Heads Up! The Way You Are Sleeping May Be Killing You!

Posted on March 28, 2012 by admin

Every one of us has a mysterious double life.

For about two thirds of the time we are conscious beings, mental about the world within and without, and negotiating our ways through the obstacles of life. For the other one third of the time we are nearly lifeless lumps of flesh, unconscious to all but our own fantasies, as we lie flat in bed asleep. We all know that sleep is foremost for health. But for an operation that consumes about 8 hours of daily of life, surprisingly itsybitsy is view about the act of sleeping, or the way our culture teaches us to sleep. Sleep behavior, like all human activities, is defined by our culture.

Neuropathy

Sometimes, the practices taught by our culture can impact on the way our bodies function. As curative anthropologists, we explore ways our cultural practices may be affecting our health. And we have found that the way we have been trained to sleep may be one of the most foremost causes of various diseases plaguing our society.

Of course, when you think the culture of sleeping, it includes such isues as the distance of time to sleep, and time of day for sleep. Do you take frequent naps or do you sleep 8 hours straight? Do you sleep at night or during the day?

Other issues concern sleepwear. Do you sleep nude, or with pajamas or lingerie? Do you sleep in your underwear? Should the sheets be natural fabrics, such as cotton or silk, or is polyester okay? What about the detergent and fabric softeners used in the sheets, pillow case, and pj’s?

Should you eat before you sleep? What is the impact of watching television before sleep? Should you take sleeping pills to help you sleep?

These are some of the culturally defined issues that help determine how we sleep, all of which may have some potential impact on health. However, there is one cultural issue that tops the list of importance, and which may greatly determine your condition status. It has to do with your sleep position. Are you sleeping on a firm, flat bed, face down, with your nose and eye compressed against the bed and pillow? Or are you on your back with your head slightly elevated, as is the case for many native cultures that use hammocks or other non-flat surfaces for sleep?

The presuppose we ask this last question is because the circulation to the head and brain is completely related to your body position when sleeping.

We all have had a time of experiencing dizziness or lightheadedness when getting out of bed too quickly. This succeed is called orthostatic hypotension, and results from the fact that blood pressure falls when you lie down, and sudden raising of the head may temporarily deprive the brain of enough blood pressure, resulting in the dizziness or lightheadedness. The blood pressure soon rises, addition the blood contribute to the brain, as you feel general again.

This phenomenon shows that the body’s position, relative to gravity, influences head and brain circulation. You can also demonstrate this by doing a head stand, which many yoga practitioners do daily. Intracranial pressure rises dramatically, as blood rushes to the head, which becomes beet red, and the neck veins swell out, as blood pools in the venous system.

But apart from these examples, very little, if anything, is mentioned in curative physiology textbooks about gravity and its impact on circulation. Yet, you cannot fully understand brain circulation without considering gravity.

The succeed of gravity on brain circulation is purely mechanical, and relates to the position of the head relative to the pumping heart. When we are standing up, the head is above the heart, so blood must pump against the force of gravity — from the heart to the brain — lowering the sufficient pressure with which the arterial blood is delivered to the brain. Meanwhile, drainage of blood from the brain to the heart is facilitated by the pull of gravity.

In contrast, when we lie down and are horizontal, the heart and head are now on the same plane. This eliminates the effects of gravity on brain circulation. Blood from the heart pumps powerfully into the head without gravity’s resistance, addition intracranial pressure. And blood returning from the brain to the heart must do so without gravity’s assistance, causing a back-up of blood in the brain.

Essentially, intracranial pressure increases, and thorough brain circulation diminishes, when you are lying flat compared to standing up.

Of course, the body is engaging and has mechanisms for controlling brain pressure under distinct gravity situations. When the brain gets pressurized from lying down, there are various pressure receptors in the head and neck designed to lower blood pressure, thereby preventing too much brain pressure and the possibility of blowing a blood vessel or creating a cerebral aneurysm. This is why blood pressure is lower when we are sleeping, and horizontal.

But these brain mechanisms for adjusting pressure have their limits. As we go through the day in a vertical position, gravity relentlessly pulls our body’s fluids downwards, which is why many citizen have swollen feet and ankles by day’s end. Once we lie down, the gravity succeed is lost, as fluid leaves the legs and returns to the head. So despite our brains general defense mechanisms, throughout the night intracranial pressure increases and is top in the morning, after hours of lying flat, and bottom at the end of the day, after hours of being vertical.

What happens when intracranial pressure is high from long periods of lying flat? The increased arterial pressure causes extra cerebral spinal fluid to form in the brain’s ventricles, addition intracranial fluid pressure. The ventricles swell and the cells of the brain come to be bathed in excess fluid, essentially causing brain edema. This edema would lower the ready oxygen and sugar for brain cells. The lack of gravity assisted drainage from the brain would cause a back-up of blood in the venous principles and collecting sinuses in the brain. The brain’s circulation would come to be relatively stagnant, as the only force engaging blood through would be the pushing force of the arterial pressure (which is greatly reduced after going through the cerebral circulation) and the sucking force of the heart’s right atrium. And in addition to the brain swelling under the pressure, the eyes, ears, face, sinuses, gums — the entire head — will come to be pressurized and the tissues congested with fluid!

There is one field of rehabilitation that avidly studies this succeed of gravity on physiology. That sub-specialty is Space Medicine. Astronauts in space are in a zero-gravity field, and it is known that this causes blood to shift to the head and brain, causing increased brain pressure and together with migraines, glaucoma, Meniere’s disease, and other problems related with a pressurized, congested brain. To study the negative effects of zero-gravity here on Earth, these space scientists have citizen lie down flat! However, since rehabilitation is so wide a field, with sub-specialists learning more and more about less and less, there is itsybitsy replacement of ideas in the middle of space rehabilitation and Earth-bound medicine. Otherwise, person would have realized that lying flat is what we do when we sleep. If it causes problems for astronauts, then couldn’t it cause problems for every person else?

We found out about this Space explore while we performed our own explore into sleep positions as a potential cause of migraines. We hypothesized that sleeping too flat for too long each night could lead to brain pressure and fluid accumulation (edema) within the brain tissue, with related hypoxia and hypoglycemia. The brain cannot function well without allowable amounts of oxygen or sugar, and this condition would be at its worst in the morning, which is when most migraines occur.

While migraines have been view of as a pathological phenomenon, it is also potential that the migraine is the brain’s defense mechanism to receive new blood along with sugar and oxygen. After all, the only way the brain can get what it needs is from the bloodstream, and during a migraine arteries to the head open up and send blood with force throughout the brain. Perhaps, we reasoned, the migraine is a type of emergency “brain flush”, replacing old blood with new. If so, could we preclude migraines by having migraine sufferers sleep with their heads slightly elevated?

We tested our principles by having about 100 volunteer migraineurs sleep with the heads of their beds elevated, from 10-30 degrees. Head elevation, we theorized, would improve the brain circulation by providing some gravity assistance to drainage. Interestingly, we found that Space rehabilitation researchers discovered that brain circulation (and heart pumping) is optimal at a 30-degree head of bed elevation.

To our amazement, we found that the majority of the migraineurs in our study experienced relief by this uncomplicated sleep position change! Many had no new migraines, after being migraine sufferers for 30 or more years! The results were very fast, within a few days. And there were very engaging side effects, too. Our volunteers woke up more alert. Morning sinus congestion was significantly reduced for most people. Some reported that they no longer had inescapable allergies. Could we have discovered the real purpose and cause of migraines?

The implications of these findings were, frankly, marvelous to us. So many diseases are related to increased brain pressure of “unknown” cause. Sleep position was never studied as the cause of this increased pressure. The implications go far beyond the arresting and rehabilitation of migraines. Any condition that is related to brain pressure, and that is usually worse in the morning after a night of horizontal time, can be potentially related to this gravity and sleep position issue.

Keep in mind that the brain is the central nervous principles controlling and modifying all bodily functions. If inescapable centers of the brain are congested and pressurized daily by sleeping too flat for long hours, those centers can malfunction. Depending on the way a person sleeps, the idiosyncrasies of their brain circulation, and other variables, distinct citizen might perceive this brain pressure differently. For some, the respiratory centers of the hypothalamus might be particularly congested, resulting in Sudden child Death Syndrome (which has been related with head and body position while sleeping), sleep apnea, or even asthma. Sleep apnea has been shown to be treatable with changes in sleep position.

Strokes are clearly related with brain pressure, and usually occur at night or in the early morning, while sleeping. This is when brain pressure is highest.

Glaucoma is clearly caused by this mechanism. It is already known that eye pressure increases when the head is down, and decreases when the head is up. It is valuable to note the head position when taking eye pressure readings because of this sensitive association in the middle of intraocular pressure and head position. Eye pressure is also top in the early morning. Elevating the head while sleeping should be routine for glaucoma rehabilitation and prevention.

Baggy eyes and sinus congestion seem to be related to head pressure. Just as the brain gets extra pressure when lying down, the head and face are pressurized, too. citizen with these problems usually find immediate relief by sleeping elevated 10-30 degrees.

Alzheimer’s disease, we believe, might be the end disease caused by lasting brain congestion and pressure from flat sleeping. The cerebral ventricles of the Alzheimer’s brain are expanded, suggesting a history of ventricular pressure, and generalized lesions along the ventricles may indicate areas of brain tissue that have deteriorated from this lasting pressure. Other explore has already shown Alzheimer’s is related with increased brain pressure, but the cause has been carefully unknown, as is the case with practically all brain pressure problems.

It should be noted that the blood-brain fence cannot function properly when pressurized. immoderate intracranial pressure can cause leaks in this fence by addition the basement membrane, allowing heavy metals, e.g., aluminum and mercury, as well as viruses and bacteria, to enter the brain that would have otherwise been excluded. This may be why heavy metals have been related with inescapable brain problems, such as Alzheimer’s.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is also known to be related with congestion of the “impulse center” within the brain that helps operate behavior. We found some children with Adhd perceive profound improvement of self operate by elevating their heads while sleeping.

In addition to head position relative to gravity, we also have found side or belly sleeping can create problems. For example, we found some cases of carpel tunnel syndrome related to sleeping on the hands or wrists, and shoulder pain from sleeping on the side. And keep in mind that head pressure increases, and drainage diminishes, when the head is rotated to the side. Sleeping on the back avoids compression of limbs and internal organs.

It is also engaging to note that patients with asymmetrical problems will typically be worse on the side they sleep on. For example, eye prognosis will be worse in the eye on the side of the face that is slept on most. Ear infections will be worse on the “down” ear. You can also tell the side a person sleeps on by observing the shape of the nose. Apart from injuries, the nose should be symmetrical, but becomes curved away from the pillow because of sleeping on the side of the face and pressing on the nose for hours each night. The nose will point away from the side that is most slept on.

Men should be told that side sleeping may succeed in testicular compression and potential dysfunction. And women who sleep on their sides or stomachs subject their breasts to compression and impaired circulation. Side sleepers may have more breast problem on the side they sleep on.

We should apprise the practitioner, however, that, while the succeed of elevating the head while sleeping will be dramatic and transformative for many patients and should be carefully valuable to disease arresting strategies, the fact is that many citizen resist changing their sleep behaviors. They have been conditioned to sleep a inescapable way since birth. And even when they want to turn their sleep position, it’s difficult to ensure compliancy when the subject is unconscious! It takes astronomical will power to alter sleep behavior. But it is well worth the trouble, as citizen usually see within a week of sleeping elevated.

We found the best methods for head elevation include using more pillows, using a foam wedge, placing blocks under the legs of the bed frame at the head of the bed, or using an adjustable bed. While the ideal position is with the head from 10-30 degrees elevated, 10 degrees elevation is fine to start with. The legs should be slightly elevated, too, and the person should try to stay on his or her back as much as possible. The ideal position is one you would be in if leaning back in a recliner chair. (Recliners would be fine to use, too, but they usually give poor lower back support.) Also, be aware that some citizen will find one degree of elevation more comfortable than another. citizen with low blood pressure may need their heads lower than those with higher blood pressure. Others may have some neck and shoulder ache from the new position. However, by experimenting with pillows under the arms, underneath the buttocks (which prevents sliding down the bed), and under the feet and legs, the patient should find a comfortable solution.

Also, when taking in to succeed patient history, realize that neck injuries and tight neck muscles can impair venous drainage of the brain by compression of the jugular veins by the tight muscles. Neck massage and spinal adjustments may help improve thorough brain circulation. We have had a few case histories where there was itsybitsy or no improvement from head elevation, but the subjects had a history of neck injuries.

Of course, there will be times when citizen feel lightheaded and need to lie down to get more blood to the head. It might also be good for citizen to sleep less at night and to make up for lost sleep with a nap, or a siesta, during the day. That would avoid extremes of high and low brain pressure. But our culture makes it valuable for most citizen to do all their sleeping at once. Sleeping, after all, is a cultural issue. The point is to be aware of how you feel, and realize that your body position relative to gravity may be a key factor affecting condition and disease.

We are lasting to explore this succeed of gravity and sleep position on health, and encourage practitioners to quote their patients’ experiences with us. We also extremely encourage you to read our book, Get It Up! Revealing the uncomplicated Surprising Lifestyle that Causes Migraines, Alzheimer’s, Stroke, Glaucoma, Sleep Apnea, Impotence, and More! (Iscd Press, 2001), where we discuss the profound implications of this theory, along with a lengthy list of references about brain pressure and various diseases and the succeed of gravity on brain circulation. After you see the evidence, you will probably be as amazed as we are that sleep explore has been ignoring this valuable aspect of sleep.

Sleeping too flat each day may be the most lifestyle mistake citizen are production in our culture. Some of the worst diseases of our time may be all in our bed!

Heads Up! The Way You Are Sleeping May Be Killing You!

Posted in Neuropathy treatment | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Heads Up! The Way You Are Sleeping May Be Killing You!

Posted on March 28, 2012 by admin

Every one of us has a mysterious double life.

For about two thirds of the time we are conscious beings, mental about the world within and without, and negotiating our ways straight through the obstacles of life. For the other one third of the time we are nearly lifeless lumps of flesh, unconscious to all things but our own fantasies, as we lie flat in bed asleep. We all know that sleep is important for health. But for an operation that consumes about 8 hours of everyday of life, surprisingly dinky is view about the act of sleeping, or the way our culture teaches us to sleep. Sleep behavior, like all human activities, is defined by our culture.

Neuropathy

Sometimes, the practices taught by our culture can impact on the way our bodies function. As healing anthropologists, we investigate ways our cultural practices may be affecting our health. And we have found that the way we have been trained to sleep may be one of the most important causes of discrete diseases plaguing our society.

Of course, when you consider the culture of sleeping, it includes such isues as the distance of time to sleep, and time of day for sleep. Do you take frequent naps or do you sleep 8 hours straight? Do you sleep at night or during the day?

Other issues concern sleepwear. Do you sleep nude, or with pajamas or lingerie? Do you sleep in your underwear? Should the sheets be natural fabrics, such as cotton or silk, or is polyester okay? What about the detergent and fabric softeners used in the sheets, pillow case, and pj’s?

Should you eat before you sleep? What is the impact of watching television before sleep? Should you take sleeping pills to help you sleep?

These are some of the culturally defined issues that help settle how we sleep, all of which may have some inherent impact on health. However, there is one cultural issue that tops the list of importance, and which may greatly settle your condition status. It has to do with your sleep position. Are you sleeping on a firm, flat bed, face down, with your nose and eye compressed against the bed and pillow? Or are you on your back with your head slightly elevated, as is the case for many native cultures that use hammocks or other non-flat surfaces for sleep?

The presuppose we ask this last query is because the circulation to the head and brain is wholly linked to your body position when sleeping.

We all have had a time of experiencing dizziness or lightheadedness when getting out of bed too quickly. This corollary is called orthostatic hypotension, and results from the fact that blood pressure falls when you lie down, and sudden raising of the head may temporarily deprive the brain of adequate blood pressure, resulting in the dizziness or lightheadedness. The blood pressure soon rises, expanding the blood furnish to the brain, as you feel general again.

This phenomenon shows that the body’s position, relative to gravity, influences head and brain circulation. You can also demonstrate this by doing a head stand, which many yoga practitioners do daily. Intracranial pressure rises dramatically, as blood rushes to the head, which becomes beet red, and the neck veins swell out, as blood pools in the venous system.

But apart from these examples, very little, if anything, is mentioned in healing physiology textbooks about gravity and its impact on circulation. Yet, you cannot fully understand brain circulation without considering gravity.

The corollary of gravity on brain circulation is purely mechanical, and relates to the position of the head relative to the pumping heart. When we are standing up, the head is above the heart, so blood must pump against the force of gravity — from the heart to the brain — lowering the effective pressure with which the arterial blood is delivered to the brain. Meanwhile, drainage of blood from the brain to the heart is facilitated by the pull of gravity.

In contrast, when we lie down and are horizontal, the heart and head are now on the same plane. This eliminates the effects of gravity on brain circulation. Blood from the heart pumps powerfully into the head without gravity’s resistance, expanding intracranial pressure. And blood returning from the brain to the heart must do so without gravity’s assistance, causing a back-up of blood in the brain.

Essentially, intracranial pressure increases, and total brain circulation diminishes, when you are lying flat compared to standing up.

Of course, the body is thoughprovoking and has mechanisms for controlling brain pressure under separate gravity situations. When the brain gets pressurized from lying down, there are discrete pressure receptors in the head and neck designed to lower blood pressure, thereby preventing too much brain pressure and the possibility of blowing a blood vessel or creating a cerebral aneurysm. This is why blood pressure is lower when we are sleeping, and horizontal.

But these brain mechanisms for adjusting pressure have their limits. As we go straight through the day in a vertical position, gravity relentlessly pulls our body’s fluids downwards, which is why many population have swollen feet and ankles by day’s end. Once we lie down, the gravity corollary is lost, as fluid leaves the legs and returns to the head. So despite our brains general defense mechanisms, throughout the night intracranial pressure increases and is top in the morning, after hours of lying flat, and lowest at the end of the day, after hours of being vertical.

What happens when intracranial pressure is high from long periods of lying flat? The increased arterial pressure causes extra cerebral spinal fluid to form in the brain’s ventricles, expanding intracranial fluid pressure. The ventricles swell and the cells of the brain come to be bathed in excess fluid, essentially causing brain edema. This edema would lower the ready oxygen and sugar for brain cells. The lack of gravity assisted drainage from the brain would cause a back-up of blood in the venous system and collecting sinuses in the brain. The brain’s circulation would come to be relatively stagnant, as the only force thoughprovoking blood straight through would be the pushing force of the arterial pressure (which is greatly reduced after going straight through the cerebral circulation) and the sucking force of the heart’s right atrium. And in expanding to the brain swelling under the pressure, the eyes, ears, face, sinuses, gums — the whole head — will come to be pressurized and the tissues congested with fluid!

There is one field of medicine that avidly studies this corollary of gravity on physiology. That sub-specialty is Space Medicine. Astronauts in space are in a zero-gravity field, and it is known that this causes blood to shift to the head and brain, causing increased brain pressure and accompanying migraines, glaucoma, Meniere’s disease, and other problems linked with a pressurized, congested brain. To study the negative effects of zero-gravity here on Earth, these space scientists have population lie down flat! However, since medicine is so wide a field, with sub-specialists learning more and more about less and less, there is dinky exchange of ideas in the middle of space medicine and Earth-bound medicine. Otherwise, person would have realized that lying flat is what we do when we sleep. If it causes problems for astronauts, then couldn’t it cause problems for every person else?

We found out about this Space investigate while we performed our own investigate into sleep positions as a inherent cause of migraines. We hypothesized that sleeping too flat for too long each night could lead to brain pressure and fluid accumulation (edema) within the brain tissue, with linked hypoxia and hypoglycemia. The brain cannot function well without proper amounts of oxygen or sugar, and this condition would be at its worst in the morning, which is when most migraines occur.

While migraines have been view of as a pathological phenomenon, it is also inherent that the migraine is the brain’s defense mechanism to receive new blood along with sugar and oxygen. After all, the only way the brain can get what it needs is from the bloodstream, and during a migraine arteries to the head open up and send blood with force throughout the brain. Perhaps, we reasoned, the migraine is a type of urgency “brain flush”, replacing old blood with new. If so, could we forestall migraines by having migraine sufferers sleep with their heads slightly elevated?

We tested our system by having about 100 volunteer migraineurs sleep with the heads of their beds elevated, from 10-30 degrees. Head elevation, we theorized, would improve the brain circulation by providing some gravity assistance to drainage. Interestingly, we found that Space medicine researchers discovered that brain circulation (and heart pumping) is optimal at a 30-degree head of bed elevation.

To our amazement, we found that the majority of the migraineurs in our study experienced relief by this uncomplicated sleep position change! Many had no new migraines, after being migraine sufferers for 30 or more years! The results were very fast, within a few days. And there were very thoughprovoking side effects, too. Our volunteers woke up more alert. Morning sinus congestion was significantly reduced for most people. Some reported that they no longer had definite allergies. Could we have discovered the real purpose and cause of migraines?

The implications of these findings were, frankly, extraordinary to us. So many diseases are linked to increased brain pressure of “unknown” cause. Sleep position was never studied as the cause of this increased pressure. The implications go far beyond the stoppage and medicine of migraines. Any condition that is linked to brain pressure, and that is usually worse in the morning after a night of horizontal time, can be potentially linked to this gravity and sleep position issue.

Keep in mind that the brain is the central nervous system controlling and modifying all physical functions. If definite centers of the brain are congested and pressurized daily by sleeping too flat for long hours, those centers can malfunction. Depending on the way a person sleeps, the idiosyncrasies of their brain circulation, and other variables, separate population might experience this brain pressure differently. For some, the respiratory centers of the hypothalamus might be particularly congested, resulting in Sudden baby Death Syndrome (which has been linked with head and body position while sleeping), sleep apnea, or even asthma. Sleep apnea has been shown to be treatable with changes in sleep position.

Strokes are clearly linked with brain pressure, and usually occur at night or in the early morning, while sleeping. This is when brain pressure is highest.

Glaucoma is clearly caused by this mechanism. It is already known that eye pressure increases when the head is down, and decreases when the head is up. It is needful to note the head position when taking eye pressure readings because of this sensitive association in the middle of intraocular pressure and head position. Eye pressure is also top in the early morning. Elevating the head while sleeping should be disposition for glaucoma medicine and prevention.

Baggy eyes and sinus congestion seem to be linked to head pressure. Just as the brain gets extra pressure when lying down, the head and face are pressurized, too. population with these problems usually find immediate relief by sleeping elevated 10-30 degrees.

Alzheimer’s disease, we believe, might be the end disease caused by lasting brain congestion and pressure from flat sleeping. The cerebral ventricles of the Alzheimer’s brain are expanded, suggesting a history of ventricular pressure, and generalized lesions along the ventricles may indicate areas of brain tissue that have deteriorated from this lasting pressure. Other investigate has already shown Alzheimer’s is linked with increased brain pressure, but the cause has been carefully unknown, as is the case with almost all brain pressure problems.

It should be noted that the blood-brain barricade cannot function properly when pressurized. immoderate intracranial pressure can cause leaks in this barricade by expanding the basement membrane, allowing heavy metals, e.g., aluminum and mercury, as well as viruses and bacteria, to enter the brain that would have otherwise been excluded. This may be why heavy metals have been linked with definite brain problems, such as Alzheimer’s.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is also known to be linked with congestion of the “impulse center” within the brain that helps operate behavior. We found several children with Adhd experience profound correction of self operate by elevating their heads while sleeping.

In expanding to head position relative to gravity, we also have found side or belly sleeping can originate problems. For example, we found several cases of carpel tunnel syndrome linked to sleeping on the hands or wrists, and shoulder pain from sleeping on the side. And keep in mind that head pressure increases, and drainage diminishes, when the head is rotated to the side. Sleeping on the back avoids compression of limbs and internal organs.

It is also thoughprovoking to note that patients with asymmetrical problems will typically be worse on the side they sleep on. For example, eye determination will be worse in the eye on the side of the face that is slept on most. Ear infections will be worse on the “down” ear. You can also tell the side a person sleeps on by observing the shape of the nose. Apart from injuries, the nose should be symmetrical, but becomes curved away from the pillow because of sleeping on the side of the face and pressing on the nose for hours each night. The nose will point away from the side that is most slept on.

Men should be told that side sleeping may corollary in testicular compression and inherent dysfunction. And women who sleep on their sides or stomachs branch their breasts to compression and impaired circulation. Side sleepers may have more breast problem on the side they sleep on.

We should familiarize the practitioner, however, that, while the corollary of elevating the head while sleeping will be dramatic and transformative for many patients and should be carefully needful to disease stoppage strategies, the fact is that many population resist changing their sleep behaviors. They have been conditioned to sleep a definite way since birth. And even when they want to change their sleep position, it’s difficult to ensure compliancy when the branch is unconscious! It takes sizable will power to alter sleep behavior. But it is well worth the trouble, as population usually see within a week of sleeping elevated.

We found the best methods for head elevation consist of using more pillows, using a foam wedge, placing blocks under the legs of the bed frame at the head of the bed, or using an adjustable bed. While the ideal position is with the head from 10-30 degrees elevated, 10 degrees elevation is fine to start with. The legs should be slightly elevated, too, and the person should try to stay on his or her back as much as possible. The ideal position is one you would be in if leaning back in a recliner chair. (Recliners would be fine to use, too, but they usually give poor lower back support.) Also, be aware that some population will find one degree of elevation more comfortable than another. population with low blood pressure may need their heads lower than those with higher blood pressure. Others may have some neck and shoulder ache from the new position. However, by experimenting with pillows under the arms, underneath the buttocks (which prevents sliding down the bed), and under the feet and legs, the patient should find a comfortable solution.

Also, when taking in to corollary patient history, comprehend that neck injuries and tight neck muscles can impair venous drainage of the brain by compression of the jugular veins by the tight muscles. Neck massage and spinal adjustments may help improve total brain circulation. We have had a few case histories where there was dinky or no correction from head elevation, but the subjects had a history of neck injuries.

Of course, there will be times when population feel lightheaded and need to lie down to get more blood to the head. It might also be best for population to sleep less at night and to make up for lost sleep with a nap, or a siesta, during the day. That would avoid extremes of high and low brain pressure. But our culture makes it needful for most population to do all their sleeping at once. Sleeping, after all, is a cultural issue. The point is to be aware of how you feel, and comprehend that your body position relative to gravity may be a key factor affecting condition and disease.

We are lasting to investigate this corollary of gravity and sleep position on health, and encourage practitioners to recap their patients’ experiences with us. We also extremely encourage you to read our book, Get It Up! Revealing the uncomplicated Surprising Lifestyle that Causes Migraines, Alzheimer’s, Stroke, Glaucoma, Sleep Apnea, Impotence, and More! (Iscd Press, 2001), where we discuss the profound implications of this theory, along with a lengthy list of references about brain pressure and discrete diseases and the corollary of gravity on brain circulation. After you see the evidence, you will probably be as amazed as we are that sleep investigate has been ignoring this needful aspect of sleep.

Sleeping too flat each day may be the many lifestyle mistake population are manufacture in our culture. Some of the worst diseases of our time may be all in our bed!

Heads Up! The Way You Are Sleeping May Be Killing You!

Posted in Neuropathy treatment | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Heads Up! The Way You Are Sleeping May Be Killing You!

Posted on March 28, 2012 by admin

Every one of us has a mysterious duplicate life.

For about two thirds of the time we are conscious beings, thinking about the world within and without, and negotiating our ways through the obstacles of life. For the other one third of the time we are nearly lifeless lumps of flesh, unconscious to all but our own fantasies, as we lie flat in bed asleep. We all know that sleep is leading for health. But for an activity that consumes about 8 hours of daily of life, surprisingly wee is belief about the act of sleeping, or the way our culture teaches us to sleep. Sleep behavior, like all human activities, is defined by our culture.

Neuropathy

Sometimes, the practices taught by our culture can impact on the way our bodies function. As healing anthropologists, we explore ways our cultural practices may be affecting our health. And we have found that the way we have been trained to sleep may be one of the most leading causes of discrete diseases plaguing our society.

Of course, when you think the culture of sleeping, it includes such isues as the distance of time to sleep, and time of day for sleep. Do you take frequent naps or do you sleep 8 hours straight? Do you sleep at night or while the day?

Other issues concern sleepwear. Do you sleep nude, or with pajamas or lingerie? Do you sleep in your underwear? Should the sheets be natural fabrics, such as cotton or silk, or is polyester okay? What about the detergent and fabric softeners used in the sheets, pillow case, and pj’s?

Should you eat before you sleep? What is the impact of watching television before sleep? Should you take sleeping pills to help you sleep?

These are some of the culturally defined issues that help determine how we sleep, all of which may have some inherent impact on health. However, there is one cultural issue that tops the list of importance, and which may greatly determine your condition status. It has to do with your sleep position. Are you sleeping on a firm, flat bed, face down, with your nose and eye compressed against the bed and pillow? Or are you on your back with your head slightly elevated, as is the case for many native cultures that use hammocks or other non-flat surfaces for sleep?

The think we ask this last interrogate is because the circulation to the head and brain is thoroughly related to your body position when sleeping.

We all have had a time of experiencing dizziness or lightheadedness when getting out of bed too quickly. This corollary is called orthostatic hypotension, and results from the fact that blood pressure falls when you lie down, and sudden raising of the head may temporarily deprive the brain of sufficient blood pressure, resulting in the dizziness or lightheadedness. The blood pressure soon rises, expanding the blood provide to the brain, as you feel general again.

This phenomenon shows that the body’s position, relative to gravity, influences head and brain circulation. You can also demonstrate this by doing a head stand, which many yoga practitioners do daily. Intracranial pressure rises dramatically, as blood rushes to the head, which becomes beet red, and the neck veins swell out, as blood pools in the venous system.

But apart from these examples, very little, if anything, is mentioned in healing physiology textbooks about gravity and its impact on circulation. Yet, you cannot fully understand brain circulation without inspecting gravity.

The corollary of gravity on brain circulation is purely mechanical, and relates to the position of the head relative to the pumping heart. When we are standing up, the head is above the heart, so blood must pump against the force of gravity — from the heart to the brain — lowering the sufficient pressure with which the arterial blood is delivered to the brain. Meanwhile, drainage of blood from the brain to the heart is facilitated by the pull of gravity.

In contrast, when we lie down and are horizontal, the heart and head are now on the same plane. This eliminates the effects of gravity on brain circulation. Blood from the heart pumps powerfully into the head without gravity’s resistance, expanding intracranial pressure. And blood returning from the brain to the heart must do so without gravity’s assistance, causing a back-up of blood in the brain.

Essentially, intracranial pressure increases, and ample brain circulation diminishes, when you are lying flat compared to standing up.

Of course, the body is consuming and has mechanisms for controlling brain pressure under distinct gravity situations. When the brain gets pressurized from lying down, there are discrete pressure receptors in the head and neck designed to lower blood pressure, thereby preventing too much brain pressure and the possibility of blowing a blood vessel or creating a cerebral aneurysm. This is why blood pressure is lower when we are sleeping, and horizontal.

But these brain mechanisms for adjusting pressure have their limits. As we go through the day in a vertical position, gravity relentlessly pulls our body’s fluids downwards, which is why many citizen have swollen feet and ankles by day’s end. Once we lie down, the gravity corollary is lost, as fluid leaves the legs and returns to the head. So despite our brains general defense mechanisms, throughout the night intracranial pressure increases and is highest in the morning, after hours of lying flat, and bottom at the end of the day, after hours of being vertical.

What happens when intracranial pressure is high from long periods of lying flat? The increased arterial pressure causes extra cerebral spinal fluid to form in the brain’s ventricles, expanding intracranial fluid pressure. The ventricles swell and the cells of the brain become bathed in excess fluid, essentially causing brain edema. This edema would lower the ready oxygen and sugar for brain cells. The lack of gravity assisted drainage from the brain would cause a back-up of blood in the venous system and collecting sinuses in the brain. The brain’s circulation would become relatively stagnant, as the only force consuming blood through would be the pushing force of the arterial pressure (which is greatly reduced after going through the cerebral circulation) and the sucking force of the heart’s right atrium. And in expanding to the brain swelling under the pressure, the eyes, ears, face, sinuses, gums — the whole head — will become pressurized and the tissues congested with fluid!

There is one field of rehabilitation that avidly studies this corollary of gravity on physiology. That sub-specialty is Space Medicine. Astronauts in space are in a zero-gravity field, and it is known that this causes blood to shift to the head and brain, causing increased brain pressure and along migraines, glaucoma, Meniere’s disease, and other problems related with a pressurized, congested brain. To study the negative effects of zero-gravity here on Earth, these space scientists have citizen lie down flat! However, since rehabilitation is so wide a field, with sub-specialists learning more and more about less and less, there is wee transfer of ideas in the middle of space rehabilitation and Earth-bound medicine. Otherwise, person would have realized that lying flat is what we do when we sleep. If it causes problems for astronauts, then couldn’t it cause problems for everybody else?

We found out about this Space explore while we performed our own explore into sleep positions as a inherent cause of migraines. We hypothesized that sleeping too flat for too long each night could lead to brain pressure and fluid accumulation (edema) within the brain tissue, with related hypoxia and hypoglycemia. The brain cannot function well without permissible amounts of oxygen or sugar, and this condition would be at its worst in the morning, which is when most migraines occur.

While migraines have been belief of as a pathological phenomenon, it is also inherent that the throbbing head is the brain’s defense mechanism to receive new blood along with sugar and oxygen. After all, the only way the brain can get what it needs is from the bloodstream, and while a throbbing head arteries to the head open up and send blood with force throughout the brain. Perhaps, we reasoned, the throbbing head is a type of emergency “brain flush”, replacing old blood with new. If so, could we forestall migraines by having throbbing head sufferers sleep with their heads slightly elevated?

We tested our system by having about 100 volunteer migraineurs sleep with the heads of their beds elevated, from 10-30 degrees. Head elevation, we theorized, would improve the brain circulation by providing some gravity assistance to drainage. Interestingly, we found that Space rehabilitation researchers discovered that brain circulation (and heart pumping) is optimal at a 30-degree head of bed elevation.

To our amazement, we found that the majority of the migraineurs in our study experienced relief by this easy sleep position change! Many had no new migraines, after being throbbing head sufferers for 30 or more years! The results were very fast, within a few days. And there were very consuming side effects, too. Our volunteers woke up more alert. Morning sinus congestion was significantly reduced for most people. Some reported that they no longer had confident allergies. Could we have discovered the real purpose and cause of migraines?

The implications of these findings were, frankly, amazing to us. So many diseases are related to increased brain pressure of “unknown” cause. Sleep position was never studied as the cause of this increased pressure. The implications go far beyond the stoppage and rehabilitation of migraines. Any condition that is related to brain pressure, and that is ordinarily worse in the morning after a night of horizontal time, can be potentially related to this gravity and sleep position issue.

Keep in mind that the brain is the central nervous system controlling and modifying all physical functions. If confident centers of the brain are congested and pressurized daily by sleeping too flat for long hours, those centers can malfunction. Depending on the way a person sleeps, the idiosyncrasies of their brain circulation, and other variables, distinct citizen might palpate this brain pressure differently. For some, the respiratory centers of the hypothalamus might be particularly congested, resulting in Sudden infant Death Syndrome (which has been related with head and body position while sleeping), sleep apnea, or even asthma. Sleep apnea has been shown to be treatable with changes in sleep position.

Strokes are clearly related with brain pressure, and ordinarily occur at night or in the early morning, while sleeping. This is when brain pressure is highest.

Glaucoma is clearly caused by this mechanism. It is already known that eye pressure increases when the head is down, and decreases when the head is up. It is requisite to note the head position when taking eye pressure readings because of this sensitive association in the middle of intraocular pressure and head position. Eye pressure is also highest in the early morning. Elevating the head while sleeping should be disposition for glaucoma rehabilitation and prevention.

Baggy eyes and sinus congestion seem to be related to head pressure. Just as the brain gets extra pressure when lying down, the head and face are pressurized, too. citizen with these problems ordinarily find immediate relief by sleeping elevated 10-30 degrees.

Alzheimer’s disease, we believe, might be the end disease caused by chronic brain congestion and pressure from flat sleeping. The cerebral ventricles of the Alzheimer’s brain are expanded, suggesting a history of ventricular pressure, and generalized lesions along the ventricles may indicate areas of brain tissue that have deteriorated from this chronic pressure. Other explore has already shown Alzheimer’s is related with increased brain pressure, but the cause has been thought about unknown, as is the case with practically all brain pressure problems.

It should be noted that the blood-brain fence cannot function properly when pressurized. excessive intracranial pressure can cause leaks in this fence by expanding the basement membrane, allowing heavy metals, e.g., aluminum and mercury, as well as viruses and bacteria, to enter the brain that would have otherwise been excluded. This may be why heavy metals have been related with confident brain problems, such as Alzheimer’s.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is also known to be related with congestion of the “impulse center” within the brain that helps control behavior. We found any children with Adhd palpate profound revising of self control by elevating their heads while sleeping.

In expanding to head position relative to gravity, we also have found side or belly sleeping can generate problems. For example, we found any cases of carpel tunnel syndrome related to sleeping on the hands or wrists, and shoulder pain from sleeping on the side. And keep in mind that head pressure increases, and drainage diminishes, when the head is rotated to the side. Sleeping on the back avoids compression of limbs and internal organs.

It is also consuming to note that patients with asymmetrical problems will typically be worse on the side they sleep on. For example, eye prognosis will be worse in the eye on the side of the face that is slept on most. Ear infections will be worse on the “down” ear. You can also tell the side a person sleeps on by observing the shape of the nose. Apart from injuries, the nose should be symmetrical, but becomes curved away from the pillow because of sleeping on the side of the face and pressing on the nose for hours each night. The nose will point away from the side that is most slept on.

Men should be told that side sleeping may corollary in testicular compression and inherent dysfunction. And women who sleep on their sides or stomachs branch their breasts to compression and impaired circulation. Side sleepers may have more breast problem on the side they sleep on.

We should inform the practitioner, however, that, while the corollary of elevating the head while sleeping will be dramatic and transformative for many patients and should be thought about requisite to disease stoppage strategies, the fact is that many citizen resist changing their sleep behaviors. They have been conditioned to sleep a confident way since birth. And even when they want to turn their sleep position, it’s difficult to ensure yielding when the branch is unconscious! It takes enormous will power to alter sleep behavior. But it is well worth the trouble, as citizen ordinarily see within a week of sleeping elevated.

We found the best methods for head elevation comprise using more pillows, using a foam wedge, placing blocks under the legs of the bed frame at the head of the bed, or using an adjustable bed. While the ideal position is with the head from 10-30 degrees elevated, 10 degrees elevation is fine to start with. The legs should be slightly elevated, too, and the person should try to stay on his or her back as much as possible. The ideal position is one you would be in if leaning back in a recliner chair. (Recliners would be fine to use, too, but they ordinarily give poor lower back support.) Also, be aware that some citizen will find one degree of elevation more comfortable than another. citizen with low blood pressure may need their heads lower than those with higher blood pressure. Others may have some neck and shoulder ache from the new position. However, by experimenting with pillows under the arms, underneath the buttocks (which prevents sliding down the bed), and under the feet and legs, the inpatient should find a comfortable solution.

Also, when taking in to corollary inpatient history, realize that neck injuries and tight neck muscles can impair venous drainage of the brain by compression of the jugular veins by the tight muscles. Neck massage and spinal adjustments may help improve ample brain circulation. We have had a few case histories where there was wee or no revising from head elevation, but the subjects had a history of neck injuries.

Of course, there will be times when citizen feel lightheaded and need to lie down to get more blood to the head. It might also be good for citizen to sleep less at night and to make up for lost sleep with a nap, or a siesta, while the day. That would avoid extremes of high and low brain pressure. But our culture makes it requisite for most citizen to do all their sleeping at once. Sleeping, after all, is a cultural issue. The point is to be aware of how you feel, and realize that your body position relative to gravity may be a key factor affecting condition and disease.

We are chronic to explore this corollary of gravity and sleep position on health, and encourage practitioners to describe their patients’ experiences with us. We also extremely encourage you to read our book, Get It Up! Revealing the easy Surprising Lifestyle that Causes Migraines, Alzheimer’s, Stroke, Glaucoma, Sleep Apnea, Impotence, and More! (Iscd Press, 2001), where we discuss the profound implications of this theory, including a lengthy list of references about brain pressure and discrete diseases and the corollary of gravity on brain circulation. After you see the evidence, you will probably be as amazed as we are that sleep explore has been ignoring this requisite aspect of sleep.

Sleeping too flat each day may be the many lifestyle mistake citizen are manufacture in our culture. Some of the worst diseases of our time may be all in our bed!

Heads Up! The Way You Are Sleeping May Be Killing You!

Posted in Neuropathy treatment | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Heads Up! The Way You Are Sleeping May Be Killing You!

Posted on March 28, 2012 by admin

Every one of us has a mysterious duplicate life.

For about two thirds of the time we are known beings, reasoning about the world within and without, and negotiating our ways through the obstacles of life. For the other one third of the time we are nearly lifeless lumps of flesh, unconscious to all things but our own fantasies, as we lie flat in bed asleep. We all know that sleep is leading for health. But for an activity that consumes about 8 hours of everyday of life, surprisingly small is notion about the act of sleeping, or the way our culture teaches us to sleep. Sleep behavior, like all human activities, is defined by our culture.

Neuropathy

Sometimes, the practices taught by our culture can impact on the way our bodies function. As healing anthropologists, we study ways our cultural practices may be affecting our health. And we have found that the way we have been trained to sleep may be one of the most leading causes of assorted diseases plaguing our society.

Of course, when you consider the culture of sleeping, it includes such isues as the distance of time to sleep, and time of day for sleep. Do you take frequent naps or do you sleep 8 hours straight? Do you sleep at night or while the day?

Other issues concern sleepwear. Do you sleep nude, or with pajamas or lingerie? Do you sleep in your underwear? Should the sheets be natural fabrics, such as cotton or silk, or is polyester okay? What about the detergent and fabric softeners used in the sheets, pillow case, and pj’s?

Should you eat before you sleep? What is the impact of watching television before sleep? Should you take sleeping pills to help you sleep?

These are some of the culturally defined issues that help settle how we sleep, all of which may have some potential impact on health. However, there is one cultural issue that tops the list of importance, and which may greatly settle your health status. It has to do with your sleep position. Are you sleeping on a firm, flat bed, face down, with your nose and eye compressed against the bed and pillow? Or are you on your back with your head slightly elevated, as is the case for many native cultures that use hammocks or other non-flat surfaces for sleep?

The imagine we ask this last examine is because the circulation to the head and brain is fully associated to your body position when sleeping.

We all have had a time of experiencing dizziness or lightheadedness when getting out of bed too quickly. This corollary is called orthostatic hypotension, and results from the fact that blood pressure falls when you lie down, and sudden raising of the head may temporarily deprive the brain of enough blood pressure, resulting in the dizziness or lightheadedness. The blood pressure soon rises, expanding the blood provide to the brain, as you feel normal again.

This phenomenon shows that the body’s position, relative to gravity, influences head and brain circulation. You can also demonstrate this by doing a head stand, which many yoga practitioners do daily. Intracranial pressure rises dramatically, as blood rushes to the head, which becomes beet red, and the neck veins swell out, as blood pools in the venous system.

But apart from these examples, very little, if anything, is mentioned in healing physiology textbooks about gravity and its impact on circulation. Yet, you cannot fully understand brain circulation without inspecting gravity.

The corollary of gravity on brain circulation is purely mechanical, and relates to the position of the head relative to the pumping heart. When we are standing up, the head is above the heart, so blood must pump against the force of gravity — from the heart to the brain — lowering the efficient pressure with which the arterial blood is delivered to the brain. Meanwhile, drainage of blood from the brain to the heart is facilitated by the pull of gravity.

In contrast, when we lie down and are horizontal, the heart and head are now on the same plane. This eliminates the effects of gravity on brain circulation. Blood from the heart pumps powerfully into the head without gravity’s resistance, expanding intracranial pressure. And blood returning from the brain to the heart must do so without gravity’s assistance, causing a back-up of blood in the brain.

Essentially, intracranial pressure increases, and overall brain circulation diminishes, when you are lying flat compared to standing up.

Of course, the body is bright and has mechanisms for controlling brain pressure under separate gravity situations. When the brain gets pressurized from lying down, there are assorted pressure receptors in the head and neck designed to lower blood pressure, thereby preventing too much brain pressure and the possibility of blowing a blood vessel or creating a cerebral aneurysm. This is why blood pressure is lower when we are sleeping, and horizontal.

But these brain mechanisms for adjusting pressure have their limits. As we go through the day in a vertical position, gravity relentlessly pulls our body’s fluids downwards, which is why many habitancy have swollen feet and ankles by day’s end. Once we lie down, the gravity corollary is lost, as fluid leaves the legs and returns to the head. So despite our brains normal defense mechanisms, throughout the night intracranial pressure increases and is highest in the morning, after hours of lying flat, and lowest at the end of the day, after hours of being vertical.

What happens when intracranial pressure is high from long periods of lying flat? The increased arterial pressure causes extra cerebral spinal fluid to form in the brain’s ventricles, expanding intracranial fluid pressure. The ventricles swell and the cells of the brain come to be bathed in excess fluid, essentially causing brain edema. This edema would lower the available oxygen and sugar for brain cells. The lack of gravity assisted drainage from the brain would cause a back-up of blood in the venous principles and collecting sinuses in the brain. The brain’s circulation would come to be relatively stagnant, as the only force bright blood through would be the pushing force of the arterial pressure (which is greatly reduced after going through the cerebral circulation) and the sucking force of the heart’s right atrium. And in expanding to the brain swelling under the pressure, the eyes, ears, face, sinuses, gums — the entire head — will come to be pressurized and the tissues congested with fluid!

There is one field of medicine that avidly studies this corollary of gravity on physiology. That sub-specialty is Space Medicine. Astronauts in space are in a zero-gravity field, and it is known that this causes blood to shift to the head and brain, causing increased brain pressure and along migraines, glaucoma, Meniere’s disease, and other problems associated with a pressurized, congested brain. To study the negative effects of zero-gravity here on Earth, these space scientists have habitancy lie down flat! However, since medicine is so wide a field, with sub-specialists learning more and more about less and less, there is small replacement of ideas between space medicine and Earth-bound medicine. Otherwise, man would have realized that lying flat is what we do when we sleep. If it causes problems for astronauts, then couldn’t it cause problems for every person else?

We found out about this Space study while we performed our own study into sleep positions as a potential cause of migraines. We hypothesized that sleeping too flat for too long each night could lead to brain pressure and fluid accumulation (edema) within the brain tissue, with associated hypoxia and hypoglycemia. The brain cannot function well without permissible amounts of oxygen or sugar, and this health would be at its worst in the morning, which is when most migraines occur.

While migraines have been notion of as a pathological phenomenon, it is also potential that the migraine is the brain’s defense mechanism to receive new blood along with sugar and oxygen. After all, the only way the brain can get what it needs is from the bloodstream, and while a migraine arteries to the head open up and send blood with force throughout the brain. Perhaps, we reasoned, the migraine is a type of emergency “brain flush”, replacing old blood with new. If so, could we prevent migraines by having migraine sufferers sleep with their heads slightly elevated?

We tested our principles by having about 100 volunteer migraineurs sleep with the heads of their beds elevated, from 10-30 degrees. Head elevation, we theorized, would improve the brain circulation by providing some gravity assistance to drainage. Interestingly, we found that Space medicine researchers discovered that brain circulation (and heart pumping) is optimal at a 30-degree head of bed elevation.

To our amazement, we found that the majority of the migraineurs in our study experienced relief by this uncomplicated sleep position change! Many had no new migraines, after being migraine sufferers for 30 or more years! The results were very fast, within a few days. And there were very bright side effects, too. Our volunteers woke up more alert. Morning sinus congestion was significantly reduced for most people. Some reported that they no longer had distinct allergies. Could we have discovered the real purpose and cause of migraines?

The implications of these findings were, frankly, extraordinary to us. So many diseases are associated to increased brain pressure of “unknown” cause. Sleep position was never studied as the cause of this increased pressure. The implications go far beyond the stoppage and medicine of migraines. Any health that is associated to brain pressure, and that is ordinarily worse in the morning after a night of horizontal time, can be potentially associated to this gravity and sleep position issue.

Keep in mind that the brain is the central nervous principles controlling and modifying all physical functions. If distinct centers of the brain are congested and pressurized daily by sleeping too flat for long hours, those centers can malfunction. Depending on the way a man sleeps, the idiosyncrasies of their brain circulation, and other variables, separate habitancy might perceive this brain pressure differently. For some, the respiratory centers of the hypothalamus might be particularly congested, resulting in Sudden infant Death Syndrome (which has been associated with head and body position while sleeping), sleep apnea, or even asthma. Sleep apnea has been shown to be treatable with changes in sleep position.

Strokes are clearly associated with brain pressure, and ordinarily occur at night or in the early morning, while sleeping. This is when brain pressure is highest.

Glaucoma is clearly caused by this mechanism. It is already known that eye pressure increases when the head is down, and decreases when the head is up. It is essential to note the head position when taking eye pressure readings because of this sensitive relationship between intraocular pressure and head position. Eye pressure is also highest in the early morning. Elevating the head while sleeping should be disposition for glaucoma medicine and prevention.

Baggy eyes and sinus congestion seem to be associated to head pressure. Just as the brain gets extra pressure when lying down, the head and face are pressurized, too. habitancy with these problems ordinarily find immediate relief by sleeping elevated 10-30 degrees.

Alzheimer’s disease, we believe, might be the end disease caused by chronic brain congestion and pressure from flat sleeping. The cerebral ventricles of the Alzheimer’s brain are expanded, suggesting a history of ventricular pressure, and generalized lesions along the ventricles may indicate areas of brain tissue that have deteriorated from this chronic pressure. Other study has already shown Alzheimer’s is associated with increased brain pressure, but the cause has been thought about unknown, as is the case with almost all brain pressure problems.

It should be noted that the blood-brain barricade cannot function properly when pressurized. inordinate intracranial pressure can cause leaks in this barricade by expanding the basement membrane, allowing heavy metals, e.g., aluminum and mercury, as well as viruses and bacteria, to enter the brain that would have otherwise been excluded. This may be why heavy metals have been associated with distinct brain problems, such as Alzheimer’s.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is also known to be associated with congestion of the “impulse center” within the brain that helps operate behavior. We found any children with Adhd perceive profound improvement of self operate by elevating their heads while sleeping.

In expanding to head position relative to gravity, we also have found side or belly sleeping can generate problems. For example, we found any cases of carpel tunnel syndrome associated to sleeping on the hands or wrists, and shoulder pain from sleeping on the side. And keep in mind that head pressure increases, and drainage diminishes, when the head is rotated to the side. Sleeping on the back avoids compression of limbs and internal organs.

It is also bright to note that patients with asymmetrical problems will typically be worse on the side they sleep on. For example, eye determination will be worse in the eye on the side of the face that is slept on most. Ear infections will be worse on the “down” ear. You can also tell the side a man sleeps on by observing the shape of the nose. Apart from injuries, the nose should be symmetrical, but becomes curved away from the pillow because of sleeping on the side of the face and pressing on the nose for hours each night. The nose will point away from the side that is most slept on.

Men should be told that side sleeping may corollary in testicular compression and potential dysfunction. And women who sleep on their sides or stomachs branch their breasts to compression and impaired circulation. Side sleepers may have more breast problem on the side they sleep on.

We should warn the practitioner, however, that, while the corollary of elevating the head while sleeping will be dramatic and transformative for many patients and should be thought about essential to disease stoppage strategies, the fact is that many habitancy resist changing their sleep behaviors. They have been conditioned to sleep a distinct way since birth. And even when they want to convert their sleep position, it’s difficult to ensure compliance when the branch is unconscious! It takes gargantuan will power to alter sleep behavior. But it is well worth the trouble, as habitancy ordinarily see within a week of sleeping elevated.

We found the best methods for head elevation consist of using more pillows, using a foam wedge, placing blocks under the legs of the bed frame at the head of the bed, or using an adjustable bed. While the ideal position is with the head from 10-30 degrees elevated, 10 degrees elevation is fine to start with. The legs should be slightly elevated, too, and the man should try to stay on his or her back as much as possible. The ideal position is one you would be in if leaning back in a recliner chair. (Recliners would be fine to use, too, but they ordinarily give poor lower back support.) Also, be aware that some habitancy will find one degree of elevation more comfortable than another. habitancy with low blood pressure may need their heads lower than those with higher blood pressure. Others may have some neck and shoulder hurt from the new position. However, by experimenting with pillows under the arms, underneath the buttocks (which prevents sliding down the bed), and under the feet and legs, the sick person should find a comfortable solution.

Also, when taking in to corollary sick person history, perceive that neck injuries and tight neck muscles can impair venous drainage of the brain by compression of the jugular veins by the tight muscles. Neck massage and spinal adjustments may help improve overall brain circulation. We have had a few case histories where there was small or no improvement from head elevation, but the subjects had a history of neck injuries.

Of course, there will be times when habitancy feel lightheaded and need to lie down to get more blood to the head. It might also be good for habitancy to sleep less at night and to make up for lost sleep with a nap, or a siesta, while the day. That would avoid extremes of high and low brain pressure. But our culture makes it essential for most habitancy to do all their sleeping at once. Sleeping, after all, is a cultural issue. The point is to be aware of how you feel, and perceive that your body position relative to gravity may be a key factor affecting health and disease.

We are chronic to study this corollary of gravity and sleep position on health, and encourage practitioners to enumerate their patients’ experiences with us. We also highly encourage you to read our book, Get It Up! Revealing the uncomplicated Surprising Lifestyle that Causes Migraines, Alzheimer’s, Stroke, Glaucoma, Sleep Apnea, Impotence, and More! (Iscd Press, 2001), where we discuss the profound implications of this theory, along with a lengthy list of references about brain pressure and assorted diseases and the corollary of gravity on brain circulation. After you see the evidence, you will probably be as amazed as we are that sleep study has been ignoring this essential aspect of sleep.

Sleeping too flat each day may be the most lifestyle mistake habitancy are making in our culture. Some of the worst diseases of our time may be all in our bed!

Heads Up! The Way You Are Sleeping May Be Killing You!

Posted in Neuropathy treatment | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Heads Up! The Way You Are Sleeping May Be Killing You!

Posted on March 28, 2012 by admin

Every one of us has a mysterious duplicate life.

For about two thirds of the time we are known beings, reasoning about the world within and without, and negotiating our ways through the obstacles of life. For the other one third of the time we are nearly lifeless lumps of flesh, unconscious to all but our own fantasies, as we lie flat in bed asleep. We all know that sleep is foremost for health. But for an action that consumes about 8 hours of everyday of life, surprisingly diminutive is plan about the act of sleeping, or the way our culture teaches us to sleep. Sleep behavior, like all human activities, is defined by our culture.

Neuropathy

Sometimes, the practices taught by our culture can impact on the way our bodies function. As medical anthropologists, we research ways our cultural practices may be affecting our health. And we have found that the way we have been trained to sleep may be one of the most foremost causes of varied diseases plaguing our society.

Of course, when you consider the culture of sleeping, it includes such isues as the distance of time to sleep, and time of day for sleep. Do you take frequent naps or do you sleep 8 hours straight? Do you sleep at night or during the day?

Other issues concern sleepwear. Do you sleep nude, or with pajamas or lingerie? Do you sleep in your underwear? Should the sheets be natural fabrics, such as cotton or silk, or is polyester okay? What about the detergent and fabric softeners used in the sheets, pillow case, and pj’s?

Should you eat before you sleep? What is the impact of watching television before sleep? Should you take sleeping pills to help you sleep?

These are some of the culturally defined issues that help decree how we sleep, all of which may have some inherent impact on health. However, there is one cultural issue that tops the list of importance, and which may greatly decree your condition status. It has to do with your sleep position. Are you sleeping on a firm, flat bed, face down, with your nose and eye compressed against the bed and pillow? Or are you on your back with your head slightly elevated, as is the case for many native cultures that use hammocks or other non-flat surfaces for sleep?

The infer we ask this last quiz, is because the circulation to the head and brain is wholly connected to your body position when sleeping.

We all have had a time of experiencing dizziness or lightheadedness when getting out of bed too quickly. This follow is called orthostatic hypotension, and results from the fact that blood pressure falls when you lie down, and sudden raising of the head may temporarily deprive the brain of enough blood pressure, resulting in the dizziness or lightheadedness. The blood pressure soon rises, addition the blood provide to the brain, as you feel general again.

This phenomenon shows that the body’s position, relative to gravity, influences head and brain circulation. You can also demonstrate this by doing a head stand, which many yoga practitioners do daily. Intracranial pressure rises dramatically, as blood rushes to the head, which becomes beet red, and the neck veins swell out, as blood pools in the venous system.

But apart from these examples, very little, if anything, is mentioned in medical physiology textbooks about gravity and its impact on circulation. Yet, you cannot fully understand brain circulation without inspecting gravity.

The follow of gravity on brain circulation is purely mechanical, and relates to the position of the head relative to the pumping heart. When we are standing up, the head is above the heart, so blood must pump against the force of gravity — from the heart to the brain — lowering the productive pressure with which the arterial blood is delivered to the brain. Meanwhile, drainage of blood from the brain to the heart is facilitated by the pull of gravity.

In contrast, when we lie down and are horizontal, the heart and head are now on the same plane. This eliminates the effects of gravity on brain circulation. Blood from the heart pumps powerfully into the head without gravity’s resistance, addition intracranial pressure. And blood returning from the brain to the heart must do so without gravity’s assistance, causing a back-up of blood in the brain.

Essentially, intracranial pressure increases, and full, brain circulation diminishes, when you are lying flat compared to standing up.

Of course, the body is inviting and has mechanisms for controlling brain pressure under different gravity situations. When the brain gets pressurized from lying down, there are varied pressure receptors in the head and neck designed to lower blood pressure, thereby preventing too much brain pressure and the possibility of blowing a blood vessel or creating a cerebral aneurysm. This is why blood pressure is lower when we are sleeping, and horizontal.

But these brain mechanisms for adjusting pressure have their limits. As we go through the day in a vertical position, gravity relentlessly pulls our body’s fluids downwards, which is why many people have swollen feet and ankles by day’s end. Once we lie down, the gravity follow is lost, as fluid leaves the legs and returns to the head. So despite our brains general defense mechanisms, throughout the night intracranial pressure increases and is highest in the morning, after hours of lying flat, and bottom at the end of the day, after hours of being vertical.

What happens when intracranial pressure is high from long periods of lying flat? The increased arterial pressure causes extra cerebral spinal fluid to form in the brain’s ventricles, addition intracranial fluid pressure. The ventricles swell and the cells of the brain become bathed in excess fluid, essentially causing brain edema. This edema would lower the ready oxygen and sugar for brain cells. The lack of gravity assisted drainage from the brain would cause a back-up of blood in the venous system and collecting sinuses in the brain. The brain’s circulation would become relatively stagnant, as the only force inviting blood through would be the pushing force of the arterial pressure (which is greatly reduced after going through the cerebral circulation) and the sucking force of the heart’s right atrium. And in addition to the brain swelling under the pressure, the eyes, ears, face, sinuses, gums — the whole head — will become pressurized and the tissues congested with fluid!

There is one field of medicine that avidly studies this follow of gravity on physiology. That sub-specialty is Space Medicine. Astronauts in space are in a zero-gravity field, and it is known that this causes blood to shift to the head and brain, causing increased brain pressure and together with migraines, glaucoma, Meniere’s disease, and other problems connected with a pressurized, congested brain. To study the negative effects of zero-gravity here on Earth, these space scientists have people lie down flat! However, since medicine is so wide a field, with sub-specialists learning more and more about less and less, there is diminutive replacement of ideas in the middle of space medicine and Earth-bound medicine. Otherwise, person would have realized that lying flat is what we do when we sleep. If it causes problems for astronauts, then couldn’t it cause problems for every person else?

We found out about this Space research while we performed our own research into sleep positions as a inherent cause of migraines. We hypothesized that sleeping too flat for too long each night could lead to brain pressure and fluid accumulation (edema) within the brain tissue, with connected hypoxia and hypoglycemia. The brain cannot function well without allowable amounts of oxygen or sugar, and this condition would be at its worst in the morning, which is when most migraines occur.

While migraines have been plan of as a pathological phenomenon, it is also inherent that the throbbing head is the brain’s defense mechanism to receive new blood along with sugar and oxygen. After all, the only way the brain can get what it needs is from the bloodstream, and during a throbbing head arteries to the head open up and send blood with force throughout the brain. Perhaps, we reasoned, the throbbing head is a type of accident “brain flush”, replacing old blood with new. If so, could we preclude migraines by having throbbing head sufferers sleep with their heads slightly elevated?

We tested our system by having about 100 volunteer migraineurs sleep with the heads of their beds elevated, from 10-30 degrees. Head elevation, we theorized, would heighten the brain circulation by providing some gravity aid to drainage. Interestingly, we found that Space medicine researchers discovered that brain circulation (and heart pumping) is optimal at a 30-degree head of bed elevation.

To our amazement, we found that the majority of the migraineurs in our study experienced relief by this simple sleep position change! Many had no new migraines, after being throbbing head sufferers for 30 or more years! The results were very fast, within a few days. And there were very inviting side effects, too. Our volunteers woke up more alert. Morning sinus congestion was significantly reduced for most people. Some reported that they no longer had sure allergies. Could we have discovered the real purpose and cause of migraines?

The implications of these findings were, frankly, overwhelming to us. So many diseases are connected to increased brain pressure of “unknown” cause. Sleep position was never studied as the cause of this increased pressure. The implications go far beyond the prevention and medicine of migraines. Any condition that is connected to brain pressure, and that is usually worse in the morning after a night of horizontal time, can be potentially connected to this gravity and sleep position issue.

Keep in mind that the brain is the central nervous system controlling and modifying all corporeal functions. If sure centers of the brain are congested and pressurized daily by sleeping too flat for long hours, those centers can malfunction. Depending on the way a person sleeps, the idiosyncrasies of their brain circulation, and other variables, different people might caress this brain pressure differently. For some, the respiratory centers of the hypothalamus might be particularly congested, resulting in Sudden child Death Syndrome (which has been connected with head and body position while sleeping), sleep apnea, or even asthma. Sleep apnea has been shown to be treatable with changes in sleep position.

Strokes are clearly connected with brain pressure, and usually occur at night or in the early morning, while sleeping. This is when brain pressure is highest.

Glaucoma is clearly caused by this mechanism. It is already known that eye pressure increases when the head is down, and decreases when the head is up. It is considerable to note the head position when taking eye pressure readings because of this sensitive relationship in the middle of intraocular pressure and head position. Eye pressure is also highest in the early morning. Elevating the head while sleeping should be habit for glaucoma medicine and prevention.

Baggy eyes and sinus congestion seem to be connected to head pressure. Just as the brain gets extra pressure when lying down, the head and face are pressurized, too. people with these problems usually find immediate relief by sleeping elevated 10-30 degrees.

Alzheimer’s disease, we believe, might be the end disease caused by chronic brain congestion and pressure from flat sleeping. The cerebral ventricles of the Alzheimer’s brain are expanded, suggesting a history of ventricular pressure, and generalized lesions along the ventricles may indicate areas of brain tissue that have deteriorated from this chronic pressure. Other research has already shown Alzheimer’s is connected with increased brain pressure, but the cause has been thought about unknown, as is the case with practically all brain pressure problems.

It should be noted that the blood-brain wall cannot function properly when pressurized. inordinate intracranial pressure can cause leaks in this wall by addition the basement membrane, allowing heavy metals, e.g., aluminum and mercury, as well as viruses and bacteria, to enter the brain that would have otherwise been excluded. This may be why heavy metals have been connected with sure brain problems, such as Alzheimer’s.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is also known to be connected with congestion of the “impulse center” within the brain that helps operate behavior. We found several children with Adhd caress profound improvement of self operate by elevating their heads while sleeping.

In addition to head position relative to gravity, we also have found side or belly sleeping can create problems. For example, we found several cases of carpel tunnel syndrome connected to sleeping on the hands or wrists, and shoulder pain from sleeping on the side. And keep in mind that head pressure increases, and drainage diminishes, when the head is rotated to the side. Sleeping on the back avoids compression of limbs and internal organs.

It is also inviting to note that patients with asymmetrical problems will typically be worse on the side they sleep on. For example, eye determination will be worse in the eye on the side of the face that is slept on most. Ear infections will be worse on the “down” ear. You can also tell the side a person sleeps on by observing the shape of the nose. Apart from injuries, the nose should be symmetrical, but becomes curved away from the pillow because of sleeping on the side of the face and pressing on the nose for hours each night. The nose will point away from the side that is most slept on.

Men should be told that side sleeping may follow in testicular compression and inherent dysfunction. And women who sleep on their sides or stomachs subject their breasts to compression and impaired circulation. Side sleepers may have more breast trouble on the side they sleep on.

We should post the practitioner, however, that, while the follow of elevating the head while sleeping will be dramatic and transformative for many patients and should be thought about considerable to disease prevention strategies, the fact is that many people resist changing their sleep behaviors. They have been conditioned to sleep a sure way since birth. And even when they want to change their sleep position, it’s difficult to ensure compliance when the subject is unconscious! It takes broad will power to alter sleep behavior. But it is well worth the trouble, as people usually see within a week of sleeping elevated.

We found the best methods for head elevation contain using more pillows, using a foam wedge, placing blocks under the legs of the bed frame at the head of the bed, or using an adjustable bed. While the ideal position is with the head from 10-30 degrees elevated, 10 degrees elevation is fine to start with. The legs should be slightly elevated, too, and the person should try to stay on his or her back as much as possible. The ideal position is one you would be in if leaning back in a recliner chair. (Recliners would be fine to use, too, but they usually give poor lower back support.) Also, be aware that some people will find one degree of elevation more comfortable than another. people with low blood pressure may need their heads lower than those with higher blood pressure. Others may have some neck and shoulder pain from the new position. However, by experimenting with pillows under the arms, underneath the buttocks (which prevents sliding down the bed), and under the feet and legs, the outpatient should find a comfortable solution.

Also, when taking in to follow outpatient history, comprehend that neck injuries and tight neck muscles can impair venous drainage of the brain by compression of the jugular veins by the tight muscles. Neck massage and spinal adjustments may help heighten full, brain circulation. We have had a few case histories where there was diminutive or no improvement from head elevation, but the subjects had a history of neck injuries.

Of course, there will be times when people feel lightheaded and need to lie down to get more blood to the head. It might also be better for people to sleep less at night and to make up for lost sleep with a nap, or a siesta, during the day. That would avoid extremes of high and low brain pressure. But our culture makes it considerable for most people to do all their sleeping at once. Sleeping, after all, is a cultural issue. The point is to be aware of how you feel, and comprehend that your body position relative to gravity may be a key factor affecting condition and disease.

We are chronic to research this follow of gravity and sleep position on health, and encourage practitioners to relate their patients’ experiences with us. We also extremely encourage you to read our book, Get It Up! Revealing the simple Surprising Lifestyle that Causes Migraines, Alzheimer’s, Stroke, Glaucoma, Sleep Apnea, Impotence, and More! (Iscd Press, 2001), where we discuss the profound implications of this theory, including a lengthy list of references about brain pressure and varied diseases and the follow of gravity on brain circulation. After you see the evidence, you will probably be as amazed as we are that sleep research has been ignoring this considerable aspect of sleep.

Sleeping too flat each day may be the greatest lifestyle mistake people are development in our culture. Some of the worst diseases of our time may be all in our bed!

Heads Up! The Way You Are Sleeping May Be Killing You!

Posted in Neuropathy treatment | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

insight What Is Para Nasal Sinus Disease

Posted on March 28, 2012 by admin

Paranasal sinuses are sinus cavities are air filled spaces within the bones of the skull. They are termed as paranasal sinus cavities because they are directly associated to the nasal passage. Paranasal sinus cavities cut the weight of the skull, produce mucous which lines the nasal cavity and resonate the voice. There are four pairs of paranasal sinus cavities gift in the human body. They are the frontal which are gift which lie above the eyes in the frontal bone which forms the hard part of the head. The ethmoid sinus cavities lie between the nose and the eyes. The sphenoid sinus cavity lies at the skull base above the pituitary gland. The maxillary sinuses are the largest of all paranasal sinuses. They lie below the eye, in the cheek bone. There are a lot of opinions regarding what is paranasal sinus disease.

Paranasal sinus disease is the inflammation of the lining of these sinus cavities. This inflammation can be caused by allergens, viral infections or bacteria. Someone else explanation to the demand what is para nasal sinus disease is that when the mucous from the sinus cavities stops draining properly, it causes sinus. Salutary sinuses are commonly air filled. Infected sinuses come to be mucous filled because of lack of permissible drainage.

Neuropathy

One of the most leading aspects of insight what is para nasal sinus disease is insight its symptoms. Some of the most tasteless symptoms of sinus disease are slow fever, headache, facial pain, swelling, jaw pain and toothache. Sinus may also be accompanied by a pus filled nasal removal which is greenish yellow in colour. This nasal removal may also be blood tinged.

Apart from insight what is para nasal sinus disease, it is also leading to know the best potential way to cure it. It is best to take advice from a reputed healing practitioner. A course of anti inflammatory drugs or anti allergic medicines helps most of the times. Doctors also advice nasal irrigation or nasal sprays at times. Surgical operation may be determined in some ultimate cases.

Once a person understands what is para nasal sinus disease, he/ she should also comprehend the consequences of it. A severe case of sinusitis may be a threat to a person’s life. It is best if sinusitis is taken care in an early stage.

insight What Is Para Nasal Sinus Disease

Posted in Neuropathy treatment | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Heads Up! The Way You Are Sleeping May Be Killing You!

Posted on March 28, 2012 by admin

Every one of us has a mysterious duplicate life.

For about two thirds of the time we are aware beings, thinking about the world within and without, and negotiating our ways through the obstacles of life. For the other one third of the time we are nearly lifeless lumps of flesh, unconscious to everything but our own fantasies, as we lie flat in bed asleep. We all know that sleep is leading for health. But for an performance that consumes about 8 hours of daily of life, surprisingly slight is opinion about the act of sleeping, or the way our culture teaches us to sleep. Sleep behavior, like all human activities, is defined by our culture.

Neuropathy

Sometimes, the practices taught by our culture can impact on the way our bodies function. As curative anthropologists, we research ways our cultural practices may be affecting our health. And we have found that the way we have been trained to sleep may be one of the most leading causes of various diseases plaguing our society.

Of course, when you think the culture of sleeping, it includes such isues as the length of time to sleep, and time of day for sleep. Do you take frequent naps or do you sleep 8 hours straight? Do you sleep at night or while the day?

Other issues concern sleepwear. Do you sleep nude, or with pajamas or lingerie? Do you sleep in your underwear? Should the sheets be natural fabrics, such as cotton or silk, or is polyester okay? What about the detergent and fabric softeners used in the sheets, pillow case, and pj’s?

Should you eat before you sleep? What is the impact of watching television before sleep? Should you take sleeping pills to help you sleep?

These are some of the culturally defined issues that help settle how we sleep, all of which may have some potential impact on health. However, there is one cultural issue that tops the list of importance, and which may greatly settle your condition status. It has to do with your sleep position. Are you sleeping on a firm, flat bed, face down, with your nose and eye compressed against the bed and pillow? Or are you on your back with your head slightly elevated, as is the case for many native cultures that use hammocks or other non-flat surfaces for sleep?

The presume we ask this last examine is because the circulation to the head and brain is fully related to your body position when sleeping.

We all have had a time of experiencing dizziness or lightheadedness when getting out of bed too quickly. This effect is called orthostatic hypotension, and results from the fact that blood pressure falls when you lie down, and sudden raising of the head may temporarily deprive the brain of adequate blood pressure, resulting in the dizziness or lightheadedness. The blood pressure soon rises, expanding the blood furnish to the brain, as you feel general again.

This phenomenon shows that the body’s position, relative to gravity, influences head and brain circulation. You can also demonstrate this by doing a head stand, which many yoga practitioners do daily. Intracranial pressure rises dramatically, as blood rushes to the head, which becomes beet red, and the neck veins swell out, as blood pools in the venous system.

But apart from these examples, very little, if anything, is mentioned in curative physiology textbooks about gravity and its impact on circulation. Yet, you cannot fully understand brain circulation without considering gravity.

The effect of gravity on brain circulation is purely mechanical, and relates to the position of the head relative to the pumping heart. When we are standing up, the head is above the heart, so blood must pump against the force of gravity — from the heart to the brain — lowering the effective pressure with which the arterial blood is delivered to the brain. Meanwhile, drainage of blood from the brain to the heart is facilitated by the pull of gravity.

In contrast, when we lie down and are horizontal, the heart and head are now on the same plane. This eliminates the effects of gravity on brain circulation. Blood from the heart pumps powerfully into the head without gravity’s resistance, expanding intracranial pressure. And blood returning from the brain to the heart must do so without gravity’s assistance, causing a back-up of blood in the brain.

Essentially, intracranial pressure increases, and uncut brain circulation diminishes, when you are lying flat compared to standing up.

Of course, the body is consuming and has mechanisms for controlling brain pressure under distinct gravity situations. When the brain gets pressurized from lying down, there are various pressure receptors in the head and neck designed to lower blood pressure, thereby preventing too much brain pressure and the possibility of blowing a blood vessel or creating a cerebral aneurysm. This is why blood pressure is lower when we are sleeping, and horizontal.

But these brain mechanisms for adjusting pressure have their limits. As we go through the day in a vertical position, gravity relentlessly pulls our body’s fluids downwards, which is why many citizen have swollen feet and ankles by day’s end. Once we lie down, the gravity effect is lost, as fluid leaves the legs and returns to the head. So despite our brains general defense mechanisms, throughout the night intracranial pressure increases and is top in the morning, after hours of lying flat, and lowest at the end of the day, after hours of being vertical.

What happens when intracranial pressure is high from long periods of lying flat? The increased arterial pressure causes extra cerebral spinal fluid to form in the brain’s ventricles, expanding intracranial fluid pressure. The ventricles swell and the cells of the brain come to be bathed in excess fluid, essentially causing brain edema. This edema would lower the ready oxygen and sugar for brain cells. The lack of gravity assisted drainage from the brain would cause a back-up of blood in the venous ideas and collecting sinuses in the brain. The brain’s circulation would come to be relatively stagnant, as the only force consuming blood through would be the pushing force of the arterial pressure (which is greatly reduced after going through the cerebral circulation) and the sucking force of the heart’s right atrium. And in expanding to the brain swelling under the pressure, the eyes, ears, face, sinuses, gums — the entire head — will come to be pressurized and the tissues congested with fluid!

There is one field of medicine that avidly studies this effect of gravity on physiology. That sub-specialty is Space Medicine. Astronauts in space are in a zero-gravity field, and it is known that this causes blood to shift to the head and brain, causing increased brain pressure and with migraines, glaucoma, Meniere’s disease, and other problems related with a pressurized, congested brain. To study the negative effects of zero-gravity here on Earth, these space scientists have citizen lie down flat! However, since medicine is so wide a field, with sub-specialists studying more and more about less and less, there is slight exchange of ideas in the middle of space medicine and Earth-bound medicine. Otherwise, man would have realized that lying flat is what we do when we sleep. If it causes problems for astronauts, then couldn’t it cause problems for everybody else?

We found out about this Space research while we performed our own research into sleep positions as a potential cause of migraines. We hypothesized that sleeping too flat for too long each night could lead to brain pressure and fluid accumulation (edema) within the brain tissue, with related hypoxia and hypoglycemia. The brain cannot function well without proper amounts of oxygen or sugar, and this condition would be at its worst in the morning, which is when most migraines occur.

While migraines have been opinion of as a pathological phenomenon, it is also potential that the migraine is the brain’s defense mechanism to receive new blood along with sugar and oxygen. After all, the only way the brain can get what it needs is from the bloodstream, and while a migraine arteries to the head open up and send blood with force throughout the brain. Perhaps, we reasoned, the migraine is a type of urgency “brain flush”, replacing old blood with new. If so, could we forestall migraines by having migraine sufferers sleep with their heads slightly elevated?

We tested our ideas by having about 100 volunteer migraineurs sleep with the heads of their beds elevated, from 10-30 degrees. Head elevation, we theorized, would heighten the brain circulation by providing some gravity assistance to drainage. Interestingly, we found that Space medicine researchers discovered that brain circulation (and heart pumping) is optimal at a 30-degree head of bed elevation.

To our amazement, we found that the majority of the migraineurs in our study experienced relief by this straightforward sleep position change! Many had no new migraines, after being migraine sufferers for 30 or more years! The results were very fast, within a few days. And there were very consuming side effects, too. Our volunteers woke up more alert. Morning sinus congestion was significantly reduced for most people. Some reported that they no longer had clear allergies. Could we have discovered the real purpose and cause of migraines?

The implications of these findings were, frankly, fantastic to us. So many diseases are related to increased brain pressure of “unknown” cause. Sleep position was never studied as the cause of this increased pressure. The implications go far beyond the stoppage and medicine of migraines. Any condition that is related to brain pressure, and that is commonly worse in the morning after a night of horizontal time, can be potentially related to this gravity and sleep position issue.

Keep in mind that the brain is the central nervous ideas controlling and modifying all corporeal functions. If clear centers of the brain are congested and pressurized daily by sleeping too flat for long hours, those centers can malfunction. Depending on the way a man sleeps, the idiosyncrasies of their brain circulation, and other variables, distinct citizen might palpate this brain pressure differently. For some, the respiratory centers of the hypothalamus might be particularly congested, resulting in Sudden infant Death Syndrome (which has been related with head and body position while sleeping), sleep apnea, or even asthma. Sleep apnea has been shown to be treatable with changes in sleep position.

Strokes are clearly related with brain pressure, and commonly occur at night or in the early morning, while sleeping. This is when brain pressure is highest.

Glaucoma is clearly caused by this mechanism. It is already known that eye pressure increases when the head is down, and decreases when the head is up. It is critical to note the head position when taking eye pressure readings because of this sensitive connection in the middle of intraocular pressure and head position. Eye pressure is also top in the early morning. Elevating the head while sleeping should be disposition for glaucoma medicine and prevention.

Baggy eyes and sinus congestion seem to be related to head pressure. Just as the brain gets extra pressure when lying down, the head and face are pressurized, too. citizen with these problems commonly find immediate relief by sleeping elevated 10-30 degrees.

Alzheimer’s disease, we believe, might be the end disease caused by lasting brain congestion and pressure from flat sleeping. The cerebral ventricles of the Alzheimer’s brain are expanded, suggesting a history of ventricular pressure, and generalized lesions along the ventricles may indicate areas of brain tissue that have deteriorated from this lasting pressure. Other research has already shown Alzheimer’s is related with increased brain pressure, but the cause has been carefully unknown, as is the case with practically all brain pressure problems.

It should be noted that the blood-brain barricade cannot function properly when pressurized. immoderate intracranial pressure can cause leaks in this barricade by expanding the basement membrane, allowing heavy metals, e.g., aluminum and mercury, as well as viruses and bacteria, to enter the brain that would have otherwise been excluded. This may be why heavy metals have been related with clear brain problems, such as Alzheimer’s.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is also known to be related with congestion of the “impulse center” within the brain that helps operate behavior. We found several children with Adhd palpate profound revising of self operate by elevating their heads while sleeping.

In expanding to head position relative to gravity, we also have found side or belly sleeping can originate problems. For example, we found several cases of carpel tunnel syndrome related to sleeping on the hands or wrists, and shoulder pain from sleeping on the side. And keep in mind that head pressure increases, and drainage diminishes, when the head is rotated to the side. Sleeping on the back avoids compression of limbs and internal organs.

It is also consuming to note that patients with asymmetrical problems will typically be worse on the side they sleep on. For example, eye diagnosis will be worse in the eye on the side of the face that is slept on most. Ear infections will be worse on the “down” ear. You can also tell the side a man sleeps on by observing the shape of the nose. Apart from injuries, the nose should be symmetrical, but becomes curved away from the pillow because of sleeping on the side of the face and pressing on the nose for hours each night. The nose will point away from the side that is most slept on.

Men should be told that side sleeping may effect in testicular compression and potential dysfunction. And women who sleep on their sides or stomachs subject their breasts to compression and impaired circulation. Side sleepers may have more breast problem on the side they sleep on.

We should forewarn the practitioner, however, that, while the effect of elevating the head while sleeping will be dramatic and transformative for many patients and should be carefully critical to disease stoppage strategies, the fact is that many citizen resist changing their sleep behaviors. They have been conditioned to sleep a clear way since birth. And even when they want to turn their sleep position, it’s difficult to ensure compliance when the subject is unconscious! It takes big will power to alter sleep behavior. But it is well worth the trouble, as citizen commonly see within a week of sleeping elevated.

We found the best methods for head elevation contain using more pillows, using a foam wedge, placing blocks under the legs of the bed frame at the head of the bed, or using an adjustable bed. While the ideal position is with the head from 10-30 degrees elevated, 10 degrees elevation is fine to start with. The legs should be slightly elevated, too, and the man should try to stay on his or her back as much as possible. The ideal position is one you would be in if leaning back in a recliner chair. (Recliners would be fine to use, too, but they commonly give poor lower back support.) Also, be aware that some citizen will find one degree of elevation more comfortable than another. citizen with low blood pressure may need their heads lower than those with higher blood pressure. Others may have some neck and shoulder hurt from the new position. However, by experimenting with pillows under the arms, underneath the buttocks (which prevents sliding down the bed), and under the feet and legs, the sick person should find a comfortable solution.

Also, when taking in to effect sick person history, comprehend that neck injuries and tight neck muscles can impair venous drainage of the brain by compression of the jugular veins by the tight muscles. Neck massage and spinal adjustments may help heighten uncut brain circulation. We have had a few case histories where there was slight or no revising from head elevation, but the subjects had a history of neck injuries.

Of course, there will be times when citizen feel lightheaded and need to lie down to get more blood to the head. It might also be better for citizen to sleep less at night and to make up for lost sleep with a nap, or a siesta, while the day. That would avoid extremes of high and low brain pressure. But our culture makes it critical for most citizen to do all their sleeping at once. Sleeping, after all, is a cultural issue. The point is to be aware of how you feel, and comprehend that your body position relative to gravity may be a key factor affecting condition and disease.

We are lasting to research this effect of gravity and sleep position on health, and encourage practitioners to recap their patients’ experiences with us. We also very encourage you to read our book, Get It Up! Revealing the straightforward Surprising Lifestyle that Causes Migraines, Alzheimer’s, Stroke, Glaucoma, Sleep Apnea, Impotence, and More! (Iscd Press, 2001), where we discuss the profound implications of this theory, together with a lengthy list of references about brain pressure and various diseases and the effect of gravity on brain circulation. After you see the evidence, you will probably be as amazed as we are that sleep research has been ignoring this critical aspect of sleep.

Sleeping too flat each day may be the greatest lifestyle mistake citizen are development in our culture. Some of the worst diseases of our time may be all in our bed!

Heads Up! The Way You Are Sleeping May Be Killing You!

Posted in Neuropathy treatment | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Heads Up! The Way You Are Sleeping May Be Killing You!

Posted on March 28, 2012 by admin

Every one of us has a mysterious duplicate life.

For about two thirds of the time we are aware beings, thinking about the world within and without, and negotiating our ways straight through the obstacles of life. For the other one third of the time we are nearly lifeless lumps of flesh, unconscious to all but our own fantasies, as we lie flat in bed asleep. We all know that sleep is prominent for health. But for an activity that consumes about 8 hours of daily of life, surprisingly microscopic is understanding about the act of sleeping, or the way our culture teaches us to sleep. Sleep behavior, like all human activities, is defined by our culture.

Neuropathy

Sometimes, the practices taught by our culture can impact on the way our bodies function. As healing anthropologists, we study ways our cultural practices may be affecting our health. And we have found that the way we have been trained to sleep may be one of the most prominent causes of varied diseases plaguing our society.

Of course, when you reconsider the culture of sleeping, it includes such isues as the length of time to sleep, and time of day for sleep. Do you take frequent naps or do you sleep 8 hours straight? Do you sleep at night or during the day?

Other issues concern sleepwear. Do you sleep nude, or with pajamas or lingerie? Do you sleep in your underwear? Should the sheets be natural fabrics, such as cotton or silk, or is polyester okay? What about the detergent and fabric softeners used in the sheets, pillow case, and pj’s?

Should you eat before you sleep? What is the impact of watching television before sleep? Should you take sleeping pills to help you sleep?

These are some of the culturally defined issues that help rule how we sleep, all of which may have some potential impact on health. However, there is one cultural issue that tops the list of importance, and which may greatly rule your health status. It has to do with your sleep position. Are you sleeping on a firm, flat bed, face down, with your nose and eye compressed against the bed and pillow? Or are you on your back with your head slightly elevated, as is the case for many native cultures that use hammocks or other non-flat surfaces for sleep?

The imagine we ask this last request is because the circulation to the head and brain is completely linked to your body position when sleeping.

We all have had a time of experiencing dizziness or lightheadedness when getting out of bed too quickly. This supervene is called orthostatic hypotension, and results from the fact that blood pressure falls when you lie down, and sudden raising of the head may temporarily deprive the brain of enough blood pressure, resulting in the dizziness or lightheadedness. The blood pressure soon rises, increasing the blood furnish to the brain, as you feel normal again.

This phenomenon shows that the body’s position, relative to gravity, influences head and brain circulation. You can also demonstrate this by doing a head stand, which many yoga practitioners do daily. Intracranial pressure rises dramatically, as blood rushes to the head, which becomes beet red, and the neck veins swell out, as blood pools in the venous system.

But apart from these examples, very little, if anything, is mentioned in healing physiology textbooks about gravity and its impact on circulation. Yet, you cannot fully understand brain circulation without inspecting gravity.

The supervene of gravity on brain circulation is purely mechanical, and relates to the position of the head relative to the pumping heart. When we are standing up, the head is above the heart, so blood must pump against the force of gravity — from the heart to the brain — lowering the productive pressure with which the arterial blood is delivered to the brain. Meanwhile, drainage of blood from the brain to the heart is facilitated by the pull of gravity.

In contrast, when we lie down and are horizontal, the heart and head are now on the same plane. This eliminates the effects of gravity on brain circulation. Blood from the heart pumps powerfully into the head without gravity’s resistance, increasing intracranial pressure. And blood returning from the brain to the heart must do so without gravity’s assistance, causing a back-up of blood in the brain.

Essentially, intracranial pressure increases, and whole brain circulation diminishes, when you are lying flat compared to standing up.

Of course, the body is attractive and has mechanisms for controlling brain pressure under distinct gravity situations. When the brain gets pressurized from lying down, there are varied pressure receptors in the head and neck designed to lower blood pressure, thereby preventing too much brain pressure and the possibility of blowing a blood vessel or creating a cerebral aneurysm. This is why blood pressure is lower when we are sleeping, and horizontal.

But these brain mechanisms for adjusting pressure have their limits. As we go straight through the day in a vertical position, gravity relentlessly pulls our body’s fluids downwards, which is why many population have swollen feet and ankles by day’s end. Once we lie down, the gravity supervene is lost, as fluid leaves the legs and returns to the head. So despite our brains normal defense mechanisms, throughout the night intracranial pressure increases and is highest in the morning, after hours of lying flat, and lowest at the end of the day, after hours of being vertical.

What happens when intracranial pressure is high from long periods of lying flat? The increased arterial pressure causes extra cerebral spinal fluid to form in the brain’s ventricles, increasing intracranial fluid pressure. The ventricles swell and the cells of the brain come to be bathed in excess fluid, essentially causing brain edema. This edema would lower the available oxygen and sugar for brain cells. The lack of gravity assisted drainage from the brain would cause a back-up of blood in the venous ideas and collecting sinuses in the brain. The brain’s circulation would come to be relatively stagnant, as the only force attractive blood straight through would be the pushing force of the arterial pressure (which is greatly reduced after going straight through the cerebral circulation) and the sucking force of the heart’s right atrium. And in increasing to the brain swelling under the pressure, the eyes, ears, face, sinuses, gums — the whole head — will come to be pressurized and the tissues congested with fluid!

There is one field of rehabilitation that avidly studies this supervene of gravity on physiology. That sub-specialty is Space Medicine. Astronauts in space are in a zero-gravity field, and it is known that this causes blood to shift to the head and brain, causing increased brain pressure and along migraines, glaucoma, Meniere’s disease, and other problems linked with a pressurized, congested brain. To study the negative effects of zero-gravity here on Earth, these space scientists have population lie down flat! However, since rehabilitation is so wide a field, with sub-specialists learning more and more about less and less, there is microscopic transfer of ideas in the middle of space rehabilitation and Earth-bound medicine. Otherwise, someone would have realized that lying flat is what we do when we sleep. If it causes problems for astronauts, then couldn’t it cause problems for everyone else?

We found out about this Space study while we performed our own study into sleep positions as a potential cause of migraines. We hypothesized that sleeping too flat for too long each night could lead to brain pressure and fluid accumulation (edema) within the brain tissue, with linked hypoxia and hypoglycemia. The brain cannot function well without permissible amounts of oxygen or sugar, and this health would be at its worst in the morning, which is when most migraines occur.

While migraines have been understanding of as a pathological phenomenon, it is also potential that the throbbing head is the brain’s defense mechanism to receive new blood along with sugar and oxygen. After all, the only way the brain can get what it needs is from the bloodstream, and during a throbbing head arteries to the head open up and send blood with force throughout the brain. Perhaps, we reasoned, the throbbing head is a type of crisis “brain flush”, replacing old blood with new. If so, could we forestall migraines by having throbbing head sufferers sleep with their heads slightly elevated?

We tested our ideas by having about 100 volunteer migraineurs sleep with the heads of their beds elevated, from 10-30 degrees. Head elevation, we theorized, would enhance the brain circulation by providing some gravity assistance to drainage. Interestingly, we found that Space rehabilitation researchers discovered that brain circulation (and heart pumping) is optimal at a 30-degree head of bed elevation.

To our amazement, we found that the majority of the migraineurs in our study experienced relief by this easy sleep position change! Many had no new migraines, after being throbbing head sufferers for 30 or more years! The results were very fast, within a few days. And there were very attractive side effects, too. Our volunteers woke up more alert. Morning sinus congestion was significantly reduced for most people. Some reported that they no longer had definite allergies. Could we have discovered the real purpose and cause of migraines?

The implications of these findings were, frankly, marvelous to us. So many diseases are linked to increased brain pressure of “unknown” cause. Sleep position was never studied as the cause of this increased pressure. The implications go far beyond the stoppage and rehabilitation of migraines. Any health that is linked to brain pressure, and that is commonly worse in the morning after a night of horizontal time, can be potentially linked to this gravity and sleep position issue.

Keep in mind that the brain is the central nervous ideas controlling and modifying all physical functions. If definite centers of the brain are congested and pressurized daily by sleeping too flat for long hours, those centers can malfunction. Depending on the way a someone sleeps, the idiosyncrasies of their brain circulation, and other variables, distinct population might touch this brain pressure differently. For some, the respiratory centers of the hypothalamus might be particularly congested, resulting in Sudden child Death Syndrome (which has been linked with head and body position while sleeping), sleep apnea, or even asthma. Sleep apnea has been shown to be treatable with changes in sleep position.

Strokes are clearly linked with brain pressure, and commonly occur at night or in the early morning, while sleeping. This is when brain pressure is highest.

Glaucoma is clearly caused by this mechanism. It is already known that eye pressure increases when the head is down, and decreases when the head is up. It is vital to note the head position when taking eye pressure readings because of this sensitive association in the middle of intraocular pressure and head position. Eye pressure is also highest in the early morning. Elevating the head while sleeping should be routine for glaucoma rehabilitation and prevention.

Baggy eyes and sinus congestion seem to be linked to head pressure. Just as the brain gets extra pressure when lying down, the head and face are pressurized, too. population with these problems commonly find immediate relief by sleeping elevated 10-30 degrees.

Alzheimer’s disease, we believe, might be the end disease caused by chronic brain congestion and pressure from flat sleeping. The cerebral ventricles of the Alzheimer’s brain are expanded, suggesting a history of ventricular pressure, and generalized lesions along the ventricles may indicate areas of brain tissue that have deteriorated from this chronic pressure. Other study has already shown Alzheimer’s is linked with increased brain pressure, but the cause has been thought about unknown, as is the case with roughly all brain pressure problems.

It should be noted that the blood-brain barricade cannot function properly when pressurized. immoderate intracranial pressure can cause leaks in this barricade by increasing the basement membrane, allowing heavy metals, e.g., aluminum and mercury, as well as viruses and bacteria, to enter the brain that would have otherwise been excluded. This may be why heavy metals have been linked with definite brain problems, such as Alzheimer’s.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is also known to be linked with congestion of the “impulse center” within the brain that helps control behavior. We found any children with Adhd touch profound correction of self control by elevating their heads while sleeping.

In increasing to head position relative to gravity, we also have found side or belly sleeping can create problems. For example, we found any cases of carpel tunnel syndrome linked to sleeping on the hands or wrists, and shoulder pain from sleeping on the side. And keep in mind that head pressure increases, and drainage diminishes, when the head is rotated to the side. Sleeping on the back avoids compression of limbs and internal organs.

It is also attractive to note that patients with asymmetrical problems will typically be worse on the side they sleep on. For example, eye diagnosis will be worse in the eye on the side of the face that is slept on most. Ear infections will be worse on the “down” ear. You can also tell the side a someone sleeps on by observing the shape of the nose. Apart from injuries, the nose should be symmetrical, but becomes curved away from the pillow because of sleeping on the side of the face and pressing on the nose for hours each night. The nose will point away from the side that is most slept on.

Men should be told that side sleeping may supervene in testicular compression and potential dysfunction. And women who sleep on their sides or stomachs branch their breasts to compression and impaired circulation. Side sleepers may have more breast trouble on the side they sleep on.

We should inform the practitioner, however, that, while the supervene of elevating the head while sleeping will be dramatic and transformative for many patients and should be thought about vital to disease stoppage strategies, the fact is that many population resist changing their sleep behaviors. They have been conditioned to sleep a definite way since birth. And even when they want to convert their sleep position, it’s difficult to ensure yielding when the branch is unconscious! It takes big will power to alter sleep behavior. But it is well worth the trouble, as population commonly see within a week of sleeping elevated.

We found the best methods for head elevation contain using more pillows, using a foam wedge, placing blocks under the legs of the bed frame at the head of the bed, or using an adjustable bed. While the ideal position is with the head from 10-30 degrees elevated, 10 degrees elevation is fine to start with. The legs should be slightly elevated, too, and the someone should try to stay on his or her back as much as possible. The ideal position is one you would be in if leaning back in a recliner chair. (Recliners would be fine to use, too, but they commonly give poor lower back support.) Also, be aware that some population will find one degree of elevation more comfortable than another. population with low blood pressure may need their heads lower than those with higher blood pressure. Others may have some neck and shoulder pain from the new position. However, by experimenting with pillows under the arms, underneath the buttocks (which prevents sliding down the bed), and under the feet and legs, the outpatient should find a comfortable solution.

Also, when taking in to supervene outpatient history, realize that neck injuries and tight neck muscles can impair venous drainage of the brain by compression of the jugular veins by the tight muscles. Neck massage and spinal adjustments may help enhance whole brain circulation. We have had a few case histories where there was microscopic or no correction from head elevation, but the subjects had a history of neck injuries.

Of course, there will be times when population feel lightheaded and need to lie down to get more blood to the head. It might also be better for population to sleep less at night and to make up for lost sleep with a nap, or a siesta, during the day. That would avoid extremes of high and low brain pressure. But our culture makes it vital for most population to do all their sleeping at once. Sleeping, after all, is a cultural issue. The point is to be aware of how you feel, and realize that your body position relative to gravity may be a key factor affecting health and disease.

We are chronic to study this supervene of gravity and sleep position on health, and encourage practitioners to tell their patients’ experiences with us. We also very encourage you to read our book, Get It Up! Revealing the easy Surprising Lifestyle that Causes Migraines, Alzheimer’s, Stroke, Glaucoma, Sleep Apnea, Impotence, and More! (Iscd Press, 2001), where we discuss the profound implications of this theory, along with a lengthy list of references about brain pressure and varied diseases and the supervene of gravity on brain circulation. After you see the evidence, you will probably be as amazed as we are that sleep study has been ignoring this vital aspect of sleep.

Sleeping too flat each day may be the most lifestyle mistake population are manufacture in our culture. Some of the worst diseases of our time may be all in our bed!

Heads Up! The Way You Are Sleeping May Be Killing You!

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Heads Up! The Way You Are Sleeping May Be Killing You!

Posted on March 28, 2012 by admin

Every one of us has a mysterious double life.

For about two thirds of the time we are known beings, mental about the world within and without, and negotiating our ways straight through the obstacles of life. For the other one third of the time we are nearly lifeless lumps of flesh, unconscious to all but our own fantasies, as we lie flat in bed asleep. We all know that sleep is foremost for health. But for an activity that consumes about 8 hours of everyday of life, surprisingly small is belief about the act of sleeping, or the way our culture teaches us to sleep. Sleep behavior, like all human activities, is defined by our culture.

Neuropathy

Sometimes, the practices taught by our culture can impact on the way our bodies function. As healing anthropologists, we investigate ways our cultural practices may be affecting our health. And we have found that the way we have been trained to sleep may be one of the most foremost causes of discrete diseases plaguing our society.

Of course, when you consider the culture of sleeping, it includes such isues as the length of time to sleep, and time of day for sleep. Do you take frequent naps or do you sleep 8 hours straight? Do you sleep at night or during the day?

Other issues concern sleepwear. Do you sleep nude, or with pajamas or lingerie? Do you sleep in your underwear? Should the sheets be natural fabrics, such as cotton or silk, or is polyester okay? What about the detergent and fabric softeners used in the sheets, pillow case, and pj’s?

Should you eat before you sleep? What is the impact of watching television before sleep? Should you take sleeping pills to help you sleep?

These are some of the culturally defined issues that help settle how we sleep, all of which may have some inherent impact on health. However, there is one cultural issue that tops the list of importance, and which may greatly settle your condition status. It has to do with your sleep position. Are you sleeping on a firm, flat bed, face down, with your nose and eye compressed against the bed and pillow? Or are you on your back with your head slightly elevated, as is the case for many native cultures that use hammocks or other non-flat surfaces for sleep?

The theorize we ask this last question is because the circulation to the head and brain is completely related to your body position when sleeping.

We all have had a time of experiencing dizziness or lightheadedness when getting out of bed too quickly. This result is called orthostatic hypotension, and results from the fact that blood pressure falls when you lie down, and sudden raising of the head may temporarily deprive the brain of enough blood pressure, resulting in the dizziness or lightheadedness. The blood pressure soon rises, increasing the blood provide to the brain, as you feel general again.

This phenomenon shows that the body’s position, relative to gravity, influences head and brain circulation. You can also demonstrate this by doing a head stand, which many yoga practitioners do daily. Intracranial pressure rises dramatically, as blood rushes to the head, which becomes beet red, and the neck veins swell out, as blood pools in the venous system.

But apart from these examples, very little, if anything, is mentioned in healing physiology textbooks about gravity and its impact on circulation. Yet, you cannot fully understand brain circulation without considering gravity.

The result of gravity on brain circulation is purely mechanical, and relates to the position of the head relative to the pumping heart. When we are standing up, the head is above the heart, so blood must pump against the force of gravity — from the heart to the brain — lowering the efficient pressure with which the arterial blood is delivered to the brain. Meanwhile, drainage of blood from the brain to the heart is facilitated by the pull of gravity.

In contrast, when we lie down and are horizontal, the heart and head are now on the same plane. This eliminates the effects of gravity on brain circulation. Blood from the heart pumps powerfully into the head without gravity’s resistance, increasing intracranial pressure. And blood returning from the brain to the heart must do so without gravity’s assistance, causing a back-up of blood in the brain.

Essentially, intracranial pressure increases, and wide brain circulation diminishes, when you are lying flat compared to standing up.

Of course, the body is fascinating and has mechanisms for controlling brain pressure under distinct gravity situations. When the brain gets pressurized from lying down, there are discrete pressure receptors in the head and neck designed to lower blood pressure, thereby preventing too much brain pressure and the possibility of blowing a blood vessel or creating a cerebral aneurysm. This is why blood pressure is lower when we are sleeping, and horizontal.

But these brain mechanisms for adjusting pressure have their limits. As we go straight through the day in a vertical position, gravity relentlessly pulls our body’s fluids downwards, which is why many people have swollen feet and ankles by day’s end. Once we lie down, the gravity result is lost, as fluid leaves the legs and returns to the head. So despite our brains general defense mechanisms, throughout the night intracranial pressure increases and is top in the morning, after hours of lying flat, and lowest at the end of the day, after hours of being vertical.

What happens when intracranial pressure is high from long periods of lying flat? The increased arterial pressure causes extra cerebral spinal fluid to form in the brain’s ventricles, increasing intracranial fluid pressure. The ventricles swell and the cells of the brain become bathed in excess fluid, essentially causing brain edema. This edema would lower the available oxygen and sugar for brain cells. The lack of gravity assisted drainage from the brain would cause a back-up of blood in the venous system and collecting sinuses in the brain. The brain’s circulation would become relatively stagnant, as the only force fascinating blood straight through would be the pushing force of the arterial pressure (which is greatly reduced after going straight through the cerebral circulation) and the sucking force of the heart’s right atrium. And in increasing to the brain swelling under the pressure, the eyes, ears, face, sinuses, gums — the entire head — will become pressurized and the tissues congested with fluid!

There is one field of treatment that avidly studies this result of gravity on physiology. That sub-specialty is Space Medicine. Astronauts in space are in a zero-gravity field, and it is known that this causes blood to shift to the head and brain, causing increased brain pressure and along migraines, glaucoma, Meniere’s disease, and other problems related with a pressurized, congested brain. To study the negative effects of zero-gravity here on Earth, these space scientists have people lie down flat! However, since treatment is so wide a field, with sub-specialists studying more and more about less and less, there is small transfer of ideas in the middle of space treatment and Earth-bound medicine. Otherwise, person would have realized that lying flat is what we do when we sleep. If it causes problems for astronauts, then couldn’t it cause problems for everyone else?

We found out about this Space investigate while we performed our own investigate into sleep positions as a inherent cause of migraines. We hypothesized that sleeping too flat for too long each night could lead to brain pressure and fluid accumulation (edema) within the brain tissue, with related hypoxia and hypoglycemia. The brain cannot function well without proper amounts of oxygen or sugar, and this condition would be at its worst in the morning, which is when most migraines occur.

While migraines have been belief of as a pathological phenomenon, it is also inherent that the throbbing head is the brain’s defense mechanism to receive new blood along with sugar and oxygen. After all, the only way the brain can get what it needs is from the bloodstream, and during a throbbing head arteries to the head open up and send blood with force throughout the brain. Perhaps, we reasoned, the throbbing head is a type of emergency “brain flush”, replacing old blood with new. If so, could we preclude migraines by having throbbing head sufferers sleep with their heads slightly elevated?

We tested our system by having about 100 volunteer migraineurs sleep with the heads of their beds elevated, from 10-30 degrees. Head elevation, we theorized, would enhance the brain circulation by providing some gravity assistance to drainage. Interestingly, we found that Space treatment researchers discovered that brain circulation (and heart pumping) is optimal at a 30-degree head of bed elevation.

To our amazement, we found that the majority of the migraineurs in our study experienced relief by this easy sleep position change! Many had no new migraines, after being throbbing head sufferers for 30 or more years! The results were very fast, within a few days. And there were very fascinating side effects, too. Our volunteers woke up more alert. Morning sinus congestion was significantly reduced for most people. Some reported that they no longer had positive allergies. Could we have discovered the real purpose and cause of migraines?

The implications of these findings were, frankly, amazing to us. So many diseases are related to increased brain pressure of “unknown” cause. Sleep position was never studied as the cause of this increased pressure. The implications go far beyond the prevention and treatment of migraines. Any condition that is related to brain pressure, and that is usually worse in the morning after a night of horizontal time, can be potentially related to this gravity and sleep position issue.

Keep in mind that the brain is the central nervous system controlling and modifying all bodily functions. If positive centers of the brain are congested and pressurized daily by sleeping too flat for long hours, those centers can malfunction. Depending on the way a person sleeps, the idiosyncrasies of their brain circulation, and other variables, distinct people might feel this brain pressure differently. For some, the respiratory centers of the hypothalamus might be particularly congested, resulting in Sudden baby Death Syndrome (which has been related with head and body position while sleeping), sleep apnea, or even asthma. Sleep apnea has been shown to be treatable with changes in sleep position.

Strokes are clearly related with brain pressure, and usually occur at night or in the early morning, while sleeping. This is when brain pressure is highest.

Glaucoma is clearly caused by this mechanism. It is already known that eye pressure increases when the head is down, and decreases when the head is up. It is necessary to note the head position when taking eye pressure readings because of this sensitive relationship in the middle of intraocular pressure and head position. Eye pressure is also top in the early morning. Elevating the head while sleeping should be disposition for glaucoma treatment and prevention.

Baggy eyes and sinus congestion seem to be related to head pressure. Just as the brain gets extra pressure when lying down, the head and face are pressurized, too. people with these problems usually find immediate relief by sleeping elevated 10-30 degrees.

Alzheimer’s disease, we believe, might be the end disease caused by persisting brain congestion and pressure from flat sleeping. The cerebral ventricles of the Alzheimer’s brain are expanded, suggesting a history of ventricular pressure, and generalized lesions along the ventricles may indicate areas of brain tissue that have deteriorated from this persisting pressure. Other investigate has already shown Alzheimer’s is related with increased brain pressure, but the cause has been considered unknown, as is the case with roughly all brain pressure problems.

It should be noted that the blood-brain wall cannot function properly when pressurized. excessive intracranial pressure can cause leaks in this wall by increasing the basement membrane, allowing heavy metals, e.g., aluminum and mercury, as well as viruses and bacteria, to enter the brain that would have otherwise been excluded. This may be why heavy metals have been related with positive brain problems, such as Alzheimer’s.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is also known to be related with congestion of the “impulse center” within the brain that helps control behavior. We found any children with Adhd feel profound improvement of self control by elevating their heads while sleeping.

In increasing to head position relative to gravity, we also have found side or belly sleeping can originate problems. For example, we found any cases of carpel tunnel syndrome related to sleeping on the hands or wrists, and shoulder pain from sleeping on the side. And keep in mind that head pressure increases, and drainage diminishes, when the head is rotated to the side. Sleeping on the back avoids compression of limbs and internal organs.

It is also fascinating to note that patients with asymmetrical problems will typically be worse on the side they sleep on. For example, eye pathology will be worse in the eye on the side of the face that is slept on most. Ear infections will be worse on the “down” ear. You can also tell the side a person sleeps on by observing the shape of the nose. Apart from injuries, the nose should be symmetrical, but becomes curved away from the pillow because of sleeping on the side of the face and pressing on the nose for hours each night. The nose will point away from the side that is most slept on.

Men should be told that side sleeping may result in testicular compression and inherent dysfunction. And women who sleep on their sides or stomachs branch their breasts to compression and impaired circulation. Side sleepers may have more breast trouble on the side they sleep on.

We should wise up the practitioner, however, that, while the result of elevating the head while sleeping will be dramatic and transformative for many patients and should be considered necessary to disease prevention strategies, the fact is that many people resist changing their sleep behaviors. They have been conditioned to sleep a positive way since birth. And even when they want to convert their sleep position, it’s difficult to ensure compliance when the branch is unconscious! It takes astronomical will power to alter sleep behavior. But it is well worth the trouble, as people usually see within a week of sleeping elevated.

We found the best methods for head elevation contain using more pillows, using a foam wedge, placing blocks under the legs of the bed frame at the head of the bed, or using an adjustable bed. While the ideal position is with the head from 10-30 degrees elevated, 10 degrees elevation is fine to start with. The legs should be slightly elevated, too, and the person should try to stay on his or her back as much as possible. The ideal position is one you would be in if leaning back in a recliner chair. (Recliners would be fine to use, too, but they usually give poor lower back support.) Also, be aware that some people will find one degree of elevation more comfortable than another. people with low blood pressure may need their heads lower than those with higher blood pressure. Others may have some neck and shoulder pain from the new position. However, by experimenting with pillows under the arms, underneath the buttocks (which prevents sliding down the bed), and under the feet and legs, the outpatient should find a comfortable solution.

Also, when taking in to result outpatient history, perceive that neck injuries and tight neck muscles can impair venous drainage of the brain by compression of the jugular veins by the tight muscles. Neck massage and spinal adjustments may help enhance wide brain circulation. We have had a few case histories where there was small or no improvement from head elevation, but the subjects had a history of neck injuries.

Of course, there will be times when people feel lightheaded and need to lie down to get more blood to the head. It might also be best for people to sleep less at night and to make up for lost sleep with a nap, or a siesta, during the day. That would avoid extremes of high and low brain pressure. But our culture makes it necessary for most people to do all their sleeping at once. Sleeping, after all, is a cultural issue. The point is to be aware of how you feel, and perceive that your body position relative to gravity may be a key factor affecting condition and disease.

We are persisting to investigate this result of gravity and sleep position on health, and encourage practitioners to recapitulate their patients’ experiences with us. We also highly encourage you to read our book, Get It Up! Revealing the easy Surprising Lifestyle that Causes Migraines, Alzheimer’s, Stroke, Glaucoma, Sleep Apnea, Impotence, and More! (Iscd Press, 2001), where we discuss the profound implications of this theory, along with a lengthy list of references about brain pressure and discrete diseases and the result of gravity on brain circulation. After you see the evidence, you will probably be as amazed as we are that sleep investigate has been ignoring this necessary aspect of sleep.

Sleeping too flat each day may be the most lifestyle mistake people are development in our culture. Some of the worst diseases of our time may be all in our bed!

Heads Up! The Way You Are Sleeping May Be Killing You!

Posted in Neuropathy treatment | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Is Bronchitis Contagious? Yes and No

Posted on March 27, 2012 by admin

Bronchitis is the swelling of the bronchial tubes, otherwise known as the airways. These airways are the windpipes that directly connect to the lungs. Bronchitis happens when there is an irritation that occurs in the bronchial tubes. Next to the irritation, the formation of thick mucus will soon follow. Hence, the air tube will be blocked by the mucus, prominent to difficulty in breathing. Bronchitis can be identified into two types: acute and chronic. The acute bronchitis is commonly an illness that lasts for a short duration of time. Usually, this is caused by severe cold. But most often, this is triggered by the viral infections. Acute bronchitis is characterized by the pain in the middle of the chest, cough that comes with green sputum. Fever might also happen, and a diminutive difficulty in breathing might also occur.

The lasting bronchitis on the other hand is identified with a cough that produces mucus. And this lasts for longer duration of time as compared to the acute bronchitis. The sufferers of bronchitis are also identified to suffer from dissimilar level of breathing difficulty. These sufferers may also have the possibility to attain lung infections sometimes. Hence, the breathing difficulty is worsen. There are obvious occasions where lasting bronchitis is termed as “chronic obstructive lung disease” and “chronic obstructive airways disease.” From the terms themselves, the problem can already be identified-difficulty in air circulation that goes in and out of the lungs. Now, the quiz, comes, is bronchitis contagious? The sass is yes. Bronchitis is very contagious. The virus can be transmitted by the means of cough, sneeze, and yes, even by plainly touching the things that has been touched by the person infected. Bronchitis, basically, is the swelling of the bronchia, thus, it is not contagious. However, as the bacteria starts to form, the disease then is contagious the occasion the bacteria was emitted into the air. In fact, there are already several affected habitancy who confessed that they had the disease when they had a close perceive with the infected person. Now, the quiz, is how long is bronchitis contagious? according to the curative experts, the distance of time of the disease contagiousness de facto depends on the cause and type of the person’s bronchitis. For a person who suffers from bronchitis, it is suggested for him to visit and consult to a curative devotee of respiratory and pulmonary to assure either he is already contagious and until when will it last. It is advisable for the infected person to consult to a curative devotee when bronchitis tends to occur, if not, it may maybe lead to pneumonia. Both the acute and lasting bronchitis have the threat to come to be contagious. Even the healthy person is not safe from the attacks of acute bronchitis. This is because of the viral infection. These viral infections can be transmitted from one person to other through indirect and direct contact.

Neuropathy

However, the spread of bronchitis can still be avoided. The affected person only needs to claim a healthy hygiene by commonly washing his hands and by using hand sanitizers afterwards. Most importantly, the affected person should cover his mouth whenever he is coughing. Hence, the possibility of transmitting the disease is reduced. habitancy who suffer from asthma may also manufacture an acute bronchitis. Such circumstance reduces the risk of acute bronchitis to be contagious. It is the effect whenever the acute bronchitis acts as a complication of a obvious disease. To totally eliminate the risk of spreading the disease, it is best to cure it. Antibiotic are not regarded as an sufficient way to treat acute bronchitis. This is because bronchitis is caused by viral infection. Only an ample amount of rest, an extra liquids intake, and a non-prescription treatment for cough are the suggested sufficient treatment for acute bronchitis. The antibiotic are only designate by the doctors whenever there is the presence of bacterial infection. Antibiotic will then serve to lessen the risk of secondary infection. For the asthmatics, the physician may propose a medication for asthma, most likely an inhaler. These medications will widen the contracted lung airways.

Is Bronchitis Contagious? Yes and No

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