Berwick Area Heart Support Group
January & February 2008 newsletter
Berwick Area Heart Support Group Next meeting Wednesday February 6th at the day Hospital, Berwick Infirmary from 7.00pm – 9.00pm
Guest speaker: Emma Yates will give a talk on relaxation and focussing on the body
Look ahead to March. Dr Higham, our Hon. President, will be giving one of his illustrated progress talks.
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Our speaker for the November meeting was Phil Lindsay, Health Improvement Officer for Northumberland Care Trust. This is how he was introduced, but he pointed out that his title is now, Health Improvement Inspector, mainly because of the extra responsibilities he now has.
 He worked for many years as a Psychiatric Nurse at a Treatment Centre dealing with post traumatic disorders, later concentrating on disturbed sleep patterns, and how lack of sleep affects us all, and this is what his talk was to be about, and how we can individually try to improve sleep patterns.
I have cheated a little and found Phil’s last talk, way back in Oct. 2005. I have reproduced some of it because hopefully it will help our newer members understand. I have also reproduced a graph and whilst I have tried to be as accurate as possible, this is only an indication of a typical nights sleep pattern, so if this does not happen for you, please excuse the pun, but don’t lose any sleep over it. I will try and explain what it’s about.
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mid night
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1am
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2am
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4am
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5am
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7am
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8am
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The figures on the left (1 to 4) are depth of sleep:-
1 = very light sleep
2 = light sleep
3 = deeper sleep, if you were disturbed and woke up from this sleep, you would feel groggy
4 = very deep sleep, you would be difficult to rouse.
The letters and figures along the bottom (mn to 8) represent an imaginary night’s sleep (mid night to 8am). Your night may possibly be different to this, but about seven and a half hours would be good, but as
there is no such thing as an average night’s sleep because if left to our own devices it could be anything between 4 to5 hours and 10 to 11 hours, amounts vary, but 5 is sufficient.
As can be seen from the graph we go from being awake but sleepy, into a light sleep then through all stages until we are in stage 4. This takes about 20 mins. We stay there for about an hour, and then come back up through the stages to 1. This is when we start dreaming, apparently we do all dream, some folk just forget they have. We stay there for about 10 mins before dropping back through the stages to 4. We don’t stay there as long this time before coming back to 1. This continues throughout the night, our periods at 4 get shorter, and later in the night don’t go deeper than 3, but our periods at 1 get longer, consequently so do our dreams.
Dreams are necessary; this is when the brain sorts out all the problems, and unfinalised business of the previous day. It matches them with similar incidents already in our subconscious, and stores them away.
Unfortunately it’s also during this light sleep period that nightmares may happen, and when the brain can’t sort a problem out, that’s when sleep can be restless or broken. It maybe hard to do but it helps if you can accept that at that particular time you might not be able to do anything about this problem, but if you promise yourself that you will devote some time to it tomorrow, maybe even visualising at what time you will do it, sleep may come a little easier.
Deep sleep is also when the body repairs itself. It continually repairs itself throughout the day, but achieves most at night when most other parts of the body are shut down.
90% of population sleep between 10 -10.30pm to 7 – 7.30am for varying amounts of hours.
5% prefer the early to bed, early to rise theory, the “Larks”
5% prefer the late to bed, late to rise theory, the “Owls”
In general, man is the only ‘animal’ to get all of his sleep requirements at night. This is not true of the very young, or for those of us that have got a bit older,(I can drop off almost at any time given the chance) Animals have a “Polyphasic” style of sleep, several shorter periods of sleep during 24 hours.
In an average life time we apparently have 200,000 hours sleep. Sounds good that. It works out to be about 8,333 days, that’s over 22 years, almost a 1/3rd. of our life. Just thought I would put that in, and I could only do it because there is a calculator sitting next to my computer.
Phil did distribute a list of tips to help get a good night’s sleep. He did give permission for us to reproduce it for everyone, and I think Terry plans to copy it and attach it to the next newsletter, but in conjunction with this he advocates developing a good pre sleep routine. This may even mean start preparing for bed up to 2 hours before actually going, but if we do things in the same order and keep to a routine our body soon accepts that it is bed time and with it comes sleep. Changes in any routine can make sleep more difficult, i.e. when on holiday, if there is more or less noise than you are used to, a different bed, more/less pillows, even a different feel of bed linen. The list is endless, but they can all create little irritations that make sleep a little illusive.
There are many other things that can make sleep difficult, Bereavement, children moving out for marriage/ university, and the house becomes quieter. Pain/injury, most medication only works for limited time, or other medical reason.
Phil did go through this list and made some clarifications:-
Under the headings, don’t use your bed for any other activities, and Avoid stimulants before going to bed. If you read or do crosswords or similar things, keep them light, don’t get into heavy reading or complicated crosswords, keep them for when you are not trying to go to sleep.
Aromatherapy:Apparently English lavender stimulates you, whilst French lavender relaxes you.
Driver Fatigue: If you did happen to sleep for more than 20 mins, and woke up after say 30 or 40 mins you can see from the chart above that you would be waking partway through stage 4, when you would have been in a very deep sleep. Waking up then would make you fit for nothing, certainly not driving.
During the evening, as our body prepares for sleep so our body temperature drops, but if we leave that feeling too long and our body starts to warm up again, sleep becomes more difficult, so what can we do if sleep is not happening, the answer is lie and wait for a little while, the suggestion is that if you can normally drop off in 10 minutes, wait for this normal time plus half again, ( 15 mins.), and if still not asleep, get up and try something relaxing. Hand/eye coordination is good; knitting, reading, crosswords and similar things until you feel drowsy, then back to bed and try again, and repeat if necessary. A definite NO is to become a clock watcher, and worry about how much of the night is slipping away and you are still awake. If it becomes a problem turn the clock around, the alarm will still go off, but you won’t see it coming.
Thanks Phil for you talk.
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Wally’s Yarn
A man owned a small farm in the Borders
The Department Work and Pensions claimed he was not paying proper wages to his help and sent an representative out to interview him.
"I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them," demanded the. Representative
" Well," replied the farmer, "there's my farm hand who 's been with me for 3 years. I pay him £300 a week plus free room and board The Housekeeper has been here for 18 months, and I pay her £250 per week plus free room and board.
Then there's the half-wit who works about 18 hours every day and does about 90% of all the work around here. He makes about £10 per week, pays his own room and board, and I buy him a bottle of bourbon every Saturdaynight. He also sleeps with my wife occasionally."
"That's the guy I want to talk to --- the half-wit," says the representative.
"That would be me," replied the farmer.
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Phil Harris Writes
Welcome to 2008! We saw a big resurgence in attendance before Christmas. This is a very welcome boost to the Speakers and to our core ‘faithful’. Also a boost for us to see people returned from spells in hospital and to see folk who travelled a distance to be with us. Thanks again to helpers with refreshments. As one of our members said, however, “Use it or lose it”. Your committee expects to fund an expansion of our ‘outreach’ via the Newsletter. Do write to Terry, or just phone him up and tell him if you find the Newsletter good to receive or have any contribution to make yourself. We try to spread our message. It is surprising how many questions there are in people’s minds about matters that we tend to take for granted – just basic information for example about risks and risk factors and the value of ‘rehab’. I was asked to give a talk in November at a regular Rotary get-together, and took questions about smoking and medication. Sometimes it is a matter of repeating fairly simple information that is publicly available but needs a bit of reinforcing.
PS. I see below that Terry has a recipe for one of my favourite ‘super foods’, Scotch or Curly Kale. Ann with some help from me, manages to grow a supply for the winter if we can keep the pigeons and pheasants away (this is the ‘badlands’ out at Heatherslaw). We often make a mixed spicy salad with fresh ‘minced’ or finely-chopped kale and other vegetables, onion, broccoli, land or water cress or sprouted seeds, eaten on its own or with a very low fat tomato based dressing. As noted below, Kale supplies significant protein and calcium as well as those important phyto-nutrients we hear about these days.
Recipe of the month
Slow-cooked Curly Kale
Ingredients
1kg/ curly kale
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp freshly chopped parsley
salt and pepper
Method
1. Take the leaves of the kale off the stalks and shred the leaves.
2. Heat the oil in a large saucepan. Add the kale leaves, cover and cook over a low heat until the kale is tender.
3. Season with salt and pepper, stir in the parsley and serve at once.
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Kale is considered to be one of the most highly nutritious vegetables, with powerful antioxidant properties and is anti-inflammatory
Kale is very high in beta carotene, vitamin K, vitamin A, vitamin C, lutein and zeaxanthin and reasonably rich in calcium.
Some other cooking methods
1. Cook kale like cabbage. Wash it well. Trim the tough stalks off. Slice up the leaves. Boil or steam until tender - about 5 minutes. Really tasty. But serve immediately as it tastes grim cold.
2. Stir fry - trim the stalks and slice the leaves into strips. Stir fry in sesame oil in a wok for 5 minutes. Throw in a handful of sesame seeds and a little soy sauce or tamari.
3. Hot! Hot! Hot! Trim stalks. Slice leaves. Steam or stir fry until tender. Mix with a tablespoon of sweet chilli sauce.
4. Saute. Trim stalks. Slice leaves. Saute (covered) in a large pan in a little melted butter for up to 5 minutes. Stir often to prevent burning. Serve with some freshly grated nutmeg.
5. Creamy. Trim stalks. Slice leaves. Peel & crush 2 cloves of garlic. Cook gently in a little oil with the kale for about 5 minutes, until soft. Stir in 2 tablespoons half fat creme fraiche. Season to taste.
As with all kale recipes, serve them immediately - ideally on warmed plates (just like Granny used to!). It goes cold really quickly and doesn't taste so good when cold.
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