Monthly Archives: November 2015

Sleep Hygiene

 in Podcasts / Sleep  tagged bed / emotions / environment / food / habits / hygiene / mindset / risk / Sleep by

A Definition

Sleep Hygiene: how conducive your night time and bedtime habits are for restful sleep on a regular basis

Your body performs important processes while you sleep.

Risk of disease is increased when you don’t get enough sleep.  Heart disease, diabetes, and stroke, just to name a few.

4 Areas of Sleep Hygiene

  1. Environment
    • dark (all of our light-emitting toys are bad for our sleep) – your body makes serotonin stimulated by light, and then melatonin when the light is gone.
    • temperature – your body sleeps well when it’s cool, kind of like hibernation. Gotta get past REM sleep because REM sleep is not restful sleep
  2. Habits
    • no naps – recovery processes can be inefficient
    • exercise (vigorous exercise during the day; slow & calming exercise late at night)
    • getting adequate natural light – so your brain isn’t confused about which chemical it needs to make
    • consistent routine – your brain likes predictable patterns
  3. Consumption
    • stimulants – caffeine, nicotine
    • alcohol – initially makes you sleepy, but can disrupt sleep when the liver finishes processing it into sugar
    • large meals – can cause indigestion which can disrupt sleep
    • drastic dietary changes – fluctuating amounts of sugar in the blood stream or digestive discomfort
  4. Mindset
    • bed is for sleep – not a place for work or studying or eating
    • avoid emotional stress – positive (i.e. excitement) or negative (i.e. anger)

Tidbits

CPAP machine – helps in sleep apnea, which is wear the body doesn’t get enough oxygen during sleep.  Oxygen is needed for all sorts of processes.  If the body can’t get the oxygen, then it probably isn’t using the nutrients and energy sources available, and it can lead to feeling awful, even after a night of sleep.

Nothing good comes from a lack of sleep.

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Music Credits:  “Radio Martini” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)  Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Thrive with sleep [Show Notes]

 in Podcasts / Sleep  tagged disease / emotions / health / productivity / risk / Sleep / stress / wellness by

3 Areas Thrive When You Sleep

1. Productivity 

  • Memory
  • Attention span
  • Creativity

2. Health

  • Decreased risk for cardiac disease
  • Inflammatory chemicals are cleansed out
  • Weight management – certain metabolism processes only happen while you’re sleeping
  • Tissues heal and rebuild
  • Reaction time improves

3. Emotions

  • Stress hormones are removed from your system
  • Gives your serotonin production a break, so you get a fresh supply in the morning (Serotonin is your happy chemical)

The Bottom Line

The cells in your brain (neurons) run on electricity (aka the flow of positive and negative charges).  Sleep allows the electricity to reset, so it’s really to flow quickly and efficiently the next morning.  You live longer when you get enough sleep.

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Know your body, love yourself [Show Notes]

 in Podcasts  tagged BoPoTribe / confidence / health / knowledge / support / wellness by

Three ways to love yourself

1.  Know how your body works and how to know when something goes wrong

2.  If you have a chronic disease, know the ins and outs of it

2b.Finding friends or a community to support you

3.  Do research about the decisions that you make, don’t just trust ads and fads

4*. Choose a healthcare team that is willing to listen to you and work with you instead of just working on you.

*Bonus!

No matter what method you choose to enhance your health, my goal is for you to be empowered with knowledge and confidence to make a decision you’re happy with, and not be bullied into doing something you don’t want to do.

Just remember, we will not find you in a textbook!

Holla

Yes, and I brag on @RachelCMayo – again!  Because, well, she’s AWESOME!

#BoPoTribe stands for Body Positivity, where we believe all bodies are beautiful bodies.  Founded by Susie @BeautyWithPlus

You can find the supportive community on Facebook, follow them on Twitter and Periscope, @bopotribe.

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Location of Important Organs

 in Blog  tagged anatomy / brain / heart / location / lungs / organs / stomach by
Ever have a twinge and wonder what organs or body parts are in that area?  When the next step is to run a Google symptom search, you will find yourself faced with a potentially deadly diagnosis in approximately 3.2 seconds!
To avoid the unnecessary stress and anxiety of appointments with Dr. Google, help yourself make wise health decisions by knowing the approximate location of your organs.

Important Organs

Brain:  It’s in your head (obviously).  Interesting tidbit: your main is made of nerves but they are not sensory neurons, so your brain doesn’t feel.  The other things around your brain feel, like membranes and connective tissue inside and outside the skull.
Thyroid:  It is on the front of your neck right above the middle dip between your collar bones.
Heart:  Ball of your fist and put it right in the middle of your chest (yes ladies, right between your boobs).
Lungs:  They actually start way up high right below your collarbones and extend down and stop right about your last complete rib.
Stomach:  It starts in the middle, right under your sternum (or breastbone) and curves to the left. Interesting tidbit: laying on your left side causes gastric emptying, which is when the stomach dumps its contents into the top of the small intestines.
Liver:  It is shaped like a triangle on your right side, starts under your ribs. The long side of the triangle crosses over what you might call “the pit of your stomach”, the short side extends down about even with your belly button.
Gallbladder:  It’s located under the liver, a little to the right of “the pit of your stomach”.
Small intestine:  It snakes its way left and right across your abdominal region
Kidneys:  They are towards your back, under the bottom few ribs.
Colon:   It is right above your tailbone.  Interesting tidbit: this is why constipation can cause back pain.
Appendix:  It is on your right side, above your hip bone.
Bladder:  It is right above the pubic bone (the middle bone that connects the two sides of the pelvis). I mean, we all know what it feels like to have to pee, right?
So this is a list of the major things that you can’t see but you might be able to feel if something isn’t quite right.

Special Episode #1: Interview with Rachel Mayo

 in Diabetes / Podcasts / Special Edition  tagged Diabetes / education / Periscope / Type 1 by

Hemoglobin A1C

This test measures the percentage of your hemoglobin (the protein in your red blood cells that carry oxygen) has been coated in glucose. When there’s a lot of extra sugar floating around, it tends to stick to the other things floating around with it.  Red blood cells live for 120 days*, so that’s a lot of time to let sugar hitch a ride.  And while a blood glucose measurement gives a snapshot of what the blood sugar level is right now, the A1c measurements gives us an idea of what the blood sugar level has been during all the times you’re not pricking your finger to measure over the last 3 months*.

*I do realize that 120 days equals 4 months and not 3 months, but the really old and decrepit RBC’s that are close to their expiration are exactly that – decrepit, so they’re not in good enough shape to give us a trustworthy measurement.

Goal

For those with diabetes, the goal is to have an A1c >7%.  For the average non-diabetic, A1c is ~ 5% (though with the American lifestyle, that “normal” number is creeping up – but that has more to do with Type 2 Diabetes).

Rachel received lots of support through the people she met through the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) and continues to support their cause and actively helps other T1D’s get connected.  She also participates in her local chapter of JDRF and participates in the Annual One Walk in Nashville (that’s where I got to hang out with Rachel for this interview!) You can find out what JDRF is all about by visiting JDRF.org and walk.JDRF.com.

++Time Sensitive ++ —> Follow Rachel on social media during the month of November to catch her Diabetes education Periscopes.

Meme of Rachel's "Type 1 Diabetic" tattoo, @rachelcmayo on instagram, periscope, pinterest, and twitter

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Insulin is not bad [Show Notes]

 in Diabetes / Podcasts  tagged Diabetes / diets / fat / glucose / insulin by

An image of a hand underling the word "DIABETES" in red marker. All Type 1 diabetics and many Type 2 diabetics depend on insulin to stay alive.

The Bottom Line

Without insulin, you would die!

Some Basics

Sugar scrub = sugar + water (+/- essential oils)
– a good exfoliant to remove dead skin

Your tiniest capillaries are so small that red blood cells can barely squeeze through one at a time.  So, if the fluid around the red blood cell is full of sugar, it’s like that sugar scrub on your skin.

And that extra sugar can damage the capillaries in your eyes, finger tips, toes, and organs.

The cells in your body require glucose to do their jobs.  

Insulin

Insulin is the only key that will let the glucose in.  No key means no glucose.  No glucose means no energy.  And no energy eventually means death.

Insulin is also responsible for fat storage.

If you don’t eat the sugars, the body will use the fat stores on your body for energy.  But if you don’t consume energy sources (by being on a specific diet) AND your energy stores are depleted, your body will break down the proteins (aka muscles of your body) to make energy.  Your brain (and other organs in your body don’t want you to die).

Sugars and fats you eat gets turned into glucose.  Insulin opens the doors to allow the cells to use the glucose.  If there’s extra glucose around, insulin tells the liver to link it together to form glycogen and store it for later.  If the glycogen storage is full, insulin tells the liver to turn the glucose into triglycerides (think clogged arteries and growing fat deposits).

Free glucose is the easiest and fastest to use.  But during times that you’re not actively consuming sugars (like when you’re sleeping), your body is still working and that’s when glycogen can be used to provide glucose.

How much sugar in a day?  

It’s always different for different people.  The goal is having a level blood sugar as much of the day as possible.  The rule of complex carbs being better than simple carbs is true, because it takes your body longer to break down and use complex carbs.  While simple carbs usually dump a whole log of glucose in your blood stream at one time.  And natural sugars are better than processed sugars because processed sugars tend to be more concentrated.

Your body has an easier time utilizing nutrients and supplements that look more like itself over ones that are synthesized in lab.

Holla!

Rachel Mayo is my diabetes hero!

Find her at:

Callback

T1D vs T2D

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