By K. ALEISHA FETTERS FOR WOMENSHEALTHMAG.COM
​Getting a better night's sleep is one of the easiest ways to lose weight. And, impressively, it's one of the most effective. Case in point: In one Annals of Internal Medicine study, dieters who got 8.5 hours of sleep per night lost twice as much fat as those who scraped by on 5.5 hours—even though they all cut the same number of calories each day.
As you might have guessed, how you get ready for bed has a huge impact on whether or not your sleep results in weight loss. And no, we aren't going to tell you to shut off your cell phone or reserve your bed for "sleep and sex." We're sure you already follow those rules of good sleep hygiene, right? (Wink, wink.)
Add these 6 habits to your bedtime routine, and you'll make your weight loss journey sooo much easier.
This article was originally published by our partners at WomensHealthMag.com.
​GET YOUR DAIRY ON.

Get your dairy on.A glass of milk, cup of Greek yogurt, or even a protein smoothie before bed can do more than fight the pre-bedtime belly growls. They also help you build more muscle while you sleep. That's because dairy is chock-full of casein, a slow-to-digest form of protein that keeps exercisers' muscles fueled with amino acids, so they can build lean mass all night long, according to research published in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. Just a refresher: Building muscle is the No. 1 way to increase your metabolic rate and burn more calories every day.



Turn down the temp.

Turn down the temp.Fine-tuning the thermostat a couple of hours before bed can make drifting off to dreamland (and actually staying in it) way easier. "We need our body temperature to drop in order to sleep through the night," says Rebecca Scott, PhD, research assistant professor of neurology at the NYU Langone Comprehensive Epilepsy Center—Sleep Center.
Plus, research published in Diabetes shows that when people sleep in rooms set to 66.2 degrees, they convert some of their calorie-storing white fat into calorie-burning brown fat. Why? Because brown fat's in charge of heating your body, says board-certified family and bariatric physician Spencer Nadolsky, a doctor of osteopathic medicine.

Schedule in solo time.

Schedule in solo time."Winding down before bed can seem like a waste of time when most of us are rushing to get everything done right up until we get in bed," says Scott. But it's actually better to take the 30 minutes before hitting the hay for yourself—even if that means going to sleep a little later, she says.
Do a relaxing activity that you truly enjoy, like reading. This helps protect your sleep and energy, he says. (Work toward your weight loss goals after a full night of shut-eye with these moves from Women's Health's Look Better Naked DVD.)

Set some mood lighting.

Set some mood lighting.Even without a bedtime gadget habit, bright lights coming through your bedroom windows can cut down on your body's production of sleepy-time melatonin, interfering with sleep quality, says Nadolsky.


That explains why, in one 2014 University of Oxford study, women who slept in the darkest rooms were 21% less likely to be obese than women who slept in the lightest rooms. But if you want to get the biggest benefit from "lights out," you need to dim your indoor lights along with the setting sun. Think about it: If you spend your evening hours in a brightly lit living room, you're missing out on a ton of melatonin that boosts your sleep, he says.

Do some bedtime yoga.

Do some bedtime yoga.While intense exercise scheduled too close to bed can backfire by energizing you, performing some light stretching or yoga before (or even in) bed helps the body relax, says Nadolsky.
For even more relaxation, incorporate deep, diaphragmatic breathing into your moves. Here's how to do that: Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, focusing on taking slow, complete breaths that raise and lower your belly, rather than your chest. Doing so activates your "rest and digest" parasympathetic nervous system to reduce tension and help you fall asleep, he says.

posted by Custom Craftworks 
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Massage therapy is increasingly accepted as a viable therapy for a number of health conditions besides sore muscles and sports injuries, according to Newsday. These five surprising facts about massage therapy offer opportunities for you to consider that can help expand your massage therapy practice.Professional massages aren't just for stress relief anymore. Massage therapy's reputation has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years. Besides treating stress, sore muscles and sports injuries, studies have suggested that massage therapy can help with digestive disorders, fibromyalgia, headaches, nerve pain and joint pain, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Here are five surprising facts about massage therapy.
1. Massage just might clear your sinuses
At least one Long Island massage therapist says she often surprises patients by telling them that massage can give them relief from congestion.
"Massage can reduce your stress and unclog your ear while you're at it," said Erin Hurme, who owns Amityville Acupuncture & Wellness. "You can work on someone's head for an hour and focus on draining the sinuses by loosening muscles by manipulating the face and the skull. That's a big one that people come in for, since it's so beneficial -- especially at this time of year, when allergies are common."
2. Massage can ease some cancer symptoms
"Massage therapy does not treat cancer in any way, shape or form," said Barrie Cassileth, founding chief of the Integrative Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. However, "it relieves symptoms associated with cancer and cancer treatment, such as stress and sore muscles," she said. "It is indeed relaxing, a very important treatment that works well not only for cancer patients but also for many in the general public who also experience, as we all do, stress and sore muscles and the need for soothing relief."
3. Safety is key during a massage
"There are many safety precautions for massage in a person with a medical condition," said Dr. Gary Deng, interim chief of the Integrative Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. "For example, in cancer patients, the area where there is a cancer lesion should not be massaged. Patients at increased risk of bleeding, such as those on chemotherapy or on a blood thinner, should not get strong massage, and only light touch massage should be provided."
4. Kids can benefit from massage
Massage has many benefits in children, even infants, said Cheryl Hall, director of clinical education for the New York Institute of Technology's physical therapy program, based in Old Westbury.
For instance, it can help relieve digestive problems, colic and constipation, she said, and is especially useful in helping children relax before medical procedures like surgery.
"In the U.K., massage has been used in school-aged children and has been shown to decrease stress hormones, ease depression, improve sleeping habits and decrease fighting with others, just to name a few of the positive effects," Hall said.
Parents can massage their children in simple ways -- "many parents instinctively stroke and cuddle their infants to soothe or engage them during regular interactions," she said. Or, they can learn more sophisticated approaches.
However it's done, "strokes should not be too firm or too soft," she said, and parents should pay attention to signs that children need a break -- like yawning, hiccupping, sneezing and looking away.
5. Massage can help caregivers and families
Patients aren't the only people who can benefit from massages, Deng said.
"Taking care of chronically ill family members is a demanding job," he said. "Many caregivers experience stress and distress themselves as a result. Massage therapy will help them cope."
Also, he suggested that "family members give each other massages, which is a great bonding process." 

 BY LORIMER MOSELEYMy mate Dr Mick Thacker, has long been teasing me for being neurocentric. In fact – for being A neurocentric. That is, he attaches this neurocentricity to me not just as a characteristic, but as an identity. Moving on from positions of prejudice first requires understanding and I have slowly come to understand that pain is not an emergent property of the nervous system, but of the human. Mick and I have actually said as much here.[1]  It is worth iterating that, clearly, all we know about pain and protective responses is not really confined to our neurones. Indeed, not even the brain itself is confined to neurones – there are more immune cells in the brain than there are neurones. The interconnection between neurones and glia is so tight that they literally rely on each other to work (see my posts on this here: Neuroimmunology for Dummies Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3).  But the integration doesn’t stop there – the fact is, all the systems are so integrated and interdependent that we have little choice but to hold our hands up and say ‘Jeepers! Double Jeepers!  We really are fearfully and wonderfully complex’. But that is not my point, actually.
My point is that, although the nervous system is the one I have been most enthusiastic about in my time as an Enquirer-Explorer, it is not the only Magnificent System. Similarly, neuroplasticity – such a fashionable term nowadays – really is amazing, but the nervous system is not the only system that has a remarkable capacity to change in response to demand. Not at all – the other systems are also highly adaptable. They all respond to demand – in obvious ways such as growing muscle cells when we lift weights – myoplasticity; sweating more when we acclimatise – endoplasticity; learning to recognise a pathogen and eliminating it on next contact – immunoplasticity;  increasing our heartrate earlier on a hill after running up it a few times – cardioplasticity; adjusting the aperture of our pupil to improve our underwater vision – obiculoplasticity; the toughening of skin on well trodden heels – dermoplasticity. You probably don’t recognise these terms, but they are all, in my view, just as legitimate as neuroplasticity. OK, I made those terms up – but they would be legitimate if we chose to use them as a method of capturing this fundamental property of biological systems – adaptation. I suggest, in order to avoid this type of extravagant neologismics, we start to use an umbrella term for this property. It is a property that exists across our biological systems. It shall be called….bioplasticity.  Bioplasticity is, from herein, the new black. I repent my neurocentric ways and hold aloft the banner of biocentricity. It seems to me to be a fairer reflection of what we know about ourselves and it is a sensible umbrella term for the changes that occur across multiple systems when, for example, pain persists, or when, for example, we try to change pain. In fact, these tasks that we call neuroplasticity training, do not only induce changes in the nervous system, so perhaps they should be called bioplasticity training. Just a thought. And immune activation. And endocrine response. And motor output. And heart rate fluctuation….
About Lorimer MoseleyLorimer is NHMRC Senior Research Fellow with twenty years clinical experience working with people in pain. After spending some time as a Nuffield Medical Research Fellow at Oxford University he returned to Australia in 2009 to take up an NHMRC Senior Research Fellowship atNeuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA). In 2011, he was appointed Professor of Clinical Neurosciences & the Inaugural Chair in Physiotherapy at the University of South Australia, Adelaide. He runs the Body in Mind research groups. He is the only Clinical Scientist to have knocked over a water tank tower in Outback Australia.

An introduction to my new book

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Summer Evening by Frederick Childe Hassam 1886
Source: Public Domain

​To celebrate the release of my new book, How To Live Well with Chronic Pain and Illness: A Mindful Guide, I’ve made a list of 20 tips to help with the health challenges all us face at one time or another in life. The book explores each tip—and many more—in detail.
1. Your body is not the enemy.Quite the opposite; it’s working hard to support you. There’s a chapter in the book titled “Appreciating the Wondrousness of the Human Body.” Your body is indeed wondrous. Even so, it’s also vulnerable to illness and injury, so it deserves your compassion not your anger.
2. It’s not your fault that you have health problems.Everyone struggles with his or her health at some point in life. Don’t make things worse by adding self-blame to your list of challenges.
3. Accepting that life is uncertain, unpredictable, and doesn’t always conform to your wishes is the first step toward making peace with your circumstances.In the book, I call this making peace with a life upside down.
4. Don’t spend your precious energy worrying about how others view your medical condition.Instead, spend that precious energy taking good care of yourself.
5. Forgive yourself—over and over and over again.And when you realize you’re not taking good care of yourself, forgive yourself immediately. Although taking a good hard look at how and why you acted as you did is a good way to learn from your mistakes, the “hardness” should stop there. Learn and move on. Self-forgiveness is a form of self-compassion, and self-compassion is one of the major themes of the book.
6. To the extent possible, stick with those who support you.That said, some people may genuinely feel supportive of you, but not be good at showing it. We do a poor job in this culture of preparing people to be around illness and pain. For many people, supporting loved ones in need is an acquired skill.
7. Expect to be let down by friends and family now and then.Everyone feels let down by others at times. More likely than not, it has to do with what’s going on in their lives, not yours.
8. With practice, you can turn envy and resentment into feeling happy for others.It’s hard to be limited in what you can do, but feeling envious and resentful of others when they’re out and about having a good time only makes you feel worse—mentally and often physically. With practice, you can not only overcome envy and resentment, you can learn to be happy for others when they’re doing things you can’t. And that, in turn, will bring you happiness.
9. Teach yourself to ask for help.Many of us were taught that asking for help is a sign of weakness. It’s not. It’s an act of self-compassion.
10. It’s okay to feel lonely.The effects of isolation and loneliness can be so hard to cope with that I devote an entire section of the book to this subject.
11. Help others when you can.
article continues after advertisementReaching out to others in need can ease the pain of isolation and also give you welcome respite from always thinking about your health.
12. Remember that even if you regained your health, your life would not be perfect.In other words, don’t fall into that “if only” trap that has you thinking that your life would be trouble-free if only you were healthy again.
13. Don’t forget to thank your caregivers.I devote two chapters in the book to these hidden heroes.
14. Patience truly is a virtue.There’s no escaping it: you’ll encounter difficulties and annoyances in life. Patience can help you weather these storms without exacerbating your symptoms. It’s a skill you can learn.
15. Realistically assess what you have to give up and work on letting go gracefully, so you can make room for a new way of life.Getting stuck in old identities can be a great source of suffering and can keep you from seeing new possibilities right before your eyes. In the book, I write about how I’m trying to look upon my new life as an adventure. I hope you’ll try this too.
16. With rare exceptions, when your body says “no,” you say “no.”
article continues after advertisementSaying “no” takes practice. I know because I’m still practicing. It’s another act of self-compassion.
17. Don’t feel bad if you’re not a member of the outside workforce.Taking care of yourself as a person with chronic pain and/or illness is work! In fact, it’s often a full-time job.
18. It’s okay to feel fed-up sometimes.I often say it’s okay to be sick of being sick. A bad day is just that: one bad day. Tomorrow, you can start over. And if it’s a bad day too, there’s the day after. Sooner or later, the universal law of impermanence will come to your rescue.
19. Become your own unconditional ally.With practice, this can become a lifelong habit. From the book: “If you’re quick to direct negative judgment at yourself, pause for a moment and imagine how it would feel if you spent the entire day being friendly, caring, and considerate to yourself. If you can imagine it, you can do it.”
20. Never forget that despite your health challenges, you’re still a whole person.And don’t let anyone try to convince you otherwise.
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