Healthy Lifestyles

How do you feel when you wake up? If you feel the aching body, the body feels tired, eyes still want to keep closed, and not fresh, then you should observe again how you sleep. "We should feel refreshed after waking up, not tired or weak. If you feel like it, there are indications of something happening during sleep and you do not realize it," said Michael Decker, PhD, professor of Georgia State University.
Has the quality of sleep is very important, not only from the length of time sleeping, but also of its quality, resulting in increased fitness. When you do not get quality sleep, it is likely there are several factors that cause it:

1. Loneliness. A study shows that loneliness is not simply a matter of hearts and minds, but also affect the sleep problem. Based on the study, people who think that they alone have time to sleep is not qualified than those who do not feel lonely.
"Whoever and wherever you are, we all live and depend on a sense of security in the social environment around us to be able to sleep well," said researcher Lianne Kurina, PhD. Social and psychological factors are very influential on a person's sleep quality and health.

2. Altitude. Locations in height also affects the quality of sleep. "When we're on the plateau, the air becomes thinner, so that breathing became erratic and makes our brains 'shocked' so do not sleep so soundly," said Decker. Although not living in the highlands, but this problem also appears when you sleep on an airplane.

3. Sleeping with pets. The vet actually advised his patients to not sleep with pets because of the risk of disease transmission. In addition, sleep with a pet could actually affect the quality of your sleep. A study conducted by the Mayo Clinic in 2002 showed that 53 percent of pet owners who sleep with pets sleep disorder every night. As many as 21 percent of pet owners feel disturbed by snoring dogs, and 7 percent due to a cat purring. To overcome this, Decker advised not to put the pet into the bedroom, or at least sleep on the floor of my room.

4. Work nights. Working with the night shift can unwittingly result in poor sleep quality. A study from the Sleep Foundation in 2005 states, 14 percent of Americans who work nights often have sleep problems such as fatigue, sleep disturbances, and insomnia. Decker explained that the problems that come up during work nights and sleep during the day occurs because the body's sensitivity to light, allowing the body to take its cue the presence of light as a signal to wake up.
"Light and dark are the cues that help synchronize our body system to the environment," added Decker.
The same concept applies when you are new to travel across time zones, so the experience jetlag. At that time, your brain is preparing to sleep because of time zone you are in the dark zone. "However, when crossing time zones to the zone of light, you suddenly received a new light, and your sleep-wake cycle and become out of sync. It took several days to balance it back," he said.
One of Decker recommended way to overcome this is to use an eye patch while sleeping during the day to stimulate the darkness and fell asleep.

5. At room temperature. Do you often make a glass of warm milk before bedtime for your child? Apparently it has a property to make the children sleep more soundly. Room conditions and a warm body can affect whether a person's sleep soundly. At night, body temperature begins to fall, and decreased body temperature, indicating that it is time to sleep. Warm bath and drinking warm drinks can also make the body more and lowers body temperature and transmit physiological signals for sleep.

"If the room is too warm, our body temperature will increase and make us wake up. Cooling the room can help ensure that more qualified and will sleep soundly," said Decker. When the morning, our body temperature begins to rise gradually, and send signals to the brain to wake up.