suzie, Author at Curves Welcome

How a Restful Night’s Sleep Can Benefit You

by suzie | Jul 21, 2020 | Articles

A good night’s sleep is critical to one’s well-being. Sleep plays an important part in many aspects of health, including recovering from addiction, injuries, and illness. When you burn the candle at both ends, poor sleep is sure to follow. And regular poor sleep patterns can have a negative impact on your mind and body.

Creating a good sleep pattern can help you to get the relaxation your body and your mind needs each day. Focusing on the quality of your sleep can have massive benefits to your overall health, not to mention your mood.

Concentration

Poor concentration and being easily distracted can be directly correlated to poor or non-restorative sleep. This can have negative implications on your day-to-day life, especially if you have stressful events or a busy day coming up. Stay alert and improve your strategic thinking and alertness by tweaking your sleeping patterns to help you get more restful and energizing nights sleep.

For some people, it might be difficult to get a restful night’s sleep that boosts memory, energy levels, and concentration. The reason could be an underlying condition like sleep apnea. Sleep apnea is a significant cause of disrupted sleep, meaning you might need sleep apnea treatment to help you finally get the restful nights sleep that has been eluding you.

Boost your immune system

Most people know that when they’re run down, their immune system suffers and impacts their health. A breakdown in immunity can mean it takes longer to recover from minor ailments such as colds and flu. Boost your immune system by ensuring you’re taking the steps to encourage a night of healthy sleep to help your body identify, remember, and attack the bugs that attempt to hijack your health system.

Emotional well-being

How often have you felt down, stressed, irrational, or anxious due to a miserable night’s sleep? Lying awake in the dead of night can amplify your fears and worries. Removing the time you spend awake each night and working towards a restful night’s sleep can help you to feel better in the morning, making you feel better and ready for the day ahead. In stressful times, one of the first areas to be impacted is your sleep. But working on creating a routine that encourages a consistent and rejuvenating sleep can help you to prepare yourself emotionally for anything you need to face.

Tips to a Good Night’s Sleep

Try these easy tips to encourage a healthy sleeping habit and improve your health and well-being.

Remove electronics from the bedroom
Turn TV off
Use lavender to help you to relax
Avoid strenuous exercise when close to bedtime
Try a relaxing bath
Indulge in meditation and mindfulness to help you calm your mind before bed
Find your optimal sleeping temperature. Being too hot or too cold can interrupt your sleep during the night
Change your mattress

Also, if you wake up in the middle of the night with a plaguing thought, jot it down on a notepad placed by your bedside. This will get the thought out of your head and prevent it from playing on a loop and onto the paper for you to deal with when you’re awake. When you allow the thought(s) to stay in your mind, it will loop endlessly. Soon you’ll find yourself staying awake so you don’t forget the thought. By placing it on a notepad, you’re essentially safeguarding it. Your mind will then be able to rest knowing you won’t lose it to sleep.

And one more very effective tip: Sleep with your dog! Inviting your furry family member into bed with you can have amazing benefits.

Applying some of these tactics should help to get your mind into rest mode and spark pleasant dreams.

Cheers!

Beat Chronic Worrying and Start Enjoying Life

by suzie | Jul 20, 2020 | Articles

When stressful life events occur, it’s normal to feel anxious or worried. However, chronic stress or an overactive response to stress can have a negative impact on your quality of life. If you find that you often feel anxious or overwhelmed, it’s important to take steps to alter your mindset. To get started, take a look at these effective ways to beat chronic worrying.

Check your health

Health anxiety is a common problem, but you can keep this at bay by having regular check-ups. A routine assessment with your physician, an annual hearing test and regular eye exams will give you peace of mind that you’re not experiencing any health problems. Furthermore, attending routine appointments will ensure you’re making your health a top priority.

Accept things you can’t change

Although it’s normal to worry about some situations, there are so many things in life that we simply can’t change. If you’re spending time feeling anxious about things you have no control over, you’re experiencing the negative effects without being able to make a positive difference. Recognize when things can’t be changed and commit to letting go of related worries and anxiety.

Make a plan

If something’s bothering you and there’s something you can do about it, make a plan. Even writing down your thoughts and concerns will help to unburden you and alleviate some of the worries you have. What’s more, having a workable plan will make you feel more in control and positive about resolving the situation.

Observe your worries

When you’re overwhelmed with worrying thoughts, don’t try to fight them or reason with them. Sometimes, simply letting them pass through your mind is the best way to let go out of them. This is a technique that’s strongly associated with mindfulness and it’s extremely effective for many people. With daily practice, you can build a mindfulness toolkit that helps you to cope with any stressful emotions you may experience.

Seek professional help

If you find that chronic worrying is affecting your quality of life, don’t be afraid to seek help. A counsellor, therapist or doctor can help you to address the root cause of your anxieties and deal with them in a healthy way. If you’re unsure why you feel anxious, stressed or worried, this can be a useful way to identify your feelings and overcome them.

Stay active

Exercise is a fantastic way to combat stress, so commit to being active and let your worries melt away. When you exercise, your body releases endorphins, which help to improve your mood and reduce stress. With regular daily activity, you can lower your stress levels and start enjoying life more.

Overcoming Anxiety

Anxiety is a common issue, no matter what your age, gender or ethnicity. However, you don’t have to deal with chronic anxiety alone. With so many people experiencing chronic stress, it’s easy to find support face-to-face and online. Join support groups, talk to friends and family and practice stress relaxation techniques to find what works best for you.

4 Reasons You Shouldn’t Automatically Use Medication to Solve Health Problems

by suzie | Jul 17, 2020 | Articles, Health and Wellness

When you get sick or have some sort of health issue, your instinct makes you reach for the medicine cabinet. You pop a couple of pills and hope that they solve the problem. In many cases, you get relief from your issues, and it genuinely helps. However, should you automatically opt for medication when you have a health problem?

Full disclosure, I’m obviously not a doctor so don’t take anything in this guide as medical advice. If you have a health issue, always see a medical professional to get a proper diagnosis and treatment plan. Still, here are a few reasons you might want to consider avoiding medication or trying other ideas before you reach for it.

There may be natural alternatives

In a lot of cases, you can find natural alternatives to prescription medication. This is obviously preferable as natural things can improve your overall health, while drugs fill it with chemicals. There aren’t natural alternatives in some instances, but it pays to do some research to make sure. However, look at something simple like nausea or stomach pain. A lot of people suffer from these health issues, particularly pregnant women. The instinctive reaction is to get anti-nausea tablets and take them. But, you can use ginger to provide natural relief instead!

Sometimes, natural alternatives to medication can be employed to avoid needing to take medication. If you have high blood pressure, changes to your eating and lifestyle habits can naturally lower it to a safe range, preventing the need to take any medication. So, don’t always assume drugs are the answer; you could find a more natural, chemical-free alternative.

Medication can be addictive

It’s far too common for someone to become addicted to medication. You see this a lot with opioids and other pain-relief drugs. People get into a habit of relying on drugs to ease symptoms, making it impossible to live life without them.

Unfortunately, drugs also have secondary effects on your body that can be very damaging. It’s also far too easy to become addicted to prescription medication. So, you may want to consider avoiding it if you have addictive tendencies or are worried about depending too much on a particular drug.

If you feel that you’re addicted to prescription medication, it’s worth taking steps to tackle your addiction. The first step is to discuss the issue with your doctor. But, you should also seek help from a specialized drug addiction treatment center.

If you search for outpatient drug treatment near me on Google or ask your doctor for a referral to a local center, you can start taking positive action to curb your addiction.

Medication fills your body with chemicals

As mentioned previously, medication can put chemicals in your body. Some of these work to provide relief from your problems, but others cause more harm to other regions of your body. Adderall is a great example as this drug is commonly used to treat ADHD and other conditions. The problem is that it causes havoc to your hormonal system and can create lots of chemical imbalances. To make matters worse, you can have Adderall in your system for a few days following ingestion. So, these effects can linger and cause further problems.

Some pain-relief meds are also a prime example of how chemicals can harm the body. Yes, you get relief from pain, but a lot of this medication damages the stomach lining and can cause ulcers with constant use. Even if you need medication for your health issue, it can be helpful to avoid it as much as possible, preventing too many chemicals from building up.

You don’t always tackle the problem head on

The biggest issue with a lot of medication is that you rarely tackle the health problem head-on. I’ve mentioned pain-relief drugs a lot, mainly because they’re so common. But, if you have chronic back pain, taking medication will hardly help. Sure, you get temporary relief, but the cause of your issue hasn’t been tackled. If you underwent rehab therapy and did corrective stretches/exercises, this would attack the cause of your back pain. In the long run, you’ll be pain-free without any medication.

Sometimes there are health issues that cannot be solved. In these instances, medication is the only way you can treat the problem. As such, you should obviously take it if it’s the only way to help! Still, it’s worth considering why you have a health issue before you jump to the medicine cabinet. Is this a problem that can be solved with natural remedies or lifestyle changes?

That’s as good a place as any to wrap up this article! Overall, the message is that you don’t have to use medication to treat a lot of your health problems. Of course, make sure you follow the advice of your doctor or another health professional before doing anything. In fact, if you automatically self-prescribe medication for any health issue, you’ll be surprised at how often a doctor will provide alternatives that have longer-lasting effects.

Common Causes of Hearing Loss

by suzie | Jul 3, 2020 | Articles, Health and Wellness

Hearing loss can happen to anyone, at any age, for all kinds of reasons. Hearing loss can be caused by illness, genetics, or lifestyle factors like loud noises. Here are some of the most common causes of hearing loss.

Otosclerosis

This is a disease of the middle ear that makes it harder for the tiny bones in your middle ear to move. This then causes a conductive hearing loss. The condition is usually treated with surgery.

Meniere’s Disease

This is an inner ear problem. Meniere’s disease doesn’t have a known cause but usually starts in people between the ages of 30 and 50. If you have this disease, you will experience sensorineural hearing loss. You may feel dizzy or experience ringing in the ears or become sensitive to loud noises. The hearing loss comes and goes at first, but some loss will become permanent over time.

Autoimmune Inner Ear Disease

An autoimmune disorder is a disorder that causes the body to attack itself. This kind of hearing loss can come on very quickly. If you suddenly lose your hearing, you should see a doctor as soon as you possibly can so medical treatment can be applied to keep the loss of hearing to a minimum.

Medications

Some medications can cause hearing loss. Talk to your doctor about the medicines that you take. Medicines that can impact hearing include:

Aminoglycoside antibiotics, such as streptomycin, neomycin, or kanamycin
Large amounts of aspirin
Loop diuretics, like lasix or ethacrynic acid
Some chemotherapy drugs

Loud Noise

Very loud noises can cause permanent damage to your hearing. Noise-induced hearing loss is painless and usually progresses over time. This kind of loss is common in those who work in loud environments, such as on building sites or in music venues. Always wear noise protection to protect your ears. Hearing a very loud noise, like an explosion, can cause sudden hearing loss. Loud noises can also contribute to conditions like tinnitus. Treating tinnitus usually focusses on managing the problem, not curing it.

Acoustic Neuroma

This is a kind of tumor that can cause hearing loss. You may also experience a full feeling or ringing in the ears. If you have an acoustic neuroma, you will need to seek medical treatment for help.

Physical Head Injury

A traumatic brain injury, or TBI, a hole in the eardrum, or damage to the middle ear can cause hearing loss. If you’ve been in an accident that has damaged your hearing, seek help from a doctor as soon as possible to limit the damage done.

Presbycusis

This is a sensorineural hearing loss. It usually happens as you get older. You start to notice that speech sounds muffled or unclear. You might also start to have to ask people to repeat themselves or turn up the TV much louder than before in order to hear it. There are several options for this kind of hearing loss, such as learning sign language or lip-reading or wearing a hearing aid.

Improving Your Health While Loving Yourself

by suzie | Jun 11, 2020 | Articles

Far too often, the need to live a healthy lifestyle is conflated with unhealthy ideas about losing weight fast and conforming to body types that are not always achievable. Improving your health is an admirable goal, whatever your motivation. Some people may want to lose weight, others might wish they had more energy throughout the day, and some people may simply want to feel stronger and fitter. However, with all the negative messages about body image filtering through the media, it can be hard to stick to your aims without feeling pressured into changing your body for the wrong reasons. Here are some ways to improve your health while staying in love with the uniqueness of your body.

Find Exercise You Enjoy

We all know we should exercise, right? We are encouraged to go for early morning runs, go to the gym, or complete Youtube videos at home. However, all of this is pointless if you don’t enjoy the activity at the moment. If you’re slogging through a run while hating every second of it, that’s no longer about improving your health. It’s about punishing your body into submission – and that’s not what you want at all! If you’re trying to exercise more, find a way to do it that you enjoy. Whether that’s swimming, dancing, cycling, or team sports, it will help you to stay feeling positive about your body while you improve your health.

No Fad Diets!

This should go without saying, but fad diets can be very tempting as they offer such quick results. However, it’s important to remember that these results are often not about improving your health, but about achieving very superficial goals of weight loss, which are almost never longlasting. To improve your health while still loving your body, treat your nutrition as a long-term project, making slow changes, and learning new recipes at a steady pace to start putting goodness into your body. If you’re struggling for ideas, find a nutrition coach to help you know where to start and how to take care of yourself in the best way possible.

Allow for Setbacks

This is real life, and nothing ever goes entirely to plan. If you are going to beat yourself up every time you take a step backward, miss a day’s exercise, or get takeout, you’ll only be putting unfair pressure on yourself. Instead, come to terms with the idea that improving your health will be a long road with pitfalls and bumps along the way. These are all part of the journey, and if you can embrace that and stay grateful to your body for everything it’s attempting, you will be able to overcome them that much easier.

Focus on the Rest

Your desire to improve your health should never take over your life. Even while you exercise a little bit more, and prepare healthy food, don’t neglect the other areas in your life. Make sure you’re seeing your friends and pursuing your hobbies that aren’t connected to bodily health. If you’re writing a book, keep going! If you love playing music or watching TV shows, set aside time for these activities alongside your other routines. If you’re a guitar fan and have always wanted to learn how to play, perhaps browse a free to get yourself started. The important part is that you continue learning and enjoying your time. This way, you will keep your life healthy and balanced in every way.

All the best,
Suzie Carr

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How a Restful Night’s Sleep Can Benefit You