Wellness Wednesday

Sleep

It is a common thing we hear, see around us and do. Ignoring our needs for sleep. I ll sleep when I m dead , who need sleep? What is that thing you call sleep?? But what about what our body and mental health have to say? What re the consequences of the lack of sleep? So it seems sleep and mental health are tightly related and some time it can draw us in a vicious circle .

Key points about sleep and mental health
1. Sleep problems may be both a cause and result of mental health conditions.
2. Not enough or poor quality sleep affects your psychological state and can contribute to developing a mental health condition, such as anxiety or depression.
3. And if you have a mental health condition, it can be harder to get good quality sleep, which can contribute to developing a sleep condition, such as insomnia.
4. For these reasons, it's important to learn how to improve your sleep.
5. There are steps you can take on your own and there is also specialised help available.
6. Improving the quality of your sleep can help prevent mental health conditions from developing and have a positive impact on an existing mental health condition.

It is often difficult to realize the reason why we suffering , we often find ourselves adopting bad habits that have repercussions . Who knew that skipping sleep leads to insomnia !??!


From <https://www.healthnavigator.org.nz/healthy-living/s/sleep-and-mental-health/>

Today Wellness Wednesday will be about a little bit of survival natural knowledge. Earth offers all sorts of remedies, sadly our city life has had the effect to make us forget about it. Of course the city does not have those natural resources so we create our own. But acquiring those forgotten remedies might be interesting for some of us!
So today is about Spider webs, let s imagine that we re in the forest, gone for a jog or a long walk and that sadly we tripped and hurt our self badly enough to make a gash in our skin, that is bleeding quit alot. What to do? having no first aid kit. Well that is when spider webs come into action. "Spider webs make for an excellent natural treatment for healing cuts and scrapes! In ancient Greece and Rome, doctors used spider webs to make bandages for their patients. Spider webs supposedly have natural antiseptic and anti-fungal properties, which can help keep wounds clean and prevent infection. It’s also said that spider webs are rich in vitamin K, which helps promote clotting." Nature does offer alot of solutions to our various problems and getting to know them can be a very educational activity.
May the force be with you all

https://www.loredohands.com/blog/post/bandages.html

Vitamin D

I know its not Wednesday but thought I'd just post a little bit on Vitamin D (inspired by Edan's journal entry today).

All vitamins are important and the vast majority are available through a healthy diet. If you top-up with a daily multi-vitamin and have a healthy, balanced diet you are very unlikely to be deficient in any vitamins - apart from - Vitamin D.

There is a huge amount of confusion in the literature, in public health, and understandably amongst the general public regarding 'D' so let’s break it down:

Vitamin ‘D’ is unlike other vitamins in two main ways:
- Unlike other vitamins – which we must ingest – ‘D’ is synthesised in the body on exposure to sufficient sunlight.

- ‘D’ is not present in significant enough quantities in most food to achieve healthy levels. Fatty fish is best, but because ‘D’ is not stable under exposure to heat – you probably need to eat it raw. Even then it is not feasible to eat enough of it to meet your requirements.

How to produce enough of it:
- Primarily it is produced under the surface of the skin, when exposed to direct sunlight. However, the synthesis of ‘D’ in the skin occurs in a very narrow Ultra-Violet light range. Unless the sun is at least 45o high in the sky, the Earth’s atmosphere blocks this UV light. This means, at latitudes of 45o or higher you will not be able to naturally produce any ‘D’ for six months of the year, at least. Even during the summer, morning and evening sunlight will be insufficient. You must be in direct sunlight – glass will also block the necessary UV wavelengths. Sunscreen blocks this UV too.

- ‘D’ is fat soluble so providing you stored loads during exposure in the summer, this can be released by burning fat in the winter. Traditionally, this wasn’t a problem. We’d be outside in the summer, ‘fattening-up’ with fresh food and loading that fat with vitamin D. In the winter, calorie intake would drop, we’d burn the fat reserves, and release the ‘D’ whilst the sun was low in the sky.

- Now, with indoor lifestyles, and use of sunscreen when we are outside, this natural balance has been completely lost.

- The only alternative is to supplement. Here, however, there is a significant problem. Due to a statistical error, the RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) for Vitamin D is too low:
Statistical Error in calculating Vitamin D RDA
RDA is currently 400 – 600IU (International Units). Recent research suggests 2000-4000 is safe, and reasonable.

- If you have darker skin, your ability to synthesise vitamin ‘D’ will be further constrained

Why is this a problem?
Vitamin D is incredibly important across a range of physiological processes:
- Bone development, strength, and repair
- Muscle Function
- Immune system effectiveness
- Normal inflammatory response
- Mental Health

- Vitamin D deficiency, and insufficiency, are linked to some cancers, virus induced respiratory diseases, asthma, irritable bowel syndrome, type 2 diabetes, ADHD, some forms of clinical depression, geriatric dementia, and pregnancy complications.

- All cause mortality is also linked to Vitamin D deficiency, and insufficiency.

Although the threat of COVID-19 has greatly diminished, I include the following merely to highlight how much these health professionals supplement Vitamin
Vitamin D Letter
Vitamin D is rarely a cure for anything, certainly not COVID-19, however, the bottom line is that supplementing 2000-4000 UI of Vitamin D is probably the easiest and cheapest way to improve your long-term physical, and mental health.

Do it!