In February I wrote a post about why sleep is beneficial for us, the different types of sleep and the different ways in which they help us to recover, both physically and mentally.  Recently I had a rash of posts appear in my daily RSS feeds about sleep so I thought that, with the recent stress I’ve had a work which has detracted from my own sleep quality and recovery, it was time for an update and some more information about sleep.  And of course some gratuitous photos of the cat -- asleep.

Cat-napping or something deeper?

• Mark Sisson kicked things off in my feed-reader with a series of posts.  The first was a post asking some general questions about sleep and contains an interesting tip on how to really lengthen the spine out to sleep.  However, the core focus of the post is bedding.  Do we need all these soft accoutrements to get some good sleep?  I know that after a week of sleeping outdoors with only a thin roll-mat I start to get sore on the last few days (unless we’ve found soft forest floors and mossy spots to pitch each night).  Mark seems to conclude that the bedding is, while not primal, not a bad thing either.  He observes that his dog by preference will choose to lie down on something soft but will also be quite happy on a hardwood floor.  I’ve similarly noticed that our neighbours cat will happily sleep on the gravel along the outside of our house (turning round when he wants to change side so that he can continue to have his back lying along the wall) but if there is an opportunity of a soft chair in the house it will get preference.  If there’s the chance of a warm lap then even the soft furnishings get given short shrift.  He revisited the issue of bedding a couple of posts later.
  

  Jake's preference is for something soft - even the post pile on the kitchen table is better than the floor

• Mark quickly followed this up with another article looking specifically into the issue of sleep posture.  I know that when I’m relaxed I can sleep quite happily on my back.  As my stress levels increase I naturally move onto my side (either side) and, at the height of misery and exhaustion, I find I can only get to sleep on my stomach, clutching a stuffed seal that my Mum made when she was pregnant with me (because I would just irritate Chris if I clutched him that hard).  As a baby I was put to sleep on my stomach which I think is probably why this is the position I return to when I’m feeling most exposed in life.  The only problem is that sleeping on my side makes the underneath shoulder ache and sleeping on my front gives me neck-ache.  Mark’s article is mostly focussed around a study by Michael Tetley and it is well worth revisiting the original article rather than just relying on Mark’s article.  I must say that I am seriously tempted to try out a few of those postures next week while I’m wild-camping my way across Yorkshire in order to avoid the customary stiffness and sore shoulders that tends to accompany the last few nights.
  

  The more appendages you have, the harder it gets to find a sleep posture that works - or so it seems...

• The NephroPal blog had a great post about the impact of our artificial light on both us and other wildlife (can I call humans ‘wildlife’?).  It covers the impact of the artificial light on humans and how it affects our own sleep patterns – something that I touched on in my summer sleep cycles post.  More interestingly though, it also covers how other wildlife, like migratory animals are being badly affected by our artificial lights.
  

  Even the cat objects when there's too much light

• Some recent research found that 30 minutes of daily meditation in the form of meditative yoga helped insomniacs to sleep more soundly.  Perhaps meditation is what the cat does when he gets into his Zen-like state of purring and then slowly settles into the position known as “ultimate relaxation”!
  

  The tail flick adds a good rhythmical aspect to meditation and the back paw is a good head rest

   

  www.youtube.com/watch?v=z052IfwV_X8

• Seth Roberts wrote up some fascinating stuff about historical sleep patterns – apparently some people were trying to persuade us all that it is natural to sleep in two batches with a period of quiet wakefulness in the middle, based on historical information about Western European humans.  Seth reckons this is more to do with the poor diets of people in the last few hundred years than a sign of our true ancestral heritage (eg. looking back to our Paleolithic ancestors) since he’s found that he sleeps better than ever since he increased his animal fat intake.  My take-home point?  If you’re sleeping poorly, in addition to the usual “get some non-screen relaxation in before bedtime and get rid of the lights and noises in your sleeping room” also try eating more fatty meats.
  

  Sometimes it can be difficult to get comfortable of course

• And finally…  I have found an article that beautifully brings everything together.  Written by Professor Jim Horne who runs the Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University, just around the corner from here.  Professor Horne starts out by explaining why a walk is so much better at giving you a good night of sleep, rather than a tough workout.  It’s partly to do with the mixed and varied messages that your brain in getting at the end of the day, rather than the physical side of things, and ties in with the idea that sleep is as much about mental recovery as it is about physical recovery.  He also gives a bit of science behind why I seem to pass out within seconds of lying down if I’ve had a long hot bath as the last thing I did in the evening before crawling into bed.  Overall this article is short but fascinating and if you only read one of the articles that I’ve linked to on this post, I would make it this one.

My two favourite creatures catching a sneeky moment of shut-eye together

On that sleepy final note, I’m going to put the cat out, who is lying on the sofa next to me doing a very good version of ultimate relaxation, and have a clearly-well-justified hot bath with the last hour of the day before I crawl into bed.  At least I don’t have a tail to keep me awake…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yXRY01K658

Sweet dreams!

Related posts:

1. Lessons learned: sleep
2. Lessons learned: summer sleep cycles
3. Blog-watch: some postural advice from Mark Sisson

• Let’s start with my original starting point, the epidemiological research showing that incontinence occurred in women during sports activity and that body mass index and parity seemed to be directly associated to it.  The research wasn’t looking for causes, instead it seemed to be getting a feel for the occurrence levels of incontinence in active women.  I’m hoping that this is a springboard for more detailed research.
• In that original post I mentioned that I had been toying for some time with the possibility that my incontinence problems were caused by the impact of the abs and glutes on my sphincter muscles.  I’d reached this idea by recognising that the problems occurred when I was walking for several days and knowing that after numerous days on the hills my abs and glutes, both of which are directly connected to the sphincter muscles (as far as I can tell), are tiring.  I was therefore really interested to find that Cassandra Forsythe was writing about postpartum exercise incontinence and that she had come across some information about this being caused by weakened glute muscles.  Cassandra is now focussed on strengthening up her glutes to see if she can eliminate her issues in this area.  I started thinking about it when I decided to write this post and had a sudden realisation.  I had no incidences of incontinence while walking in the Alps in June.  I’d been working like a crazy woman on glute strength for the 9 months or so before going to the Alps and my glutes have increased in size to the point where I’m having to consider a new wardrobe (and probably making my own clothes since the clothes which fit my waist don’t have openings large enough to go over my glutes).  Could this be supporting evidence that glute strength is linked to exercise incontinence?  Perhaps.
• Another potential cause of incontinence which I looked into was prolapses.  For me, personally, I’ve pretty much discredited this as a possible cause of my own incontinence.  However, I do think that it is a likely cause of incontinence in some other women.  If you are struggling with incontinence then you need to consider all the possible causes and work out which is the most likely cause for you. 
• Finally, a childhood friend of mine, Abi, read my posts about incontinence and sent me an email a few months later.  She wrote the following:

“I read this article the other day and it mentioned activity related incontinence[...]. It was from a book called women’s bodies women’s wisdom (very interesting generally for all female related health and particularly problems). So it mentions something called a uninary control device and particularly it’s newer version reliance uninary control insert. Reliance is the brand name in the US. It says it is as easy to use as a tampon and is disposible. Perfect for sports or activity related SUI.”

I thought this sounded fascinating.  I’d never come across urinary control devices but a quick Google of the phrase brought up a host of solutions for incontinence, perhaps ideal for using while you address the underlying cause of your incontinence.  I also did a search for Reliance and found a website explaining how it works.  As Abi pointed out elsewhere in her email, Reliance may not be available outside the US yet, but it certainly sounds ideal for active people.  Thanks for the tip-off Abi and I’ll be looking into reading the book too!

So there you have it.  Some follow up thoughts on short-term solutions and potential causes of incontinence.  If you are reading this because it is relevant to you, I hope this helps guide you towards some possible solutions to your problem.  If you find out about anything else that may be relevant, please let me know.

Related posts:

1. Lessons learned this week: incontinence
2. Lessons learned: incontinence and prolapses
3. Blog-watch: recent glute news

On the Saturday I finally admitted a temporary defeat and decided to completely re-write the training program from scratch.  I had two main reasons:

1. work-related things at the moment mean that it would be handy to have a bodyweight equipment-free workout that will be effective and which I can bring out whenever I need it – a completely new program like this needs a testing period of a few weeks to make sure it is effective and none of the exercises start to aggravate anything (eg. does it contain more push ups than my elbows can survive?); and
2. I couldn’t face my workouts any more.

A few weeks ago I started struggling to motivate myself to go into the gym and do my workouts.  I would do my first warm up set of squats and feel the enthusiasm drain out of me, or not even get as far as the gym before I felt my heart sink. 

I tried to fire up some fun by reintroducing Farmer’s Bars but that wasn’t enough.  I’ve been doing the same workout pattern, very successfully, for nearly five months and mentally I have just had enough of going into the gym and doing almost the same thing every week with some minor variations to assistance exercises.

On Saturday afternoon I was standing on the threshold of the gym, depressed at the thought of starting and wishing I was doing something else with my life.  It was time to change the program.

Losing the plot entirely

On Sunday I then tried to do day two of the exciting new workout.  There were brand new exercises and exercises I’d not done since 2009.  And there were pull ups.

The previous weekend I’d had a disappointing showing of 7×3 reps and 3×2 reps on my ten sets – at the time I had put this poor performance down to post holiday issues since I routinely lose a lot of lat strength while away on active holidays (a problem I need to solve).  On Sunday I set out to significantly improve yet the ten sets looked like 5×3, 1×2, 4×1 – a massive loss of strength on the previous week.

Needless to say I burst into tears, although in my defence I was suffering from PMT as well.

Is work to blame?

I am, unfortunately for my gym work, a conscientious employee.  I work hard, do my job and, if something goes wrong with the staffing on my projects, I’ll do whatever needs to be done to make sure that we still meet the deadlines.

Recently we’ve had a lot of junior staff unavailable due to training, holidays or secondments.  Suddenly a batch of urgent deadlines came up and there was nowhere for the work to go.  I don’t blame my employer for this – sometimes things just don’t work out the way you intended. 

No-one could anticipate that one project, originally with a 30 June deadline when three people were around, would have a hiatus with the deadline moving to 26 July and only one week’s notice when all staff were on holiday or sick.  No-one was to know that an annual recurring project, for which I’d diligently trained up two staff members, would come through a week late with only two days left to complete it – two days that coincided with one staff member being ill and the other having just gone on holiday. 

Getting the work-life balance wrong

Thanks to these sorts of issues, my last seven weeks have each been 50-55 hour work-weeks except for week three (holiday) and week five (ill for four days).  Once you take into account time to sleep, eat, travel and shower there isn’t much time left in the day.  On top of that, the stress levels mean that even in those few free moments my brain never really switches off. 

The impact on the rest of my life includes:

• Poor quality sleep, waking up frequently and unable to sleep for the full night;
• Missed workouts;
• Inability to recover from workouts;
• Lost enthusiasm to do anything outside work (including workouts);
• Apparent loss of strength in the gym;
• Mental exhaustion when faced with anything outside of normality or office work;
• Tension and knots in my shoulder, impairing my ability to do effective upper body workouts (as much from the hours spent sitting at my desk as from the stress);
• Cascading stress about everything else I’m not getting done at home (eg. missed/failed workouts, filthy kitchen, no clean clothes left to wear etc).

Fighting the guilt-factor

There are limited solutions to this issue since giving up work or changing to a completely stress-free job is a non-negotiable option right now.

I was amused to read a scenario from Poliquin.  In it he robustly pushes back on a woman who has missed workouts because she “doesn’t have time”.  In reality, most women feel these contradictory pressures and it can be difficult to find time for ourselves. 

I struggle to express to Chris the levels of guilt I feel when I no longer find time to wash clothes, iron shirts, wash the dishes, clean the kitchen and the myriad of other things I do.  The guilt I feel when he does some of them instead to take the pressure off me.

It’s ridiculous to feel guilty – we both know that if I don’t have some time to relax or do personal things like workouts or blog posts I end up in a downwards spiral of depression.  However, it’s a curse of guilt which seems to plague plenty of women.

Get it right!

For the conscientious woman (or man) who wants to remain in robust health, enjoy non-work activities and/or maintain progress in the gym we must consider our work-life balance.  There will be times, like those I’ve just been through, when the pressures are difficult to avoid but when that happens we ought to take action to resolve issues as quickly as possible and not let it become normality.

So far this week I’ve found two hours to try a taster session of Krav Maga and tonight I plan a long soak in the bath.  It’s a long climb back through recovery though and it’s a hard lesson that has impacted excessively on both my health and fitness during the learning process.

Related posts:

1. Increasing work capacity
2. Lessons learned: getting work capacity right!
3. Cortisol

I'd like to still be doing this when I'm 90!

Some time ago I did a blog-watch about longevity and this is a brief update with a few recent articles, thoughts and findings about how to achieve this.

• Sirt1 is a protein which is one of the mechanisms by which calorie restriction prolongs life in yeast and worms.  NephroPal has pulled up some studies looking at this protein and summarised them in the context of the evolutionary “Summer” and “Winter” modes.  It’s well worth a read and the conclusion I drew from it was that we should be looking at trying to follow a more seasonal diet and fasting/non-fasting pattern to achieve longevity.
• Looking a bit more at intermittent fasting and longevity, the Inhuman Experiment blog has done a summary/comparison of various studies looking at the issue of intermittent fasting and longevity which is well worth scanning through.
• There was a slightly depressing study highlighted by Chris on Conditioning Research suggesting that sarcopenia (loss of muscle as you age) is not just caused by older people being less active, but is potentially down to metabolic changes and perhaps isn’t as controllable as previously thought.  As Chris points out, the study was based on people undertaking endurance training and it’s worth considering people like Clarence Bass when looking at how resistance training fits in with this.
• It’s worth reading the review of BioMarkers, written up by Chris at The Garage Gym Online (and the guy I share my life with, before anyone accuses me of not revealing related interests).  Biomarkers is about the signals for aging and how to reduce or prevent these and is therefore an important read for anyone who is concerned about aging and ensuring visual and physical longevity.
• Finally, I got a good laugh out of the graph shared by Brad Pilon on his blog.  This seemed to suggest that, if you start out age 20 on all the things they suggest, you could add 60-80 years to your lifespan.  Since I come from a family of reasonably long-lifers (at least they’ve certainly all made it to at least their late eighties on my mother’s side) this implies that I could live to 160?  I think not!

For anyone interested in longevity and long-term health and well-being I hope these are helpful for you.  If you find other articles on this topic please let me know – I’m always glad to hear more ideas on how to achieve my life ambition.

Related posts:

1. Blog-watch: longevity
2. Blog-watch: exercise for mental health and brain development
3. Blog-watch: protein

Here’s a pick of some of the best or most interesting that I’ve seen recently.

• It seems that BBC News has been getting excited about pregnancy at the moment.  The first of their articles that I want to flag up is one about morning sickness.  In particular it seems that taking certain medications can help with severe morning sickness and won’t necessarily damage the foetus.  I have mixed views on this, but it doesn’t affect me since I’m not pregnant.  It’s just important that those of you who are pregnant know that there are options available if morning sickness is a problem for you.  I was particularly concerned by the comment in the article that some women end up having abortions of planned and wanted pregnancies because the morning sickness is too unbearable.  That was worrying.
• The next BBC article is definitely something celebrate.  They are starting to realise that they may be setting out too many rules and regulations for pregnant women (and even starting to encroach on their partners too).  Sometimes a bit less rule-making can be a good thing.
• A final BBC article (which I find quite amusing following on from the previous one about there being too many rules and directions being set out for women) stating that women are damaging their feet by wearing the wrong footwear while pregnant.  I have two complaints about this: (i) it’s not just pregnant women damaging their feet by wearing the wrong footwear, it’s just a bit more obvious with the extra weight pregnant women are carrying around; and (ii) is it really correct that flip-flops and similar shoes don’t provide enough support?  Try comparing this alongside the barefoot debate!
• This isn’t an article about pregnancy, but I feel this is a suitable place to include it.  An interesting though-piece about teenage girls reaching puberty at a younger age, exploring the consequent impacts of this and why it may be happening.  Why did I think it fits here?  Partly because there’s a risk of teenage pregnancies arising out of this younger age of puberty and partly because all those pregnant women out there may want to know about this in case they have a daughter!
• Not wanting to scare anyone who is pregnant, but a recent study has suggested that those who are pregnant and consume one or more servings of artificially sweetened drinks per day have a 38% increased risk of pre-term delivery.  Taking the number of servings up to four or more per day increased that percentage to 78%.  Thanks to Dr Briffa for bringing that to our attention!
• Cassandra Forsythe is a new mother and recently wrote about the consequent postpartum exercise incontinence that she has suffered from.  I linked to this in a links post soon after she wrote it and was very glad to find that Cassandra did a follow up article about strengthening the glutes to reduce pelvic floor dysfunction, including a set of links to useful glute resources.
• This is another one of those “I don’t want to scare you all” articles.  It seems that there are still preventable deaths among pregnant women and new mothers.  Thankfully there has been a lot of noise about this in the media over the last few months and people like Annie Lennox are putting their voices behind the campaign to improve this situation.
• What are your thoughts on breastfeeding?  From the viewpoint of someone who has never done it but who is a self-confessed diet obsessive I think breastfeeding is a fantastic idea.  However, it was really good to read Cassandra Forsythe’s view on this, including whether she does it, what her views are about dieting while breastfeeding, whether you need to eat more than usual and anything else you can think of.  Cassandra is definitely far more qualified than me to write about this stuff!
• Staying on the breastfeeding topic, Mark Sisson did a lengthy article about combining the Primal Diet (essentially similar to the Paleo diet) and nursing babies.  I found a few interesting points in his article, in particular the point about allergies.  I’ve come across people who have had problems with their baby being allergic to breast milk, therefore having to put them onto formula when they are still incredibly young.  Something I’d not thought about (though it makes perfect sense) is that aspects of what you eat are passed onto the baby through your breast milk.  If the baby is allergic to your milk it  is possible that they are actually allergic to something you are eating.  Mark gives some suggestions of things to try to take out of your own diet to see if this improves the situation for the baby.  After all, it just doesn’t make sense that babies should be allergic to breast milk.  It’s nature’s way of providing a good blend of nutrients and plenty of healthy fats while the baby grows during the first few months.
• Finally, an excellent article (really an email which has been posted up as a Guest Post) on Stumptuous about the way other people decide they are the experts on your pregnancy and the fact that you are pregnant gives them the right to instruct you in what you should be doing.  For older people it is often that their knowledge is outdated by more recent studies, some friends may just be peddling old wives tales and what they imagine is good advice.  Lieke tells us what it has been like for the first six months of her pregnancy fighting back against the tide of “good” advice and provides a few tips on how to get people off your back.

Well!  That was a few more pregnancy-related links than I thought I had up my sleeve!  I hope they are useful to you all.  As always, best of luck to those of you who are pregnant or planning a pregnancy and congratulations to anyone who has recently added a small bundle to their brood.

Related posts:

1. Blog-watch: pregnancy diet and exercise
2. Blog-watch: pregnancy and workouts
3. Blog-watch: pregnancy updates

This is the ninth, and final, part in a series about weight loss including diet, exercise, measuring your success and keeping the weight off when you stop.

Over the last few months I have found out about all sorts of diet and exercise related issues that should help with weight loss.  However non of it is any good if you can’t effectively measure your progress or keep the weight off once you’ve reached your goals.

Sleep – the ultimate weight loss aid?

Before I start on the technicalities of measuring or maintaining weight loss I thought I should include a brief reminder about the benefits of sleep for weight loss.  Some time ago I did a post about sleep.  Something that I was aware of when I wrote that post, but failed to mention, was that sleep has been known to assist with weight loss.  Whether it is the improvement to cortisol levels, the reduced time to eat anything, or something else at work, sleep for weight loss is certainly something that many people have commented on (including Dan John).

Bodybuilding.com have done a great article looking at the issue of sleep for weight loss and they’ve got plenty of reasons for why sleep may help.  Personally I’m always up for another reason to sleep (even if it is harder to get plenty of sleep in the summer months) so this is definitely an avenue worth pursuing!

Keeping track of weight loss

So you’ve written your weight loss diet and exercise plan and you’ve set your goals.  How will you know if you are succeeding?

A problem I encountered was the inaccuracy of my callipers.  I had hoped that these would make a big difference to measuring progress, but instead I found that I quickly dropped off the bottom of their measurement scale.  I only had to look at myself in the mirror to know that I wasn’t below 12.6% body fat.  Callipers are probably very accurate if you are in the middle of the range, but if you are at the extremes the accuracy starts to suffer.

Similarly, my weighing scales get used in the shower since the bathroom has a carpet.  Unfortunately I get a range of readings depending on where on the shower tray I place the scales.  I usually do my best to put them in the same corner of the shower tray each week, but I know this isn’t an accurate measure either.

I rely on a tape measure instead.  It’s simple, effective and can measure in millimetres.  However, John Barban wrote an excellent post about measuring weight loss, reminding people that as they get closer to their goals and it becomes harder to remove those final little bits of fat they may find that even a tape measure is not accurate enough.

As John says, the best way to measure is to look in the mirror.  Personally I struggle to see the small changes and have found a photo record works best.

Find an effective way to measure your progress

How often to weigh and measure

As a general rule, when I am in a weight loss cycle I weight and measure myself first thing in the morning (before my morning cup of tea) once a week.  I try to go for the same day each week but this is obviously affected a little bit by where I’ll be that morning, so it sometimes shifts by a day or two.

Imagine my surprise therefore when I read that researchers at the University of Minnesota found that those who weighed themselves every day lost an average of 12 pounds whereas those who weighed themselves once a week only lost six pounds!  This is definitely something worth looking into when considering how often to weight and measure yourself, although there has to be a practicalities aspect here too.  Perhaps a quick hop-on-hop-off with the weighing scales every day and a full weigh and measure session once a week?

Keeping the weight off

An article in That’s Fit highlighted the problems that people face with regaining the weight after they lose it.  I wasn’t surprised to read that even people who lose weight through surgery regain the weight.

The problem is in the habits.  If you change your diet or exercise plan too drastically (or, in the case of surgery, don’t have to change it at all) then your habits will not change.  Those poor eating and exercise habits that caused the fat to accumulate in the first place will still be in place and the fat will quickly come back.

If you want long-term weight loss the lesson seems to be that you need to not only address the weight loss phase but think about making longer-term changes.  As a result I’ve rapidly become a fan of not only hitting the weight loss hard and fast, but making sure that within that I build in good habits and knock out the problem habits that had started to creep in.  Create sustainable habits, such as eating dense but lean higher protein foods that fill you up without adding in too many additional calories.

That’s the end of the weight loss series.  If you’ve made it all the way through the series then congratulations (and many thanks).  Best of luck with your weight loss plans!

Related posts:

1. Resistance training for weight loss
2. Weight loss
3. Exercise for weight loss – other considerations

We were doing some trekking in the Alps and , after a couple of days of bad weather, deep snow col crossings, exposed icy ridges and a complete whiteout while crossing over the Italian-Swiss border, the baking sun and blue skies emerged and provided us with glorious views for the rest of the week.

I had gone into the holiday completely frazzled.  I’ve been driving myself hard at work at the moment, due to a couple of big projects that I’ve got on, and juggling the long hours and endless driving up and down the country that has come with the project work with my workouts, blog writing and other home commitments had left me on a bit of a mental precipice by the time we flew off last Saturday.

The week away gave me some time to mentally rejuvenate (even if I’m physically tired) and also gave me some valuable thinking time.  I’ve therefore decided that for the immediate future I’m going to cut down my blog posts to five a week.  It’ll mean a couple of minor changes with my “Powerlifting Progress” post moving to Monday and the “Lessons Learned” posts no longer being a fixed feature, instead being mixed in with other Wednesday posts.  I’m hoping it will mean I can find a bit more time to research for the posts again which is really important to me and should mean that you all get some good quality material to read – once things quieten down I’ll see if I can get back up to six posts again.

Having said all that, you’re probably wondering why there’s a post today.  Since today is Sunday.

We’ve got hundreds of amazing photos from the holiday of some big mountain scenery and it seems that, often unknown to me, Chris has been taking quite a few photos of me.  So many that I need to do a double installment of photos from the holiday.  Hopefully this will give you a chance to find out what I look like in my preferred natural habitat! 

If you like the pictures below, look out for more tomorrow!

Trekking through big scenery

Enjoying the sunshine

...and when it wasn't sunny...

...we just kept walking!

I'd love to be back out there again, already.

Related posts:

1. Powerlifting progress 2010: week twenty-five (walking in the Alps)
2. Setting (and changing) your goals
3. Blog-watch: Inspiration for dieting

Melatonin- why we wake with the sun

Melatonin is a natural hormone made by the body which is released into the bloodstream and causes drowsiness and lowers the body temperature.  The production of melatonin is inhibited by light and as a result melatonin should be produced when the sun goes down and then stop being released into the blood when the sun rises again.

Unfortunately, in the era of computers, televisions and light bulbs it is incredibly easy to upset the pattern of release of melatonin by exposing yourself to bright artificial light.  Unless you are completely exhausted the body will fail to get any signal to sleep and will stay alert, reducing the amount of time available to rest and recuperate, both physically and emotionally, through our sleep cycles.

Spring signals the start of the summer sleep cycle

Finding the dark

One of the greatest parts of our holidays is that we generally sleep outdoors, using a tarpaulin to keep the rain off and waking up to a view of the hills and moors without even having to open up the door of a tent.

Something that is wonderful (as well as potentially being a problem, but that’s not relevant for this post…) about the far north of Scotland is the complete lack of significant villages and towns.  You can go for miles without seeing anything.  In fact, we left the village of Lairg in the middle of Sunday afternoon and didn’t see another proper village (just a hamlet of a hotel and about ten houses) until we reached Bettyhill the next afternoon.  We weren’t even purposefully meandering round backroads to avoid the villages.  We were cycling up the only road that goes that way.

To those of you living in the US, Canada, or in fact anywhere outside Western Europe, this probably doesn’t sound particularly unusual.  However, take a look at a map of England and you’ll find that here you will struggle to cover more than 15 miles without passing through a couple of villages and the nearest big town is rarely more than 30 miles away.  All these conurbations result in an enormous amount of light pollution so wherever you go it’s rarely truly dark.

Being primal on holiday

With the lack of people and light pollution where we were last week it was completely black once the sun went down.  We were living on cold food, so we weren’t even cooking each evening.  We would stop when it was still light, pitch the tarp, crawl into our sleeping bags and read or chat (unless we were wiped out from tiredness) until it started to get dark at which point we’d promptly fall asleep.

Of course, the mornings were at the other extreme.  Without curtains the sun woke us when it rose at 05:00 each day.  I don’t think I ever woke when it was dark, instead waking up every hour or so after daylight came round and having that choice to either doze off again or stay awake and consider the day ahead.

The extreme darkness meant that we slept deeply and healed fantastically well each night, waking in a fit state for another day of cycling with many of the previous evening’s aches and pains miraculously cleared away.

Bringing the lesson back home

So, thanks to an enjoyable reminder while on holiday, I remembered that I need to apply my summer sleep cycle to how I live and work at home where artificial light allows me to work all night (if I really want to). 

I get longer days but I should be able to handle these well if I listen to my body.  In particular I need to make sure I don’t stay up too late after it gets dark otherwise I will end up compromising how much sleep I get since the intense morning sun prevents me sleeping to my usual time the next morning.  So I’m doing my best to remember to go to bed on time, no matter what excitement is happening. 

What’s earlier?  Theoretically about 9pm, with 15-30 minutes of book reading and then putting the light out and going to sleep.  Of course, when I was busy at work last week that crept to 10.30pm, but I’m back on track after a long bank holiday weekend.  It means I can sleep for 8 hours (which tends to be how long I naturally sleep if I’m not pumped up with cortisol or emotionally and physically exhausted) and still wake at 5.30am to the delights of sunshine and birdsong without feeling sleep deprived.

In fact, waking up to sunshine and birdsong should keep my hormones in check a little.  In itself that should mean I am less likely to get stressed too which would be fantastic!

Related posts:

1. Lessons learned: sleep
2. Lessons learned this week: the art of relaxation
3. Lessons learned this week: the sleepless side-effect of dieting

It started to become an embarrassment.  If you asked me in the evening what I’d had for lunch I wouldn’t remember.  You could introduce me to someone and a sentence later I would already have forgotten their name.  I could leave the house knowing that there was something I needed to attend to urgently when I got to work and I would return home that evening having completely forgotten to do it.  In fact, I became quite adept at phoning my home voicemail from work and leaving myself brief messages with reminders of things I needed to deal with when I got home.

In January I did a blog-watch about using exercise for mental health.  There is absolutely no question in my mind that my memory has improved noticeably since I started doing a robust program of resistance training.  However, I’ve seen a couple of articles recently covering a couple of other things that may enhance memory which I wanted to share.

• First up, before looking at how we can enhance our memory, here’s a boost for women!  In a study that was carried out on 9,600 middle aged men and women in the UK it was revealed that the women had better memory than men for word-recall tests than the men.  It’s probably only fair to mention that they also made more mistakes than men on a later test, involving crossing out as many “Ps” and “Ws” on a page of random letters.
• That study was part of the National Child Development Study which has followed the lives of all these individuals since their birth in 1958.  So what else did they find?  For starters it seems that non-smokers (including the ex-smokers) performed better on the word-recall tests.  So if you want to improve your memory and you are a smoker then start by giving up smoking.  They also found that those who exercised at least once a month performed better on all the tests, on average, than those who didn’t.  Once a month is not a particularly high amount of exercise so it’s really pleasing to see that even this small amount of exercise could confer mental benefits to the participants.
• A study carried out at Tel-Aviv University also concluded that magnesium can boost memory.  However, it is worth noting that magnesium supplements didn’t seem to do the trick so yet again we are reminded that nutrients are best conferred to the body when consumed in the food where they occur.  It has now been seen with numerous different nutrients that the body absorbs them to best effect with other “carriers” that occur in the foods where the nutrients can be found.
• Finally, as a bit of a reminder, the article in That’s Fit that raised awareness of the magnesium study also highlights some other things, such as exercise and iron that have been shown to improve memory.

Well, that list of things has certainly given me something to think about.  For now I will stick with the exercise as the best way to enhance my memory, but it might be worth considering whether I’m getting sufficient nutrients as well to ensure I keep my mind in optimal health.

Is there anything else that you know of that can help improve memory?

Related posts:

1. Blog-watch: exercise for mental health and brain development
2. Blog-watch: pregnancy updates
3. Blog-watch: some pregnancy articles

This is the start of a series of posts I’m going to write exploring a range of issues surrounding weight loss, including diets, exercise, measuring weight loss and keeping the weight off once it has gone.

Working to achieve the unachievable perfect figure

Often we blame our desire to maintain good figures on peer pressure and the images that we see in the media of celebrities with “perfect” figures. 

For a start, let’s squash the myth that celebrities all have perfect figures.  Many celebrities, such as Cameron Diaz and Britney Spears certainly do have incredible figures, but they achieve them through a lot of hard work and even they rarely reach the levels of perfection that we see.  So what is going on?

The answer lies in the belief we all have of what the perfect figure should look like.  In some ways it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.  We believe that the perfect figure should have a tiny waist, significant glutes, large chest, slim thighs and so on, so the media give us what we want to see by airbrushing the photos of celebrities and models. 

These airbrushed images put pressure on those same celebrities to maintain their figures at all times as close to the airbrushed image as they can manage.  There is always a risk that a cruel paparazzi will snap an image of them when they are out and about and will use those images to damage their reputation when their star is no longer in the ascendant. 

Meanwhile we all see these airbrushed images and see the amazing figures that our celebrities are forced to maintain at all times and start to believe that it is achievable.  Once we all start to get close to these unachievable figures the media can afford to airbrush the images a little more without risking attack that the figures they are presenting us with are unbelievable. 

And so we become victims of our own celebrity culture.

Women fear fat

With all these airbrushed images of perfect female figures that surround us it should come as no surprise that women now fear body fat.  A study carried out by Owens, Allen and Spangler at Brigham Young University, due to be published in the psychology journal Personality and Individual Differences in May, looked at the brain scans of people as they were showed images of slender and larger strangers, both male and female.  The participants had been asked to make evaluations of their own bodies in relation to the images displayed.

The researchers noted that women had a spike of activity, evidencing anxiety, when they saw images of an overweight stranger.  This happened even if the test-subjects had no history of eating disorders and projected an attitude of not caring about their body image.  Those who had a history of eating disorders showed an even more profound response in the self-reflection centre of the brain (medial prefrontal cortex) and showed signs of severe unhappiness and self-loathing.

The part I found most fascinating was that there doesn’t seem to have been a counter-reaction when these women were shown images of slender women and men didn’t have any of these reactions.  It seems that men aren’t as hung up on the self-image issue.

What can we do?

I suspect that most women reading this would like to achieve their own idea of the perfect body, so the first thing to do is to take a sense check.  Are you hopes and expectations reasonable?  What are your goals and can these be achieved?  If they are very long term goals then you might want to set yourself some intermediate goals too.

I hope that this series will be of interest and help to all of you who are trying to lose weight or tone and tighten up your figures ready for the summer.  I’m currently on my own weight loss journey and am looking forward to learning some new tips as I go through this series.

If there is anything in particular you would like me to explore, please let me know and I’ll build it into my research.

Related posts:

1. Weight loss progress and ongoing success
2. Exercise for weight loss – other considerations
3. Top ten tips for writing a weight loss diet