in an article….

Protection against cognitive deficits and markers of neurodegeneration by long-term oral administration of melatonin in a transgenic model of Alzheimer disease….

the conclusion drawn was….

“Thus, melatonin’s cognitive benefits could involve its anti-Abeta aggregation, anti-inflammatory, and/or antioxidant properties. Our findings provide support for long-term melatonin therapy as a primary or complementary strategy for abating the progression of Alzheimer disease.”

Melatonin and Sleep

Melatonin was once haled as a cure for sleeplessness.

Melatonin has been tested extensively. One problem with supplementation is that our body tends to build up a tolerance after long term use. However, this does not happen when we consume melatonin as a food.

It is best if only used as a rescue nutricutical or for occasional use. Warning, you will not find this in any medical journals except for those doctors who are knowledgeable on food allergies. Over use leads to ineffectiveness and even allergic reactions for some foods.

So, where is the best place to get melatonin?

Cherries. Only one kind of cherry has the most melatonin. The best way to use cherries as a medicine is to get cherry juice concentrate. A couple tablespoons of the concentrate in a glass of water before bed will help you sleep. It may take a few to several days to get a sleep cycle established. Once sleeping like a baby, continue taking the juice concentrate for a few more days.

Then just take the cherry juice once or twice a week as a supplement. Not more.

It works on a number of levels. One is that it boosts glutathione. This helps your body get everything aligned where it needs to be, thus making it possible for you to sleep. It also helps with things like stress and pain management.

Now, not only will it help you sleep, it can potentially help you sleep knowing that you will decrease your risk of getting Alzheimer’s.

Good health to you.

What do 19th century bed ropes and blue lights have in common. They play an underlying role of sleep, then and now.

The saying sleep tight is the lore of many tour guides. They will tell you how beds were made with a mattress support of interwoven ropes. In time the ropes would sag and require tightening. Thus the term, sleep tight. That is a verbal legend with out any historical proof. All we know for sure is that rope were the ulterior support for sleep.

Actually according to wordsmiths, the saying “sleep tight” dates back to 1886 and not nearly as old as the beds.

Also, the wordsmiths will tell you that the word “tight” in the 18th and 19th centuries meant simply “soundly.”

So if you want to sleep soundly, make sure there are no blue lights in your sleeping area such as come from your computer. Blue lights it seems, play an underlying role in our being alert.

One study found that blue light exposure promoted alertness. This even while the participants were asleep and eyes were closed.

So, eliminate the blue light, sleep tight, and get a good nights sleep tonight.

At other times, it could be psychological and or physical. If you have sleep apnea, your sleep may not be as good as it could be. If you have stress and worries, these could prevent you from sleeping.

Here are three tips to help if the lack of sleep is not for biological reasons.

Relaxation. This comes from Dr. Alex Merklinger back in the 1970’s. Start by imagining that your relaxing your feet. Think about your feet and that for the rest of your sleep time they will be resting. (Think about it using the same words here.)

Then relax your legs. Imagine them laying on the beach or what ever relaxing thing they might do. Next imagine like a wave, the relaxation is taking over your torso. Slowly it works its way up and over flowing down the arms and to the hands. Finally, as the relaxation gets up to your head, you feel each part starting to relax. Mouth, nose, eyes, brain, even your hair starts to relax.

As you do this, like counting sheep, your focus is on relaxation and your letting go of the things in your brain.

Z Tracking Eye Movement. Hop over to Speechmastery.com and on the Stress Reducers for Public Speakers page…Scroll down to the Z Track Eye Movement / EMI subheading.

Once you use this technique, (note: please do it sitting down, preferably alone so people do not think your losing your mind) do this just prior to going to sleep.

On completion (you may feel a bit of a buzz or a bit dizzy) then start imagining going into a real sleep.

Try it, it really works.

Sweet Sleep Word Focus. Think of a word or phrase that you would associate with sweet sleep. It could be a thing like “teddy bears” or it could be a place like “the beach” or it could be a phrase “sitting on the dock on the bay.”

Once you have the word or phrase, lightly pinch the index finger against the thumb on both hands. (I learned this from Dr. Merklinger too.) Take a deep breath and as you exhale, say the word or phrase. As you say the word, imagine being there. As you imagine your body being there, imagine all of your troubles are behind you and you only have that word or place to look forward to.

Good health to you, sleep tight, good night.

This affects more than most people realize. This particular situation is one of the more serious lack of sleep experiences that you will ever hear of. Unfortunately or maybe not, the doctors have given up on their patient.

Here are some recommendations that were shared. Although you may have heard of some, there are twists and different applications that you may not be aware of.

Sleep Hygiene

If not already, you will need to set a time to sleep and stick to it. Sound familiar? Well there is more. Part of this routine is planning and visualizing the sleep. If you have the same emotions I have, you are thinking, does Jonathan Steele have two heads. I cannot imagine what if feels like to imagine doing it.

This is part of the problem. It is part of the way our brains are programmed.

You see, our brains are hard wired to run programs much like a computer does. Only thing, sometimes they get a bad program installed somewhere along the way. A program that says not to do what it would seem natural to do. That program, regardless of what is done to assist the sleep, either mechanically or chemically, has to be rewritten.

The rewriting process takes 27-31 days. Actually it takes 27-31 days of habitually doing something to develop a habit. A habit is nothing more than brain programming. So, if you could imagine sweet sleep, the kind where someone asks you how did you sleep and you say, ” I can’t say, I was asleep.” The kind where your last thought was going to sleep and your next thought is waking up and it is morning. Try to create an image of what you would want it to be.

Once you have the image, the next thing is to write it down. You do not need to be Hemingway. You only need the brain / hand thing to reinforce the mental / neuro connection of what you want.

Following this you will want to do a simple procedure that has several names. I use the term Z tracking eye movement. This I discovered quite by accident. You see, as a nurse, I was mostly in the float pool. So it became easier to do total assessments of all of my patients than to do just the limited assessment of the discipline or floor of my assignment.

One day a supervisor was following me on my rounds. I asked her what was going on. She explained that my outcomes were better than any of the other nurses in one discipline and management wanted to know what I was doing different. (Actually every nurse in this field had at least one patient die if not two. The risk of death was 2 in 100. None of my patients in over several hundred died. Two should have but did not.)

Almost a year later it became apparent that the Z track eye movement thing was one of the things that made my patients more compliant and less stressed during my watch. This was usually a 16 hours on, 8 off, 16 on and then maybe 8 off and a final 8 shift rotation.

So, the Z track eye movement thing…..before you go, read the section below and then come back.

On this page…Scroll down to the Z Track Eye Movement / EMI subheading

Once you try this, (note: please do it sitting down and alone so people do not think your losing it) do this in the morning after you get up. You could try it at night when you cannot sleep but especially do it in the morning.

On completion (you may feel a bit of a buzz or a bit dizzy) then start imagining your first night of real sleep. In other words, start programming your brain. Since our brains are organic, new programs do not always re-write over night. Some times, in trauma they do. But to get them to do good things takes time. One friend who we reprogrammed her from constant negative thinking, took over several months. Of course she did not know we were doing it to her. But that is another story, a wonderful one with a happy ending.

Next, do all you previously heard about your daily routine.

Additionally, avoid fluoride in the water, anything with MSG, only drink organic milk (the growth hormone Prolack is in regular milk), and aspartame and Spenda. You probably already know to avoid sugar, do not eat anything five hours before sleep, and do not take a hot bath prior to trying to go to sleep. Unfortunately this may disrupt your personal hygiene schedule.

Think of yourself as a scientist. You are the test subject. You are going to try several things to see which work. It will take a bit of time to reprogram your brain so you will need to stick with these for at least a few weeks.

Dietary Supplements

From the same people who have the cherry juice I use and recommend, they have a pill that has a part of milk that makes you relax. It was tested in McGill and if memory serves me, it was found to be clinically the same a Valium only not addictive. It is called PNT 200 (the trademarked name)

That being said, I only use it when needed an no more. You can decide for yourself on this subject. I know of a few who have taken it daily and have no problems when they forget or stop. Personally my thoughts are that once our body is tuned up, we can maintain it with diet, exercise and thoughts. Every once and a while we may get a bit of rust or corrosion that needs extra help, such as a supplement to care for it.

Click Here to get the PNT 200 I do not know if it will work for you but it sure does for me. Please feel free to call me personally for details.

Then the Cherry juice. This I do use almost daily. However, I intentionally skip a few days before starting it again. That is, unless the lack of sleep beast rears its ugly head. Then I take it at night and every night, usually an hour before I go to sleep. It has always worked by the second or third night. Then after about 15 days of doing it, my pattern is usually pretty good. Then back to my few to 5 days on, two days off schedule.

By the way, you will take about two table spoons and put in a glass of water. I think each can has about 1500 cherries in it so you will get more than if you tried to eat just cherries.

This pattern is not from the cherry juice people. This comes from working with allergy sufferers. The docs recommend never eating the same food more than three days in a row with two days off. Otherwise you could develop an allergy. This is not to say you will. This is just the wisdom of the allergy doc’s. So I modified it for myself to make it easier to remember. My on days are Sunday through Thursday and off Friday and Saturday.

Click here for more about Tart Montamorecy Cherry Juice

Hope this helps you.

Best wishes on a future of good sleep.

I am one who says coffee does not keep me awake. Funny thing, my usual 5 hours of sleep was only 3 1/2 hours. Awake and unable to go back to sleep and a long day scheduled was not fun.

Then at 5 AM it was brought to my attention that my lips looked dry. Very dry at that.

Wine may help you go to sleep faster but it will not help you have a good nights sleep. Actually the opposite is true. Now add caffeine and with the dehydration from that alcohol, you have a perfect storm to keep you awake.

Simple lesson here about medications, drugs, and chemicals we expose our body to. The more dehydrated we are the more potential to react or not. We are so complex in our make up, sometimes one thing that may have no effect can have greater effect depending on that balance.

Even 12 hours later the imbalance is still being felt in my being thirsty. Bringing the balance back could take a few days.

If you drink, remember to compensate with increased water intake prior to sleep.

Oh yea, one more thing. People often wonder why Beer passes though you so fast. A urologist I once worked for shared the reason why this is.

It seems that it does not have to stop to change colors.

Good health to you.