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Best Apps for Healthy Sleep for You and Your Children

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Sleep deprivation is a worldwide problem of our time. Although the recommended amount of sleep is 8 hours daily for adults and about 10 hours for school-aged children, an average grown-up barely sleeps 6 hours a day. As for teenagers, various social pressures conspire against the proper amount of daily rest. This can lead to exhaustion, impair memory and cognitive abilities, and affect overall well-being. Luckily, technology is not only able to interfere with our sleep (we all indulge ourselves to social networks and YouTube video-hopping late at night), but also to offer us a remedy.

Sleep as Android

This is the most versatile and multi-functional application of its kind, that tracks everything you need to know about your sleep. The most important and usable feature, however, is sleeping patterns tracking – based on your movements and other data analysis, the app chooses to wake you up during the optimal sleep phase, which makes the awakening process easier and less stressful. Besides, the alarm is gentle and customizable. The app also keeps sleep deficit stats and offers sleep advice. On top of that, it can help with detecting some alarming symptoms of sleeping disorders, such as sleep apnea or sleep talking.

Twilight

If you have a hard time falling asleep or your children get too excited while using their phone or tablet before the bedtime, the probable cause may be the harsh blue light coming from the screen. This cold-hued glow, to put it simply, reminds our brain of the daylight and keeps us awake. Even the calm activities such as reading from the tablet screen can delay your going to sleep by an hour. Twilight solves the problem by adjusting your screen to the time of day and reducing blue light emission at night. When the app “thinks” that the sun is already down (it collects data about your GPS location), it dims the screen and applies warm orange and red filters, to imitate the sunset colors and prepare our brain for going to sleep.

Nature Sounds Relax and Sleep

Sometimes all we need to peacefully fall asleep is slowing our mind down a bit. Our days are full of stirring sounds – traffic, door slamming, furniture rolling, dogs barking, and sirens wailing. The app imitates the sounds of natural environment – birds singing, rustling of the grass, ocean waves, the wind, rain and thunder – whatever makes you comfortable and relaxed. There are many “white noise” machines and ambient music generators created to accompany us in the arms of Morpheus, however, this one offers only pure nature sounds and no music, which has the most wholesome effect on the psyche. It’s good for various purposes: to lull you to sleep, to help you relax when you feel stressed or tense, or even to wake you up in the mildest and most placid way possible, as it allows to use tracks from the app as the alarm and ringtones.

Pumpic

The most common reason why children have troubles falling asleep nowadays is their keenness on gadgets and digital. Sleeping is boring, whereas online life is buzzing 24/7 – they play games, they chat with friends, they share everything that happens to them during the day through the social networks. If you feel that maybe your child is growing dependent on their phone and that online activities interfere with their bedtime, you may opt to block the most distracting apps altogether. Pumpic has the variety of monitoring and blocking features that will help you to keep the cyber life of your child within the reasonable limits.

Yoga for Insomnia

This app offers you a guided series of yoga poses emphasizing the right way of breathing. The experience aims specifically to help you in overcoming insomnia. Traditional hatha yoga has a wholesome effect on your body and sets the right mood for sailing away to sleep. If you have never done yoga before, you may want to try Core Yoga app first. Nevertheless, Yoga for Insomnia is quite suitable as well. Your children may try it also; however, it is strongly recommended that they do the exercises under your guidance.

Dream Journal

Dreams are the reflection of our psyche, our worries and wishes. Sometimes people have reoccurring unpleasant dreams and this can affect their sleep and general state. To clear your mind and put your dreams right, you can keep a dream journal. It also helps to train your memory and to keep your brain fit. Luckily, now there is an app for that too. In Dream Journal you can track reoccurring patterns and elicit key moments that need interpretation. Though it is a very intimate process, you may choose to share your dreams with the community by posting them on the Dream Wall and read the dreams of other people from all over the world.

These apps will not solve all your sleep-related problems, but will definitely help you and your children to keep a proper regimen, cope with stress and avoid distractions after bedtime. The rest is up to you. Sleep tight and have nice dreams!

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Are You Worried For Baby Eczema Or Infant Eczema – 3 Healthy Tips For Parents to Get Rid of Eczema

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As a parent, you strive to give your child a happy and healthy life, but what if they suffer from eczema? The uncontrollable urge to itch and the unknown causes may be too much for you and your child to bear. As a parent, what are you to do?

It is common to find rashes on children, but eczema is more than just a rash. It is skin condition that can turn into a struggle for both parents and children. You may have never heard of eczema until your child was diagnosed with it, but now what?

1. Keep Your Child’s Skin Moisturized

There are different eczema trigger factors, which can lead to an outbreak. These trigger factors may include dust, stress, sweat, and laundry detergent. However, for some children, the cause is nothing more than dry skin. We instinctively want to touch and itch dry skin to provide relief and children do the same. Moisturize your child each day. Their itching may not completely cease, but you should notice an improvement.

When moisturizing your child, aim for application throughout the day. However, the most important step is to moisturize their body immediately following a bath or shower. Your goal is to lock in the moisture. If your child is old enough, get them in the habit of reaching for moisturizer each time they feel the need to itch.

2. Protect Your Child’s Skin

Eczema outbreaks are typically severe in small children. They don’t understand the complications that can arise from constant scratching; therefore, they continue to itch. If your child is old enough, have an eczema discussion with them. Encourage them to apply lotion or inform you whenever they feel the need to itch. However, for small children, such as toddlers and preschoolers, you need to protect your child’s skin yourself.

As previously stated, the first line of protection is constant moisture. The second is to keep the area prone to outbreaks covered. This is especially important at night, as some children actually scratch their arms and legs in their sleep. When later asked, some are even unaware of their actions. The less direct contact the fingernails have with the skin, the less damage is done.

3. Seek Medical Attention for Skin Infections

Most cases of eczema in children can be treated at home. However, children are at an increased risk for skin infections. Eczema creates the uncontrollable urge to itch. Your child may continue scratching until the skin is broken, leaving an open wound. Children will be children and that means coming into contact with many germs and bacteria. Combine these with an open wound and there is an increased risk for a skin infection. Treat your child’s eczema at home, but seek medical attention if you suspect the onset of infection.

As a parent, you are unable to cure your child’s eczema, but you help protect them from the lifelong complications, such as scars.

Curing eczema in children can be difficult if you are not in right direction. Severe eczema treatment is not easy especially for our child’s sensitive skin. I came to know about a natural eczema cure program that had best suited to my child and you should consider it too.

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Would you call these healthy food choices?

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A couple of weeks ago, my 6 year old daughter brought a letter home from school.  It was one of those promotional letters that so often make it into school bags.  This time it was a Department of Health leaflet promoting healthy eating via their ‘Change 4 Life’ campaign.  Now although we do have lots of treats in our house, food is something that we take quite seriously, as we have a history of severe eczema and food allergies.  So when Miss T asked if she could send off the form at the bottom of the leaflet, I was very proud of the fact that she was taking an interest in what foods she should be eating to stay healthy.

The idea behind this particular promotion is to make it easier for your family to choose healthier options.  They send out money off vouchers so that you can start swapping your unhealthy food habits for more healthy alternatives.

A week later Miss T was very excited when she got back from school and found a letter personally addressed to her.  Ripping it open she pulled out the letter and the attached money off vouchers.  As she can read quite well now I asked her to tell me what they had sent us.

Looking a little puzzled she said, “Mummy I think they have sent us the wrong things!”

Our money off vouchers

Wondering what she was talking about I took a look at the vouchers.  Here is the list of ‘healthy alternatives’ that we received money off vouchers for:

  • 600ml of Pepsi Max
  • Uncle Ben’s microwave in the pot snacks
  • Robinson’s Fruit Squash
  • Flora Light margarine
  • A tin of sweet corn

Ingredients for Pepsi Max:

U.K Ingredients: Carbonated Water, Colour (Caramel E150d), Sweeteners (Aspartame, Acesulfame K), Phosphoric Acid, Flavourings (Including Caffeine), Preservative (Potassium Sorbate), Citric Acid.Contains a source of Phenylalanine.

Now I realise that they are trying to promote a diet with a lower sugar and fat content but REALLY?!!!  This is such a dumbing down of a ‘healthy’ diet it makes me very sad.  How can they honestly promote Pepsi Max as a healthy choice?  Why is there no money off fresh foods with maybe a link to a quick and easy recipe?  Aiming this promotion at primary school children and their families and then implying that these are healthy choices just seems absolutely bizarre.

To be honest I’m not that keen on a ‘low fat’ option anyway, especially when it’s aimed at children.  Admittedly there are good fats and bad fats, but the fat in food makes you feel fuller and so it takes you longer before you are hungry again.  Certain fats are important for everything from making hormones to absorbing fat-soluble vitamins.  When manufacturers strip fat from foods to make them ‘low fat’ they are usually left with quite a tasteless product.  So what do they do?  They add more sugar so that the food is palatable.  So in fact many low fat foods actually end up containing the same, if not more calories than the ‘normal’ version.

I do really appreciate that this promotion is aimed at families who may not be making the right food choices, which can be for many reasons – from lack of money to time constraints and that these vouchers are there to help us all make a step in the right direction towards making healthier choices.  It would have just been so much nicer to have seen this opportunity being taken to promoting fresh, REAL food.


 

 

 

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