Trouble sleeping at night and low energy levels during the day?
Trouble falling or staying asleep is NOT an Ambien deficiency. Cortisol and Melatonin are the two hormones involved in our Circadian Rhythm or sleep/wake cycle. Cortisol (produced in the adrenal glands) is what wakes us up in the morning which is triggered by light and stress, and melatonin (produced in the pineal gland and the gut) is what helps us sleep and is triggered by darkness. Cortisol peaks around 6 a.m., starts to decline throughout our day and bottoms out around 9:00 p.m. Melatonin kicks in at around 8-9 p.m. and peaks out at around 4 a.m. This is the the normal sleep/wake cycle. Identifying and working on improving the underlying cause, rather then treating the symptom is key to having optimal levels of these two hormones and feeling energized throughout our day.
If some type of stressor is triggering the release of cortisol before bed then we will have problems falling asleep and staying asleep and if the adrenal glands are becoming fatigued because of chronic stress then we will have low energy during the day. A stressor could be some obvious things such as finances, marital problems, loss of a loved one, sleeping with the TV on, computer or caffeine before bed and so on.....It is the less obvious ones that seem to be the most problematic. Some examples are, poor diet, alcohol at night, eating foods that spike insulin levels before bed (blood sugar problems), medications, gut problems (bugs, yeast, virus). All of these stressors can spike cortisol levels at night making sleep a problem.
What steps can you take to help alleviate difficulty sleeping and having energy throughout the day? Start by finding out where your cortisol and melatonin levels are through specific testing. Find a practitioner that does saliva testing to measure cortisol levels at these different times of the day and at night. With saliva testing, cortisol is measured upon waking, at noon, afternoon, nighttime, and total daily output. It is important to look at this pattern of cortisol in order to identify the underlying cause of the elevated cortisol or lack of. Most doctors use blood testing which tell us little about cortisol or melatonin levels. It is one measurement of total cortisol at that moment the blood is being drawn and most people get stressed at the site of a needle which will give a false reading anyway.
Chronic Neck & Back Pain from your job?
Massage Therapy techniques such as Trigger Point, Muscle Release Technique (MRT), and Deep Tissue work will help break up adhesions, introduce fresh nutrient rich blood, influencing healing and helping to break muscle compensation patterns that contribute to chronic tight muscles and pain.
Most jobs today require prolonged time in front of a computer. During this time specific muscles are continually engaging becoming chronically tight, restricting blood flow, and causing a build up of lactic acid (a by product of muscle contraction) in this area. This leads to a condition called Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI). The result is damage to muscles, tendons, and nerves of the neck, back, shoulders, forearms, and hands, which causes pain, weakness, numbness, and potentially leads to impairment of motor control. Without intervention, companies can see a decrease in employee productivity and increasing absentee and workman comp claims.
Massage Therapy techniques such as Trigger Point, Muscle Release Technique (MRT), and Deep Tissue work will help break up adhesions, introduce fresh nutrient rich blood, influencing healing and helping to break muscle compensation patterns that contribute to chronic tight muscles and pain.
Fat Loss is a Bi-Product of Improving Health
Focus on improving your health and the body will become more efficient at burning fat.
I have been in the Health and Wellness Business for over 8 years. I worked in Physical Therapy Offices, several different gyms through out the years and have been weight training for over 24 years. The most common question I still get asked today is, "How can I lose fat off my mid section". They go on to say, "I joined a gym, hired a trainer, eating good, doing lots of cardio, work abs everyday, doctor said my blood work looks good, but I cannot lose the fat."
In all my years of training I have not found that magic pill, specific diet, fat loss supplement, workout routine or any other "quick fix" to tell a client that will provoke immediate and long term fat loss. What I have found to be true is that no one woke up one morning and became 30 pounds overweight, overnight. Systems in our body do not go back to normal function because we joined a gym, hired a personal trainer or we stopped eating ice cream before bed.
Although a healthy diet and exercise program are important if you want to lose weight, the results from a diet and exercise program are directly related to our physiology. The better the body is working, the better the results will be from your diet and exercise program.
Effective Training Systems works with the body's innate ability and desire to be healthy. We identify malfunctions in the Hormone, Digestive, Immune, and Detoxification Systems that create the road blocks to your fitness goals and bring them back to normal function through diet, rest, exercise, supplement, stress reduction, corrective structural imbalance protocols.