The best teas to have in the evening

If you have ever wondered what teas or warm drinks are great for the evening, for a restful night and sleep, here are a few of my personal suggestions;

1. Peppermint tea: this is a great caffeine free tea, and if you have fresh mint or peppermint leaves, you can just add hot water to it and there you go!
2. Camomile tea: a very soothing option, and it goes well with honey or agave syrup.
3. Roiboos tea: this is a caffeine free option, and is the most similar to black tea out of all the herbal teas I have come across.
4. Decaffeinated black tea: I find that this is a great option when I really want the flavour of black tea without the caffeine at night.

Green tea with jasmine leaves is really lovely, however it still has caffeine and I find that at night I would rather not have caffeine.

Enjoy!

 

How to get a good nights sleep, especially if you normally experience insomnia

Something that I find difficult, is to sleep easily if my routine and sleep times keep changing.  There are various other things in my routine that I have also incorporated;

• Try to sleep at the same time each night
• Don’t eat after 7pm (if you do keep it light – so no heavy carbs etc)
• Have a warm cup of milk about 30 minutes before sleeping, milk aids sleep but it also fills your stomach, so that you aren’t waking from an empty and hungry stomach
• Limit your television watching, especially later at night, or any other kind of electronic equipment such as laptops/computers/ipad or music devices
• Do anything that calms you down, so you may listen to music that relaxes you mentally and physically, this may contradict with not using any electronic device, however if it calms you then it may be OK
• Do some light yoga moves, say about 5 minutes or so, or some light stretching
• Meditation also helps, anything to calm the mind and make the body feel tired enough to get a good nights sleep
• If you find that you wake around 4am, you may be waking because of hunger, I usually drink milk 30 minutes before sleeping to prevent this, you may have something else you can eat or drink that will fill you enough to sleep – yup your body needs a tiny bit of energy to cary out the function of sleeping

If you have any of your own tips to share about sleeping well throughout the night feel free to share your comments below!

Great video – Our 24 Hour body clock and circadian rhythms that can affect our mood

Here is a great video on our body clocks, and how the circadian rhythms have the ability to control our moods, which sometimes leads to depression and other disorders.

A huge factor in feeling good and general health and wellness, is sleeping well, and keeping within our own bodies clock and rhythms. Hopefully you will find the video as interesting as I did. A quick summary about circadian rhythms: Our internal circadian biological clocks, on the other hand, regulate the timing of periods of sleepiness and wakefulness throughout the day. The circadian rhythm dips and rises at different times of the day, so adults’ strongest sleep drive generally occurs between 2:00-4:00 am and in the afternoon between 1:00-3:00 pm, although there is some variation depending on whether you are a “morning person” or “evening person.” The sleepiness we experience during these circadian dips will be less intense if we have had sufficient sleep, and more intense when we are sleep deprived. The circadian rhythm also causes us to feel more alert at certain points of the day, even if we have been awake for hours and our sleep/wake restorative process would otherwise make us feel more sleepy (taken from http://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-topics/sleep-drive-and-your-body-clock).

If you travel a lot, or if you don’t sleep well at nights, research more into circadian rhythms, or even if you are tired and affected by your mood, I would suggest watching this video to gain more insight on what may be going on in your own body.

Fast or instant weight loss programs

A big topic for discussion, has been instant weight loss promises, and expecting to instantly and easily lose weight and keep it off forever!

I love the idea of it, it sounds great, and if it were a healthy way to lose weight and live I’d recommend it to everyone. However in my experience, whenever one endeavours to complete any type of project, we must be patient and go at a gradual pace, one that allows us to learn and reflect and to introduce the good habit into our lifestyle, so that it stays with us as long as possible.

For example, I cut out sugar from my diet, but kept everything else in my diet and exercise routine the same, this has enabled me to lose weight and tone more, and even though at the moment I still have foods with sugar, I eat much less sugar, and am at a stage where I no longer crave sugar like I used to. This healthy habit is likely to stay with me forever.

I try to eat alternate foods to junk food when possible, and to make sure I get enough protein in my body so that my body has enough energy to get through the day.

Other things you could try to gradually introduce into your diet (or take out from your diet) could be;

• eating more salads and keeping everything else the same
• drinking more water and keeping everything else the same
• eating brown rice instead of white rice and keeping everything else the same
• cutting out one particular carbohydrate that you are used to eating

I think that fast weight loss programs are great for the first few weeks of you wanting to change your lifestyle, because losing weight suddenly is good motivation to keep going, however what you really want is a way of eating and living that you can sustain for all of your life, one that will give you the energy and vitality you deserve.

I am a vegetarian who eats seafood and dairy, so in another post I’ll share some tips on some proteins that are good for people on a similar diet.