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Quality Mattress, Quality Sleep

Quality Mattress, Quality Sleep 0

Dear Friends and Followers:

It is no secret from many of my featured stories and blogs that I am convinced that quality sleep is supremely important in maintaining your health and vibrancy. The medical research is also making this very clear and it has begun to demonstrate just how much of a problem the lack of sleep is contributing to our chronic disease issues in the Western industrialized cultures. It is particularly true in females, who statistically suffer from insomnia and sleep disturbance even more frequently than their male counterparts. Disorders like fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), anxiety, depression, and many more have direct correlation with sleep problems. In fact, sleep apnea has now even been correlated with heart arrhythmias and high blood pressure. I have also written about the role of electronic screens and modern energy efficient blue-dominant light sources contributing to this problem. The issue is also not just one of the number of hours you sleep, and most people do not sleep enough hours, but also the quality, depth, and restorative nature of the sleep that you do get. So this brings up the logical question, “What can I do about this and make sure I am getting quality sleep?”

While there are some great natural agents that I have written about to help you with your sleep, there is also no doubt that one of the most critical issues in getting good quality and comfortable sleep is your mattress. I can’t tell you how many people have a very old, broken-down, and non-supportive mattress. In fact, my wife Stacey and I were getting to that point and we were suffering from some low-back discomfort and stiffness when we got out of bed, and there were also those hollow spots where you would seemingly roll down the hill while in bed. You likely know what I mean. So there we were, having to contemplate and deal with the issue of getting a new mattress. Like everyone else, we were facing another complicated thing to put on an ever growing list of things to have to deal with in this hectic and busy life. We knew that we statistically spend more time on our mattress than any one other place, and we didn’t want a brand new mattress that was off-gassing all kinds of chemicals from synthetic ingredients and applied fire-retarding toxic compounds that are known to disrupt the hormonal system in humans.

Stacey and I just happened to be attending the Integrative Healthcare Symposium (IHS) in New York City, where I was presenting this past February, like we do every year. When walking through the vendor area we saw the most amazing mattress design and they were made by Amish craftsmen using all organic natural materials with no applied chemicals of any kind. They were built in the most fascinating modular design that allows complete customization, and had a great policy of allowing you to swap components until you got it dialed in just right for your comfort. Each side of the king size model we ordered was also individually customizable. We tried it right there and knew that was it! We ordered one on the spot and have been using it now for about a month and a half in order to really give it a try. We have swapped out the lower coil components once to get a slight firmer lower support and we could not be happier. We will now be ordering smaller sizes of the same mattress design for our boys. We are back to getting much better sleep and waking without the back pain and stiffness, and Stacey says she no longer “rolls down into the pit” in the middle of the night. As they say, “Happy wife, happy life”!

If you think you may benefit from a new supportive, comfortable, and organic mattress with a novel design that makes it easy to ship right to your door then check them out HERE.  

Put Your Best Foot Forward

Put Your Best Foot Forward 0

They say “the eyes are windows to the soul.” And while that may be true, way down at the opposite end of the body, our feet our offer a surprising number of clues about what’s going on inside us. 
The Gift of Frankincense

The Gift of Frankincense 1

Frankincensealso known as olibanum, is often referred to as the “king of oils and its very name means “high quality incense.”
Inositol And Sleep

Inositol And Sleep 0

To many patients, adequate sleep might often be a low item on the priority list until the years of insufficient sleep and/or low quality sleep stack up, producing chronic fatigue, a weakened immunity and compromised health.
Black Cumin: Tiny Seed, Big Potential

Black Cumin: Tiny Seed, Big Potential 2

The kitchen spice rack sometimes proves as powerful as the bathroom medicine chest. From turmeric and ginger’s ability to modulate a healthy inflammatory response, to the antioxidant effects of rosemary and oregano, it’s a win-win when herbs and spices that enhance a meal’s flavor also bring with them beneficial effects for health. A new kid on the block to be added to the category of highly effective and evidence-based botanical medicine is black cumin seed.
Eating Insects

Eating Insects 1

From the creepy-crawly to the slimy and slithery, Halloween is filled with all sorts of scary and shudder-inducing creatures. But with the growing popularity of edible insects, it doesn’t have to be Halloween to find something with a crunchy exoskeleton and lots of legs on your plate.