posted January 30, 2011 07:53 PM            

If you ignore your own needs and place other's needs before your own, then you will implode.

If you work on yourself, build a solid foundation and know who you are and what you need, then you can help others without detracting from your own life.

- Make sure you are as strong as you can be.

- Make sure you are aware of your strengths and limitations.

- Make sure you have confronted and dealt with your own issues before worrying about other people's.

Just because your religion pushes the Good Samaritan down your throat does not mean you have to enact a fairytale in order to be a good person - make sure to be good to yourself first, and then follow that with being good to others.

Being selfish is a good thing... I do not mean that you should be selfish and rude, I mean you should make sure to work on yourself first and foremost.

- A candle gives off heat and light, but it does so by taking the oxygen around it first.

- Make sure to take enough oxygen for yourself in order that you can have a positive effect on the area around you.

posted January 30, 2011 08:08 PM            

Not sleeping enough and not sleeping well is not OK. As a matter of fact, there is quite a price to pay. It may surprise you to learn that chronic sleep deprivation, for whatever reason, significantly affects your health, performance, safety, and pocketbook.

There are many causes of sleep deprivation. The stresses of daily life may intrude upon our ability to sleep well, or perhaps we trade sleep for more work or play. We may have medical or mental-health conditions that disrupt our sleep, and be well aware that we are sleep-deprived.

However, it is critically important to realize that sleep deprivation is very often due to unrecognized sleep disorders. After a typical night's sleep, you may not feel restored and refreshed and be sleepy during the day, but be totally unaware that you are sleep-deprived or have a sleep disorder. You might think, "It's just the stress of work or the kids," or you might have "always felt this way" and had no idea that you should feel differently. This lack of awareness compounds the consequences, because so many people remain undiagnosed for years.

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That said, let's look at the consequences of sleep deprivation.

In the short term:

* Decreased Performance and Alertness: Sleep deprivation induces significant reductions in performance and alertness. Reducing your nighttime sleep by as little as one and a half hours for just one night could result in a reduction of daytime alertness by as much as 32%.
* Memory and Cognitive Impairment: Decreased alertness and excessive daytime sleepiness impair your memory and your cognitive ability -- your ability to think and process information.
* Stress Relationships: Disruption of a bed partner's sleep due to a sleep disorder may cause significant problems for the relationship (for example, separate bedrooms, conflicts, moodiness, etc.).
* Poor Quality of Life: You might, for example, be unable to participate in certain activities that require sustained attention, like going to the movies, seeing your child in a school play, or watching a favorite TV show.
* Occupational Injury: Excessive sleepiness also contributes to a greater than twofold higher risk of sustaining an occupational injury.
* Automobile Injury: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates conservatively that each year drowsy driving is responsible for at least 100,000 automobile crashes, 71,000 injuries, and 1,550 fatalities.

The good news for many of the disorders that cause sleep deprivation is that after risk assessment, education, and treatment, memory and cognitive deficits improve and the number of injuries decreases.

In the long term, the clinical consequences of untreated sleep disorders are large indeed. They are associated with numerous, serious medical illnesses, including: