And she further writes that …

Obesity and overweight (the term preferred by American Academy of Pediatrics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other organizations when referring to children and adolescents due to potential negative connotations associated with "obesity")[5] represent a challenge of vast dimensions to public health community, with causes of epidemic permeating American society. Americans are surrounded by facilitators of an eat-more/expend-less society -- from individual and family; to food producers, processors, sellers, and advertisers; to city planners of our neighborhoods; to business organizations that demand our time during day and media that entertain us in evening. Clinicians generally are not equipped to control this epidemic that greets them every day. Behavioral change counseling is not in their repertoire and effective treatments are not readily available; in fact, even when they are available, such programs are usually not reimbursed by third-party payers.

----- In today’s society, cost of eating in a healthy fashion is more often than not, much more expensive than eating all of garbage that is available. Additionally, in virtually all processed foods, there is some sort of additive which will increase hunger and cravings. (reminds me of a line from “So I Married An Axe Murderer” with Mike Myers were his father was discussing “the Colonel” and how he puts an addictive chemical in his chicken to “make you crave it fortnightly!”) Nowadays home vegetable garden plot is fast disappearing which again will limit availability of wholesome produce at a lower cost.

Look at artificial sweeteners. They have ability to artificially increase your hunger. Not only that, but when they break down in your body, some very harmful chemicals can appear. One particular artificial sweetener is in over 2000 products! Think of impact on society. Try finding chewing gum without it.

All of above can contribute in some small or even in some large way to increase increasingly present burden of obesity.

Until next time…

Yours in Health,

Dr. M. Montgomery @ www.healthyunderstanding.com

-----

References 1. Obesity. Jonathan Q. Purnell, M.D., Medscape.com 2. Prevention of Overweight and Obesity: Focus on Children and Adolescents. Patricia Markham Risica, Dr.PH, RD, Medscape.com

Disclaimer: As always, check with your health care provider to see if this information applies to you. Due diligence is your responsibility. This information is meant to supplement your knowledge, not to replace your own decision making process or take place of your health care provider.

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The obvious advantage of course is extra time gained in each twenty four hour period. If you follow classic schedule, six naps of twenty five minutes each, you would be averaging only two and a half hours sleep!

Once you get used to sleeping this way, you can slip into sleep state within a few minutes, compared to twenty minutes or longer for monophasic sleep.

Writers, or anyone who needs creativity in their field, find that sleeping this way allows them to be more creative. This could be due to occurrence of more alpha and theta brainwaves, rather than beta, during their waking hours.

Disadvantages?

This type of sleep schedule is not recommended long term although there have been some that have kept it up for 6 months with no apparent ill effects. There has been no long term research done to find out any negative effects on health.

Although its been practiced through centuries, it's not known whether depressing other non REM stages of sleep - especially stages 3 and 4 of deep sleep, may have a negative effect on long term emotional health.

Polyphasic sleep is impossible to integrate into a normal working day.

Oh! And another thing. Those who have tried it have reported an increase in appetite which may lead to weight gain. You would probably need to spend some of that extra time doing more exercise!

Conclusion

If you're interested in trying polyphasic sleep, try it for a while during your next holidays. It won't do any damage short term, except possibly make you feel tired and grumpy! It is recommended that participants review their eating habits and make sure they are on an optimum diet with all necessary food groups and maybe a vitamin and mineral supplement.

Also recommended is to have a series of interesting projects on hand to keep mind stimulated and to prevent accidental sleeping outside schedule.

Visit our web-site below for a healthier way of maximising quality of our sleep in less tome. Go to "Too much sleep" page.