Are You Getting Enough Sleep? By Cynthia Perkins

Just like eating healthy and exercise, adequate sleep is an essential component for a health conscious life style. We are a sleep-deprived society and this is wrecking havoc on individual’s mental and physical health. Lack of sleep can be as dangerous to your health as smoking. Studies have shown that people who slept 7 to 8 hours a night lived significantly longer than those who didn’t.

Lack of sleep affects all areas of your life including: ~Emotional- you may be more frustrated, irritable, cranky and moody ~Social-you may be difficult to get along with, lack of desire to socialize ~Cognitive-impaired ability to learn, poor memory, decreased problem solving abilities ~Physical- productivity is impaired, fatigue, a compromised immune system which leaves you vulnerable to disease, infection, and colds etc. ~Safety-judgment may be impaired, your less aware and alert which can lead to accidents, hand eye coordination is impaired Sleep also restores our physical and mental energy. The body repairs itself while we sleep. It detoxes and heals. Thus, for us individuals living with chronic illness or chronic pain, obtaining adequate sleep is vitally important. We need adequate sleep to help us cope with stress, to relieve pain and fatigue and keep symptoms to a minimum. Lack of sleep in chronically ill often increases pain and fatigue and exacerbates whatever symptoms they may experience.

As prostate gets larger, layer of tissue surrounding it stops it from expanding, causing gland to press against urethra. While data varies, it is believed that most men over age of 45 experience some amount of prostate enlargement, but may live symptom free. This enlargement is usually harmless, but it often results in problems urinating later on in life. By 60, it is believed that 80% of all men experience some sort of urinary interference due to prostate enlargement.

Enlargement of prostate is not a malignant condition, but it does put pressure on urethra and can create a number of urinary complaints such as frequent urination, urinary urgency, need to get up at night to urinate, difficulty starting, a reduction to force of urine stream, terminal dribbling, incomplete emptying of bladder and even inability to urinate at all. If left unchecked, benign prostatic hypertrophy can cause serious problems over time including urinary tract infections, bladder or kidney damage, bladder stones or incontinence.