DAY 117 - Free Our Children from Nightmares

photo courtesy of Santa Rosa OLD SKOOL

As a child, as early as age 4, nightmares were a common part of my bedtime.

At times I was chased with the threat of knives or guns. Usually my body was heavy and weak as I tried in vain to escape.

Some nights I was falling from cliffs. One recurrent falling variation was based on my inability to maintain altitude as I flew through the sky unaided by aircraft.

I didn’t grow out of these scary dreams. As years rolled by, the content changed to include some dreams involving distressing issues in my daily life; but they continued nonetheless.

When I married at age 19, I was still having bad dreams. My wife, Joanne, adjusted quickly to my talking in my sleep, and my thrashing about, which occasionally resulted in her being awakened by a blow as I struggled to escape from danger.

Upon awakening in the morning, Joanne would often ask, “what was that about last night?” Usually, having no memory, I would ask what she was referring to. When she could remember, she would recite a few of the words that I had spoken while sound asleep and simultaneously in flight. Not infrequently, what she had remembered would bring the dream back with detail, and I could recount a lengthy ordeal.

At age 35 my bad dreams stopped; not entirely, but overwhelmingly. As I now write this, 24 years have passed, I am 59, Joanne and I still sleep together each night, and I still don’t have bad dreams, talk in my sleep, nor smack her unknowingly.

If you suspect the work of powerful mojo in this miraculous healing; you are dead right! At age 35 I completely removed dairy products from my diet.

Through my youth I had suffered with a duodenal ulcer and other digestive problems; with fatigue, with severe back pain, and with the complete ruptures of both of my achilles tendons. By 35 I had had enough of poor health and pain, and had noticed that I did not feel as well after ingesting dairy. That was enough. I have been off of dairy, and reaping the rewards, ever since.

Note: My hope in publishing this personal account of the effect of diet on my sleep and dreams is that it will awaken a few parents to the possibility that their child’s fear-filled nights might be caused or worsened by everyday foods that the child is eating.

My report does not stand alone. With a bit of research, one will find an abundance of reports and evidence of foods influencing sleep and dreams.

Please help me spare children this traumatizing fear by sharing this article with others. Also, please post comments and experiences to this book post to help spread the word.

DAY 94 - Sleeping Like a Baby is Not Always Great

photo courtesy of xlibber at Flickr Commons

While it is generally true that infants sleep more soundly and peacefully than adults, and while it is also true that there are few sights more calming and beautiful than that of a little one at rest, not all babies sleep like a baby.

If you doubt me, ask an exhausted new mother, or the weary parents of a 2 year-old who still doesn’t sleep through the night.

It is common for newborns to wake frequently, being fussy, and appearing hungry. The usual assumption is that the infant is not getting enough nourishment. In many cases, the waking and fussiness are not from insufficient food, but rather from food that does not agree with the child’s digestive and immune systems.

Given that most of us would think that breast milk would be the perfect food, and some would think that a medically approved formula must surely be good for the child, few of us realize that each may cause distress, pain and aberrant sleep in a newborn or infant. Clearly, breast milk is the finest food for a newborn; but the content of breast milk is altered by the foods that the mother consumes, and can have disastrous effects on the comfort and health of the nursing infant. Formulas, even medically approved, commonly cause gastric and other distress in infants.

When foods have not been considered, nor ruled out as causes of disturbed sleep, a family often simply accommodates to the dysfunction and the harmful effect on the household, and lives with the idea that this is just a quirk of this child. As months and years roll by, the problems which often expand beyond the initial sleep disturbance, are explained by – “he has always been this way...”

Good sleep is not a luxury, it is a necessity.

If your baby is not sleeping like a baby; find out why not, and think foods.

DAY 93 - Mind Racing ... Can’t Get Back to Sleep?

Photo courtesy of xlibber at Flickr Commons

Trick question coming up; don’t be blinded by the obvious.

Lying awake for hours ... unable to quiet your mind; your mind is apt to be blamed. But is sleeplessness entirely caused by worries, unfinished work, or difficult decisions tossed around in your head?

The answer is NO! Turns out the mind-body connection is a veritable thoroughfare with a lot of traffic moving from south to north, especially at night.

That spicy pizza could activate your brain. The distention of your bowel with intestinal gas from that extra glass of milk can cause distress that would manifest in your head. The tightness and tenderness in your muscles and joints certainly don’t produce relaxed brain waves. And surely you didn’t think that that double espresso at 4:45 this afternoon would have no effect. The fact that you haven’t exercised for weeks is no calming influence either.

Your mind may be racing, but your body may be the source of the fuel.

DAY 88 - New Year's Celebration or My Basic Needs?

(photo courtesy of viZZZual.com)

It’s New Year’s Eve, and I’ve been thinking all day about whether to stay up ‘till midnight to welcome in the New Year. I’ve been thinking about it because I need a lot of sleep in order to feel good. If I were like those people who only need 4-6 hours to feel good, I wouldn’t give it a second thought.

It is rare that I wake feeling rested; been that way my whole life. I feel my best with 10 hours of sleep a night; and don’t get it. Since beginning to write this book, I am getting even less sleep.

But, the point I want to make is that I have struggled throughout my life trying to make decisions about staying up late for special occasions, or getting the sleep that I need to feel decent.

Even without others trying to convince me to stay up, I have my own challenge with trying to decide what I want to do, and what I am willing to do to feel rested. Special occasions are so special, and trying to get enough sleep can seem so mundane.

Luckily, I know what it feels like to feel rested, and I love it; it is special! Fortunately, I also know that when I am tired, my whole body feels heavy and mildly achy. When I’m tired, I find it difficult to care for myself; I am less apt to stretch, to go for a walk, to make veggie juice, or to prepare healthy food. Being tired, just doesn’t work for me.

Tonight, I come first! I’m going to hit the sack. I’ll say hello to the New Year sometime around 10:00 AM tomorrow. I will feel better, and 2 011will get off to a good start!

I’ve got carrots in the fridge, and kale, chard and collards in the garden. After a good night’s sleep, chances are I will make and enjoy some fresh, organic, healthy juice.

Rested Happy New Year to you!

DAY 27 – Face Your Food: It Will Change Your Life

I’ve been talking with patients about the joys and the dangers of food for about 24 years, since I first saw the light.

My family, guided by my Mom, ate “healthy” food. We ate whole wheat bread, brown sugar, and only had boxed, sugar-coated, commercial cereals for dessert or for a special occasion. We ate cauliflower, asparagus, and eggplant.

Even with “healthy” food, I still had health problems from childhood through age 35. I consistently needed 10-12 hours of sleep, but awoke tired each day. My skin was dry and rough. Serious low back problems began by age 10, and resulted in severe damage to discs and bone in my low back, as shown on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). By 15 I developed large tear marks (inform yourself at http://turning60consciously.blogspot.com/search/label/stretch%20mark) on the skin in my groin and arm pits. An ulcer was diagnosed by age 16 and I lived on antacids for the next 24 years. At 20 my first complete rupture and surgical repair of one of my Achilles tendons occurred.

While I was young, and falling apart, it never crossed my mind that food could be a cause of my ills, because what I ate was “healthy”. Not one of the dozen or more medical doctors that saw me for my many illnesses and injuries, ever suggested nor even hinted at the possibility that food could be playing a role in my ill health.

By age 35, still taking antacids daily, I began to recognize that when I ate certain foods, I would feel worse the next day; gut pain, intestinal gas, tiredness, and generally achy. Not one to quickly move to stop eating foods that I liked, and that were a part of our family routine, I continued the experiment and time and again found that I felt worse after eating certain foods.

Finally one day, sick and tired of being sick and tired, I told my wife that I was going to temporarily stop eating dairy products, and stop eating foods that were made by others and that might contain ingredients that would harm me. I told her that I would not be eating in restaurants nor simply politely eating what I might be served at a friend’s house. There was a brief pause, and then she said “You are ruining my life!”

I share with you what my wife said to give clarity to how upsetting making dietary change can be. It was no more than minutes, or maybe an hour until she told me that she did not mean what she had said and that she would happily work with me to make sure that I could feel well.

Finally, it dawned on me that there is no such thing as a “healthy” food. Peanuts can be a “healthy” food for some people. It is clear that for others they can be deadly. Though not usually to the point of being lethal, dairy products, wheat, eggs, corn, and soy are examples of common foods that can cause illness, often serious, in many individuals.

Before long, I understood that what is most important is not whether a food is generally “healthy”, but whether it is “healthy” for an individual.

As a part of my dietary change in 1986, I stopped eating all dairy products. I started feeling better generally, and my gut felt better. I also felt a bit foolish. Why during all those years of gut pain and antacids, did I not consider that possibly my gut was being affected by what I was putting into it? And, why did not one medical doctor suggest it during the 19 years that I had been unwell?

I stopped all dairy in 1986, and have been off it ever since. It has clearly been one of the most profound factors in regaining and maintaining my health.

Not only did my gut and my general wellbeing improve, but my severe low back pain went away too. Remind me to tell you the rest of the story.