Early to bed and early to rising, makes a man healthy and wealthy and wise. These are the words to a children’s song to encourage them to sleep earlier for better health and a more productive day the next day. Sleep is important. It is important for rejuvenation of the body through rest. The body can repair itself after a long day, and your mind can settle into the unconscious for a while and get ready to conquer another day.

Stress Manager

There are so many advantages to sleeping well within the recommended hours and getting enough rest. The first one is that it reduces stress. When you get a nap and some well-deserved peace, on waking up you feel clearer and ready to manage your stress in a healthy way. For some people, sleep is the way they deal with stress. They take a timeout and wake up ready to handle the pressure in a good way. Whether it’s a work deadline or an unhealthy relationship. It could even be illness, sleep helps you to relax and go about your day more productively.

Better Health

In the same way, sleep helps deal with stress, it can also manage stress-related side effects. One example is high blood pressure. People with this condition are prone to have raised levels of blood pressure when they are stressed. During such times, it is better to close your eyes and rest to avoid any more health problems ensuing. Taking a break is better when things become overwhelming.

Good mood

Waking up angry and tired is not because you had a bad dream necessarily. It is mostly because you did not get enough sleep. When you wake up tired, you tend to be shorter tempered with people for speaking loudly or even demanding things from you in the office. If you have a high-stress job, or active family life sleep could be the one time and place to have solitude and complete rest. Lack of it results in feelings of frustrations and anger towards those who have no fault and no part to play in the fact that you are sleep-deprived.

Creativity

Sleep improves your creativity. Those dreams are proof of an incredible imagination. Sleep gives the physical body a break and mentally the unconscious can soar off and restructure and reorganize itself for creative work. It explains why after sleep, problems seem less complex and ideas flow freely. Researchers at Harvard and Boston College have found that after sleep emotional components are stronger which compliments the creative process.

Physical fitness

Longer hours of sleep have resulted in improved stamina, not just for your daily activities but also for physical activity. This includes exercise and sporting activities. For athletes, this translates into longer playing time with more stamina and less daytime fatigue. The secret to the repeated cramps or feelings of nausea due to overworking your body could just be sleep. Not another round of medication or supplements, instead just adopt an early to bed, early to rise schedule.

Improved academic performance

For children who did not perform well in school, they have problems paying attention and learning in the classroom. Research has shown that children who suffer from insomnia, sleep apnea and other types of interrupted breathing at night suffer in class. Further information indicates that sacrificing sleep to meet deadlines, as adults often do leads to a clear impairment for learning and ultimately performance. Therefore, if the children and adults could both sleep well through the night, they would do better in their respective areas.

Healthy weight

Often times people forget that sleep plays a role in maintaining a healthy weight. This is because sleep and weight are controlled by the same sectors of the brain, and when we feel sleepy the same hormones drive our appetite. Sleeping early means you spend less time thinking about your cravings and binge eating. In addition, dieters in a recent study said they felt more hungry when they got less sleep.

Diabetes is a disease that affects people who do not produce insulin, or not enough to process glucose in the body. It is a life-long condition that is not curable but manageable through proper diet, medication, and exercise. When it comes to type 2 diabetes, the pancreas produces insulin so that it can turn the sugar into energy to go about our day. However, when the insulin does not work on the glucose, this is called insulin resistance. A sign of type 2 diabetes.

Type 2 is caused when the pancreas produces insulin, but it is not utilized in the right way. Initially the body is confused and makes more insulin to try and process the glucose into the cells but instead, the sugar builds up in your blood as it is not being processed. This is when you need medication to assist the body to process the glucose and lower the high blood sugars to a healthier state.

To maintain a healthy body and to manage diabetes, we must have a proper diet and exercise in place. Diabetics need to focus on a high protein and low carb diet to keep their sugar levels at a normal level, and exercise to expend the energy for better health.

Low-fat yogurt naturally contains both high-quality carbohydrates and protein, which makes it an excellent food for slowing down high blood sugar to prevent an unhealthy rise in the body. Studies have also shown that a diet rich in calcium, like yogurt have benefits which are associated with a reduced likelihood of type 2 diabetes.

Fermented foods like yogurt contain good bacteria called probiotics, which according to recent studies reduces the risk of type two diabetes in healthy and older adults. The probiotics in the yogurt improve the gut health, which plays a role in a number of health conditions including obesity and diabetes. Yogurt can be taken as a great nutritional breakfast, or as a snack during the day. If it is unsweetened like Greek yogurt, the better for diabetics.

Consuming yogurt lowers the levels of glucose and insulin resistance, as well as systolic blood pressure. To maintain good health, we must also adopt healthier eating habits. Diabetes, like obesity, is caused in a large percentage from unhealthy eating habits which results in poor health conditions. While it is not always the case, maintaining a healthy diet will go a long way to ensure our bodies are free from disease. In some cases, stress is also a known factor that causes poor health, including depression.

Most dairy products have a low glycemic index, which makes them appropriate for people with diabetes. To get the most out of the yogurt you consume for improved gut health, it is always prudent to choose a yogurt that has live and active cultures. The benefits also include the fact that Greek yogurt does not contain a lot of added sugar, additives, food coloring or saturated fats. Therefore, there is a reduced calorie intake and subsequently saturated fats, which contributes to the bad kind of cholesterol.

The difference between Greek yogurt and the regular yogurt is that it has been strained to leave behind a thicker more protein-rich yogurt; after removing some of the ways. As it has more protein, Greek yogurt has a third of the carbohydrates found in the regular yogurt. It is also an easier product to digest for those who are lactose intolerant. When it comes to the flavored Greek yogurts, they tend to have less calcium than the traditional yogurt. Therefore, if you are seeking the calcium value of the yogurt then it is better to select the unflavored option.

Evidently, eating a diet rich in calcium can help reduce the risk of diabetes type 2.

It is that time of the year again. No, not Christmas. It is Halloween. Halloween is a holiday popularized in the American culture and celebrated by wearing costumes, reading scary thrillers, and even watching horror films as part of the Halloween spirit. Teenagers like to throw parties and get dressed up for Halloween, while younger kids prefer to go knocking door to door to collect candy. Partly fun, partly family friendly, partly scary, Halloween is a day full of complicated fun and experiences. However, what is the celebration about?

It is also observed in several countries on the 31st of October. It is also known as All Hallows’ Eve and it traditionally begins with a three-day observance of the day, which is dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints, martyrs and other faithful departed; hence the scary costumes and movies which symbolize the dread that comes with the thoughts of the dead resurrecting, the fictional zombies and the likes.

There are several myths surrounding Halloween, among them is that it is a Gaelic holiday with pagan roots. While others believe that to cleanse the holiday, the early church Christianized it as Halloween and others say that it is actually a Christian holiday separate from other ancient festivals with pagan history attached to it.

On this day, in today’s popular culture it is not unusual to find a woman dressed in a nurse’s outfit. Tailored and fitted to look more promiscuous rather than a well dressed nursed. The outfit is sexualized and commands the attention of the woman who wears it. It is seen as an exciting and fun choice for many young women. The costume pokes fun at the ‘innocent nurse’ gesture and turns to become more sexualized and even having a dangerous character to an extent over Halloween.

The costume has been widely accepted in American culture to take on different roles, depending on the wearer. For some professional nurses, the costume can come off as demeaning to their practice, and they are unappreciative of the different vulgar costumes they come across. While others are not offended at all. They understand the context of the costume and where and when it applies, therefore not having a place in any professional setting. Due to that, it doesn’t bother them.

The nurse costume has not caused a public disturbance, but more of a public discomfort should a nurse or anyone else who may come across it being worn in an environment that is not suitable. Today, it has been fully accepted as a costume used to enhance relationships or make for an interesting costume over Halloween. More so, the nurse costume and the actual nurses’ uniform are not the same. The costume does not represent the actual uniform nurses wear, it is more of the character they embody when wearing the costume that spells out it is a nurse costume.

The costume itself should not be banned. In a democratic and liberal society such as the American one, it would be outrageous to ban the costume. It is a world where individuals are free to speak and do as they wish, hence the tag ‘the free world’. The costume should not be banned, but instead, the costume should have regulations to its tailoring to be distinct from the original nurse’s uniform, and refrain from replicating an authentic nurses’ uniform completely.

The regulations can also be applied in specific states, to avoid replication of uniforms that replicate the exact fashion of the real nurses’ uniforms for the states in question and those of the health facilities around. Additionally, if there are any institutions and nursing groups or unions that feel violated by the uniforms they should go ahead and act against it, instead of applying for a nation-wide ban on the nurse costume worn over Halloween and other holidays.

However, it is perfectly legal as t, is done in a light-hearted fashion, not meant to offend nurses themselves.

Doctors and nurses are very highly skilled medical practitioners, therefore after diagnosis and treatment, they are able to make a justified conclusion as to how and when the patient may or may not recover and offer next steps options to the families and loved ones of the patient. They are able to tell through longtime practice and scientific evidence whether a patient will recover from a traumatic injury or chronic illness, and then be able to advise the family on what to do next.

In most cases, if the outcome of the patient needs resuscitation due to their condition, both patient and the family members are able to decide. They can sign official documents to either resuscitate or not based on the wishes of the patient directly. If the patient is caught unawares, for example, if they have been involved in an accident, then the decision to either continue medical sustenance or relieve them lies with their closest relative. This could either be a spouse, or parents of the patient. In cases where the patient has no spouse, or parents in charge, their next of kin is in charge of those duties.

The process of making that decision is often difficult one to make. Even after the patient has given their express conditions. Resuscitation has such a forceful impact on the body as physicians do their best to revive a patient, by getting their heart pumping. It often involves hard and heavy pushes in and outward of the chest and electric volts that course through the body to shock the system to get the heart beating again. In some cases, patents get bruised or broken ribs in the process.

A nurse or doctor should only get the privileges to decide when to end a patient’s life if the person being treated is unclaimed with no next of kin. It would be unlawful to end a person’s life without the consent of their loved ones. More so, it is illegal in most countries. Euthanasia is considered to be an assisted suicide in most countries and the parties involved can get sentenced to several years of jail time. In the case of the nurse or doctor, their licenses can be revoked to no longer practice medicine.

It is unethical to play the role of god when all things considered physicians have no place deciding who gets to live or die, but instead, their focus should be on saving lives. In cases whereby, the patient has requested the physicians to assist them to ‘end their life’, authorities need to be notified, to prevent a suicide from happening. In rational cases, the doctor can assist the patient to get the help requested from the institutions and countries that allow for euthanasia.

Euthanasia is a request to end one’s own life, with medical assistance. While, removing a patient from life support, or consenting to a DNR ‘Do not resuscitate’ form, is different. In both they are following the will of the patient, however, one is frequently illegal, while the other is a medically responsible course of action. This is because, the patient has already come to either a vegetal state, that they can only be supported by a machine or they have succumbed to their illness and have chosen not to be resuscitated.

The bottom line is that the decision to discontinue a person’s life is very personal and significant. So much that, it needs deep thought and contemplation before making a decision to pull the plug, or keep the patient on life support. Relatives who decide to terminate the life support before they are ready to fall into depression from feelings of guilt for having made a hasty decision. Whereas, sometimes the case presents itself as not having any other choice, and that also needs careful consideration.