1. Good Sleep Hygiene Handout.
- Maintain a regular bedtime and awakening time schedule including weekends. Get up about the same time every day, regardless of what time you fell a sleep.
- Establish a regular, relaxing bedtime routine. Relaxing rituals prior to bedtime many include a warm bath or shower, aroma therapy, reading, or listening to soothing music.
- Sleep in a room that is dark, quiet, comfortable, and cool; sleep on comfortable mattress and pillows.
- Use your bedroom only for sleep and sex. Have work materials, computers, and TVs in another room.
- Finish eating at least 2-3 hours prior to your regular bedtime.
- Avoid coffee / Tea within 6 hours; alcohol & smoking within 2 hours of bedtime.
- Exercise regularly; finish a few hours before bedtime.
- Avoid naps
- Go to bed only when sleepy. Lay in bed only for sleeping, not for work or watching TV.
- Designate another time to write down problems & possible solutions in the late afternoon or early evening, not close to bedtime.
- After 10-15 minutes of not being able to get to sleep, go to another room to read or watch TV until sleepy.
Take a Sleep Test.
- Do you snore loudly ?
- Do you have choking / difficulty in breathing at night ?
- Are you tired on waking up or wake up with a headache ?
- Are you satisfied with your sleep, do you have difficulty in falling asleep ?
- Are you overweight ?
- Are you sleepy, tired during the day or ever doze off while reading, Driving etc. ?
- Do you have leg pains upon lying down for sleep along with jerking of legs during sleep ?
- Do you have to go to the bathroom frequently at night ?
- Do you have High Blood Pressure/ Diabetes, which are difficult to control ?
- Does your child have restless sleep with noisy breathing ?
- Is there a drop in your child’s grades ?
NOTE : If you have answered “Yes “ to any 2 or more questions, this could be the symptoms of sleep disorder and you may attend any Sleep Disorder clink or consult some Yoga Teacher .
2. Smartphone Hazard.
Technology is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand and stabs you in the back with the other. And modern technology has proven this. Not over the top dangers like an exploding battery.
Your phone may be the reason you will look ten years older than you are, get early deep-set wrinkles, get crow’s feet around your eyes faster, need power glasses much quicker and go in for major ailments and may be surgery much earlier than anticipated.
Without even knowing it we are contorting our faces, squinting our eyes, straining our face muscles, and generally doing everything to make sure our faces show the brunt we bear of our forever connected lives. Plastic surgeons have found that their clients are coming in much younger and have deep wrinkles at the strangest of places. New surveys show that phone usage minus voice calls has risen by almost 3000 percent. Smartphone sales are now outstripping the sale of any other device.
Your phone is extremely unhygienic. It’s just that nobody is willing to listen. So, let me try and put it in a different way. Your mobile phone is 1000 times more unhygienic, germ-infested, bacteria laden dirtier than the inside of your toilet bowl. Would you put your lips one inch close to the inside of your toilet bowl and still be comfortable? You breathe into your phone, you spray all the lovely insides of your mouth directly onto your phone when you speak loudly.
The idea to write this column isn’t to frighten you off technology. It is more a cautionary tale.
So just take following steps / precautions :
- Wipe your cell phone clean every night with a cotton wipe.
- Shut off your mobile phone when you get back home. It will be great for your face.
- Limit use of Mobile to communicate urgent messages .
- Do not use Mobile for chatting.
- Avoid Mobile for songs and audio/ video applications as you have to keep it close which means more radiation exposure
- Do not hold near chest area and genitals .