre can boost brain health in old age and there are other surprising benefits but most of us aren’t getting enough

~ Sink or Swim ~

Related articles

• They’ve Only Gone and Done It (emmajayashton.com)
  Never was this feeling of being “had” by experience so strong as on the passage across the Atlantic. The whole thing has taken on a dreamlike haze. Absolutely mental, in other words. I mean, I sailed across the Atlantic! The bloody Atlantic! And while I was in foetal position quietly weeping for most of it, I still did it.
• You Stand There (nimbusinabottle.wordpress.com)
  And you stand there. And I stand here.
  And a barrier keeps between
  A tsunami wave rising
  Almost surmising
  The silence settling unseen
  Like snowflakes, but redder
  Decorating your dark hair
  In a glorified haze
  Over numerous days
  Lying amid Asphodel, fair.
• Total Submergence (sanesamantha.wordpress.com)
  There are times when we dive underwater to explore what rests below; to discover what can be found at such great depths within ourself. And then there are times when we go under not from our own choosing, but because something forced us under; our fingers slipped, and without premeditation, we suddenly let go.

  I’ve found that almost all of my answers can be found from looking within. Some answers I placed there years ago. Others surprise me with their appearance. Memories dwell inside us like colorful coral reefs. And when the time is right we swim gently around every outcropping, allowing ourselves to live in the memory.

• LUI: Peace and Freedom (kittypalmer.wordpress.com)
  Stressed and frustrated I exited the building. Why had everything changed? I had just gotten a handle on the procedures and was beginning to feel confident about my abilities. Now I had to change again to keep up with the new requirements placed on me. I was angry and needed a release.  “Ok God, you have to help me.” With my ear buds in and MP3 player turned on I tried to find that place where the cares of this world disappeared, just like when I was a kid.
• ~ Sink or Swim ~ (rajasinsight.com)
• Swim/Sink (brokenfigments.wordpress.com)
• Poseidon Drooled (danielraythomason.wordpress.com)
  She swims with the tradition in her grandma’s shins,
  the tradition in her mother’s knees,
  and the rendition in her summer tees
  where transgressions bend about in a trustful wind that seems to please the morning sea–
• sinking (ciarajohnson.com)
  it’s just what i need right now.

  the wetness smears it all away,

  you would want it too…  if only i could feel like you

  but i don’t.

  so let’s sink.

• Ocean’s Huge Underwater Waves Explained By Seafloor Ridges (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)
• Underwater Adventures – Jamaica (emilyhambi.wordpress.com)

 

Swim/Sink

Related articles

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  Why do I feel like sinking is the only option? I have this amazing amount of love from you and yet I want to sink to the bottom of the fucking sea?!? Maybe I haven’t had enough US lately. Maybe I have had too much US lately.
• you are more important than you think. (asinnersolace.wordpress.com)
  Waves of bodies crash over the breaking point, ebbing and flowing until it’s a tsunami no one expect to gear up and rear like Medusa’s rage. You’re drowning, sinking slowly into sour oblivion under the disembodied limbs and tentacles flailing. Faces become a blur as you feel your own become nothing more than an erasure mark in your memory. You fall down, brought onto your knees and rendered almost into fetal position. Are you that unremarkable, that boring – that invisible? Shh. It’ll become quiet soon. Cover your eyes. Envelop yourself in darkness. Rock yourself into a comfort zone, rock back and forth until suddenly you’ve rolled yourself into somewhere warm, inviting – somewhere people will know your name and your face like a reflection.
• Sink or Swim… (scarlettpoppies.wordpress.com)
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  For most people, our body can only generate extreme chemical behaviour when the stimulus is present.   For a time thereafter as you ruminate about the stimulus your body might continue to respond accordingly, helping to keep you feeling sad.   Then, once you’ve stopped ruminating and only think occasionally about the stimulus event, you’ll only feel sad when you’re thinking about it.
  +
  As a community, we seem entrenched in the ideology that we can think and talk ourselves out of depression, anxiety and other psychological symptoms. Today’s psychology is generally based on debunked theorems that were fashioned well before the development of anti-biotics, the polio vaccine and ultrasound technology.  It was a time when smoking was not only fashionable, adults and children were encouraged to do it!
  +
  This is from some guy named Alan Watts:  “To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.”
• Burnt Jasmine (abookoflostthings.wordpress.com)
  At night in the split second between the flutter of her lashes on her thin cheeks and the dark pit of unconscious terror she could see the sweep of blue and crystal silk swimming around curried ankles to a pulsing rhythm then sigh and slip into sleep from which she would wake screaming an hour and a quarter later.
  +
  They danced over her flesh the same way she shivered into my chest and I still wanted to break every single little bird bone in her hand her metacarpal and middle phalanx and it had been years but I still rage quietly and then I sink into that quicksand guilt when she smiles and touches her fingernail to my jugular.

 

Little Rambles

Somedays I feel every emotion there ever was

Beating in my chest

Pumping in my veins.

Somedays I don’t feel anything at all.

The numbness closes in

Water fills my lungs

I’ve forgotten how to breath

I’ve forgotten to swim.  

Some mornings my tongue becomes possessed

Endless ideas cascade out of me,

Millions of thoughts dance in my head. 

Some afternoons my mouth is glued shut

And the giant block of ice sitting on my chest

Won’t let me think a single thought.

 

The sun rises high over my wavering window

Lights shines through and the ice begins to melt

A hummingbird heart replaces the frozen emptiness 

And I begin to swim.

 

Darkness glooms around every corner

And quickly drags me in

There is no moon to guide me

And I begin to sink.

 

Swimming 

and 

Sinking

Sinking 

and 

Swimming

 

Fearless free spirit climbing towards the…

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