For most humans, sleep would seem as natural as walking or breathing. After all, babies sleep an average of 16 hours a day. Unfortunately, as every parent knows, the hours they are awake, are the same hours mom and dad want to sleep.
Age ——————- Sleep Needs
Newborns ————– 15-18 hours
1-12 months ———– 14-15 hours
1-3 years ————– 12-14 hours
3-6 years ————– 11-13 hours
7-12 years ————- 10-11 hours
12-18 years ———— 8-10 hours
But our need for sleep decreases as we age. By adulthood,about 8 hours per night is recommended. Surprisingly this is about in the middle of the amount of sleep required for mammals.
Comparative average sleep periods for various mammals (in captivity) over 24 hours:
Experts say the hours are influenced by the need for nourishment, ability to hide from predators, and the number of predators that a mammal needs to fear.
This might make you feel a bit better when you sleeping next Sunday but according to Helena Riess, Ph.D. humans seem to be the only species that, by choice or habit, don’t seem to get enough sleep.
Pop culture is filled with ways to keep you grounded psychologically but Biological Psychologist Helena Riess, Ph. D. says that it’s just as important to be physically grounded.
“We’ve gotten away from nature,” Dr. Riess says, “and we don’t even realize the negative impact it has on our health.”
When she refers to the concept of “grounding”, Dr. Riess means actual physical contact with the ground and nature. The benefits can range from the psychological well -being of relaxing in a natural environment to the physical impact of clean air.
Additionally, studies have shown that gardening and contact with bacteria in the soil can have a beneficial impact on human health. Ask any gardener how they feel after a day in the dirt and you can’t help but see the positive impact.
Dr. Riess says she is a firm believer in grounding or “earthing” as a way to control stress and improve overall wellness. Contact with the ground can release negative ions that build up in the body and can counteract the impact of free radicals according to Dr. Riess. She points to Clinton Ober’s groundbreaking book on the subject as the basis for the movement.
She uses a variety techniques to help her and her clients keep in contact with the earth even when engaged in daily activities- such as sleep, work, and even walking.
“The impact on sleep and stress levels is significant,” she notes.
Dr. Helena Riess, of Wellness Management Consultants, says that while LEED, the leading standard for construction, may be a good starting point for energy efficient buildings, it does not mean the building is a healthy or a biologically safe living environment.
Dr. Riess, and others have long pointed out that LEED certification has a number of levels, all of which indicate how green a building might be. “But,” she said today, “That has nothing to do with health, and in some cases a green building can be more unhealthy than an older non-certified structure.”
Older buildings which may not have the insulation and containment of a green building, may use more energy, but in many cases the air flow, keeps the indoor air fresher and healthier than some green buildings.
This can be particularly important if the office building is furnished with materials that outgas VOC’s (Volatile Organic Compounds) which are trapped in the sealed building and can build up in the human body.
Dr. Riess pointed to a recent Harvard University study which detailed the impact of polluted air on cognitive function.
“I think the pendulum has begun to swung away from air tight LEED Certified buildings to those which may not be quite as energy efficient, but are much healthier for workers,” she concluded.
Pointing to a recent Harvard University study on indoor air quality in office settings, Dr. Helena Riess today urged everyone to have a home assessment done to determine the potential sources of VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds) in their home.
Dr. Riess noted that while the issue is important for the workplace, the cumulative impact of VOC’s on young children can be even more severe.
VOC’s are present in hundreds of products that consumers bring into their home every day. “We don’t give a second thought to what kind of carpet we use when we redecorate for the new baby, or what kind of adhesives were used for the new dresser set in a child’s bedroom, but they can all be sources of VOC’s which can impede or retard the development of young children.
“Consumers need to look for eco-friendly products with minimal or non-VOC ingredients that do not outgas or negatively affect our health and well-being- rather than looking for brands that contain VOC’s and toxins. If we don’t, In the end, the costs can be even greater for overall health.”
Firms can do a chemical analysis of your home indoor air quality, but in many cases, it’s just matter of having a specialist take a look at the products in your home. You can then eliminate them immediately, or at least over time, Dr. Riess said.
PRI’s Living on Earth, recently featured a Harvard University study that measured the impact of air quality on the cognitive function of office workers.
Not surprisingly, at least not to anyone who has studied Building Biology, the study found that poor air quality leads to a decrease in cognitive functioning.
Helena Riess, Ph. D. of Wellness Management Consultants , notes that while more study is needed, this may be among the first studies to show that society is slowly changing it’s attitude toward overall air quality both in the office and at home.
“Building Biologists, have long pointed out that VOC’s (Volatile Organic Compounds) can impact personal health and need to be minimized,” Dr. Riess noted.
She went on, ‘ We advise all our clients to survey their homes and eliminate as many sources of VOC’s as possible.”
VOC’s outgas from hundreds of products such as sealants, glues, adhesives, and preservatives as well as plastics and man-made products like carpets and even wallpaper.
From a home standpoint, according to Dr. Helena Riess, the real issue is that the VOC’s measured from any one product may not exceed accepted standards, but they build up over time and have a cumulative effect.
Now, I am fully aware that, the Chipotle announcement was about 90% marketing hype, since you could drive a truck through the qualifications and exceptions. These include soft drinks and other products where they could not find substitutes.
Additionally, this says nothing of the GMO products fed to animals that provide the beef, pork, or chicken in their food. But it does include corn, which is largely a GMO product in the United States and is an important ingredient at a restaurant specializing in Mexican food.
But the announcement marks the first time a well-known major chain has made any statement on GMO’s and flies directly in the face of the Monsanto supporters who claim the food is perfectly safe and there is no reason to even label the products.
The announcement comes, of course, just a week after, Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, famously stopped for lunch at a Chipotle restaurant on her initial campaign trip.
Now, this also says nothing about the overall wellness level of the food at Chipotle, since many people insist that it’s not too many steps above fast food.
Will the announcement alone end the use of Roundup and make the world less polluted? Probably not, but if it raises awareness and helps the next ballot battle to label GMO foods, I think we should support it.
Combined with the impending labeling rules that Whole Foods hopes to implement by 2018, maybe consumers will be able to vote on GMO products with their wallets.
PFAS’s, poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of chemicals, used in everything from carpets to pizza boxes, that many independent scientists claim increase the risk of cancer.
Under public pressure, some classes of the chemicals were replaced a few years ago, but now a new effort is being made to ban them entirely. Industry, which has a financial interest in their continued use, insists they are safe but unfortunately, since they stay in the human body for decades, it is very difficult to verify their claims.
The only solution, in my book, would be to ban them entirely to create healthier products and lessen the body burden of chemicals, which are leading to a host of health issues which no one can, or will explain.
Earlier in the week a group of 200 scientists from all over the world urged all countries to ban the use of PFAS’s.
Together the two items will help consumers confront the chemical industry and demand that businesses find more environmentally friendly substances to replace them.
If we are going to improve our health and wellness, we all need help to create an environment where hidden chemicals, toxins, GMO’s and pesticides do not contaminate our world.
Nutrition is always in the news. Humans are obsessed with what they can eat, what they shouldn’t eat and which diet is best. Here in the United States where childhood obesity has reached epidemic proportions there is a never ending stream of suggestions for losing weight.
And we are right to worry about what we put into our bodies. Eating the right foods is the cornerstone to any wellness plan I recommend for my clients.
But I was bemused about two stories I saw this week that put the issue front and center. Both involved politics – one food, the other presidential.
It seems that Jeb Bush, who has not yet announced his official candidacy for president, but has been running hard for months, has adopted the well-known Paleo Diet in an effort to lose weight. In fact, he’s had some success, having lost about 20 pounds.
What struck me, was his comment that he’s “always hungry,” which is a frequent complaint among dieters. Granted Mr. Bush faces some special problems given his schedule, but dieting doesn’t mean you have to be hungry. In fact, if you are, it almost guarantees that you will not have long-term success.
Even if he loses weight now, when he achieves his goal, presumably winning the presidency, he’s sure to gain back all the weight he lost. In order to lose weight permanently, you have to adopt lifestyle changes, that you can maintain – and if you are always hungry – it’s not a sustainable plan.
And, if he really wants a healthy nutritious paleo-diet, he should stop by Mission Heirloom, in Berkeley, CA where they have raised the bar for healthy and nutritious food for everyone.
As you can see by my website, I support the Purium method, which encourages a 10-day starter diet and then becomes a much more sustainable way to lose weight without feeling that you are depriving yourself – which is why you just gain the weight back.
There are a number of other plans that can help. Which brings me to a recent article in Scientific American which takes issue with the low fat, high carbohydrate diet supported by Dr. Dean Ornish.
Dr. Ornish is a well-known nutritional expert, who helped former President Bill Clinton, lose weight after heart by-pass surgery.
Melinda Moyer, author of the Scientific American article, pretty much lays waste to Ornish’s theories and methodology – essentially blaming his diet, at least in part, for the nation’s obesity epidemic. I don’t really want to get involved in the food fight, but here again, it would appear healthy eating, instead of dieting, is a valid position.
Ms Moyer’s theme is that by cutting out fat, Americans have substituted foods that are even more unhealthy and by eliminating whole classifications we have let people substitute all kinds of products that are not real food.
This week’s announcement by Kraft Foods, that they were going to change the formulation of the famed Macaroni and Cheese dinners, to get rid of artificial color and flavorings is a good case in point. Healthy food should not contain manufactured, make believe substances, that add color and calories for no reason.
Michael Pollan
The point is, we should be eating healthy food, prepared at home, with basic ingredients. I am convinced, that like the makers of the movie Fed Up, part of the cause of obesity is not just overeating, but overeating of make-believe substances designed to substitute for real food.
As Michael Pollan said so eloquently: Eat less, mostly plants, especially leaves, and don’t eat anything that your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.
If we want to get healthy, we have to eat healthy, it’s really that simple.
For the last few years the study of athletics and concussions has focused on the long-term impact on individuals who suffer multiple incidents over their careers.
But as a Sports Psychologist, pain management specialist and head injury expert, I see patients who have symptoms of depression almost immediately after their injuries. This can be true whether they suffered a concussion on the highway during an accident or on the football field, after a particularly jarring tackle.
The difference is that until recently we never had a baseline reading of symptoms before the concussion.
Now a new study, done by a researcher at Penn State University, has confirmed what most psychologists and medical experts already know. Namely, that depressive symptoms can start to show up within days of a concussion.
In reading the article from Huffington Post, my biggest revelation was that the psychologist overseeing the study, was surprised by his results.
Anyone who has suffered from a concussion understands the psychological implications and, in hindsight, knows that the physical trauma can be a far easier recovery than the psychological recovery.
It is imperative that parents and loved ones understand this and make sure that help is provided. And by help, I do not mean simply medications which cover up the symptoms. Supportive, long-term Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is one effective method that patients can use after their injury.
In my practice I have incorporated mindfulness, visualization, EMDR, and breath work to assist with the healing process.
We’ve already seen a marked drop in participation in football, at some levels, and an increase in concussion awareness from the NFL to Pop Warner as well as other sports. But until there is an admission that psychological recovery is just as important as physical recovery the issue will not go away.
As long as teams push players to ‘tough it out’ and return to the game before their symptoms have been treated, the more long-term damage were are doing to our children and grand children.
This week a New York Times article described a recent study showing how brain exercises could help older citizens improve their eyesight.
The article described behavioral exercises, where people were shown various shapes against a confusing background, forcing the subjects to concentrate on the target images. The test results showed that after just a few trials (5 in most cases) the subjects improved their contrast sensitivity, or their ability to detect when one image started and another began.
Meir Schneider, Ph. D.
This can be a problem for seniors trying to negotiate stairs, but unable to tell where one step ends and another begins.
The article drew my attention because it pointed out the validity of an approach that a San Francisco eye care center has been preaching for years.
Meir Schneider, Ph. D. has been running the School for Self Healing in the Outer Sunset for years. He focuses on retraining brain and eye ‘muscles’ to heal themselves and correct vision problems. Through a series of exercises, Schneider’s rather unorthodox techniques have been able to help patients with debilitating issues – like his own near blindness – restore their eyesight.
Schneider, an Israeli by birth, also runs centers in Brazil, Israel and London and has trained practitioners who now run their own facilities in Texas and Petaluma, California.
His techniques are focused on exercises, which take advantage of the human body’s natural ability to heal itself. In the scientific terms of the New York Times article, this brain plasticity, simply trains new portions of the brain to take over for damaged areas.
Reliance on prescription glasses is a ‘last resort’ for Meir who believes that with the right exercise, all eyesight can be corrected naturally.
I’ve been going to his classes in San Francisco for years and have met people from all over the world who flock to him for one reason: His system works.
510-526-8524
