The 'Rest' of the Story
Bob Condor is co-author of The Good Mood Diet and managing editor of health at MSN.com.
In my years of writing newspaper and Internet columns about health and quality of life, there is one topic that never seems emphasized enough. And, no, it's not the need to drink more water.
The underrated subject is getting enough sleep and rest for your body. Understanding how much sleep we need is the first step. Developing and carrying out a plan is the challenge. But making the effort has a huge Good Mood payoff.
Even when we understand and accomplish adequate sleep patterns, there is still the matter of giving our bodies enough rest. For instance, there are times when laying low instead of going to the gym is the healthier move. Plus, resting your ambition (translation: turning off the e-mail and cell phones) can translate to more rest and better relationships.
Just how much sleep we need is a matter of debate. There are studies to show that the typical American adult will avoid sleep deprivation by logging seven to eight hours per night. Some people swear they can thrive on six hours or even five.
They are kidding themselves.
That's what you will hear from researchers such as Rosalind Cartwright at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. The human body needs more recharge time than that.
On the other hand, there is evidence that we require a bit less sleep as we grow older, so six hours might be a more feasible benchmark for people 60 years and over. The vital strategy for you is to be honest about how rested and energetic you feel after, say, six, seven or eight hours of sleep. Keep a notebook to record how you feel upon waking, then midday and again at about three in the afternoon, when our bodies' biological clocks strike a low ebb no matter how much we sleep the previous night.
Your notes can be short. The idea is to track your energy levels. Look for a pattern to determine if you feel any better on seven vs. eight, or six vs. seven hours of sleep. Some of us will find sleeping more than eight hours leads to notes such as "foggy in the a.m." or "lethargic still at noon." Others will hit a body groove at eight-and-a-half hours.
If sleeping through the night is a problem-and studies show sleeping in solid time blocks is critical to adequate rest patterns-try what Cartwright says helps many people in her sleep lab: "Wake up at the same time every day, weekends included." This move helps the body regulate itself. You will find it easier to fall asleep and stay asleep.
One sleep study sticks out in my mind: Researchers at the University of Chicago conducted an experiment in which the sleep patterns of healthy 20-something men was manipulated for two weeks. The sleep deprivation produced a scary yet replicable result: Those college-age volunteers who tested so strong before the study were retested and evaluated as having the vital signs of a "typical 70-year-old U.S. male" after just 14 nights of ragged sleep.
The Good Mood Diet encourages sleep in many ways, including the regular fueling of the body throughout the day. The daily lineup of meals and snacks-see Chapter 3 for 14 days of Good Mood menus-keeps our hormonal systems running consistently and smoothly. The result is a body more capable of resting when the time calls for it.
Plus, there is the Good Mood bonus at the end of each day: A cup of hot cocoa, which no doubt lets you get deep into sleep that night. Just be sure to use non-Dutched, no-alkali cocoa powders to make sure you get the Good Mood phytochemicals.