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Natural Awakenings Central New Jersey

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Sounds for Snoozing

Jun 30, 2021 09:30AM ● By Ronica O’Hara
Person sleeping in bed with white bedding next to cell phone

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We might be too old for Rock-a-Bye Baby, but sounds can still lull us to sleep—and they’re right at our fingertips. By dimming the screens of our devices and donning earbuds, we can summon these soothing soundscapes.

Meditations designed to induce sleep are easy to access on a smartphone or tablet with apps like InsightTimer, Calm and Headspace. These include gently guided instructions for approaches like breathing, body scans, visualization, counting and slow movements. Once a meditation is learned, it’s easy enough to do without the app. For Italian neurologist and sleep expert Pietro Luca Ratti, this involves “just lying in bed with your eyes closed, focusing on a point in the wall and finding a calm place to take yourself. Think about the feeling of a deep sleep and will yourself into a happy, relaxing place.”

Music can be used to train the brain to sleep, with insomniacs sleeping increasingly better during three weeks of nightly, 45-minute listening sessions, Taiwan researchers found. A study in Musicae Scientiae reported that many genres (not just classical or New Age) work, and that sleep-inducing music typically has more emphasis in lower frequencies such as a stronger bass, a slow and sustained duration of musical notes and non-danceable, simple, subtle rhythms. Music apps like Spotify, Pandora and Apple Music offer a wide array of sleep-inducing playlists.

Short stories and novels can be downloaded from meditation apps, and Amazon’s Audible offers more than 200,000 audiobooks. “The key is to find something that is interesting enough to focus on, but not too intense that it grabs your attention to want to stay up to keep listening,” says pharmacist and functional medicine consultant Meg Mill, of Indiana, Pennsylvania.


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In-Print music Sleep National Content July 2021
Tick Talk

Spring officially sprung on March 21. We have turned our clocks ahead. We are looking forward to warm winds, sunny skies and the smell of fresh cut grass. The daffodils and tulips have recently bloomed and we are just starting with the yard work that comes with the warmer weather.  Sadly, another season has started ramping up.  Tick season.

•             The best form of protection is prevention. Educating oneself about tick activity and how our behaviors overlap with tick habitats is the first step.

•             According to the NJ DOH, in 2022 Hunterdon County led the state with a Lyme disease incidence rate of 426 cases per 100,000 people. The fact is ticks spend approximately 90% of their lives not on a host but aggressively searching for one, molting to their next stage or over-wintering. This is why a tick remediation program should be implemented on school grounds where NJ DOH deems high risk for tick exposure and subsequent attachment to human hosts.

•             Governor Murphy has signed a bill that mandates tick education in NJ public schools. See this for the details.  Tick education must now be incorporated into K-12 school curriculum. See link:

https://www.nj.gov/education/broadcasts/2023/sept/27/TicksandTick-BorneIllnessEducation.pdf

•             May is a great month to remind the public that tick activity is in full swing. In New Jersey, there are many tickborne diseases that affect residents, including Anaplasmosis, Babesiosis, Ehrlichiosis, Lyme disease, Powassan, and Spotted Fever Group Rickettsiosis.

•             For years, the focus has mainly been about protecting ourselves from Lyme disease. But other tick-borne diseases are on the rise in Central Jersey. An increase of incidence of Babesia and Anaplasma are sidelining people too. These two pathogens are scary because they effect our blood cells. Babesia affects the red blood cells and Anaplasma effects the white blood cells.

•             Ticks can be infected with more than one pathogen. When you contract Lyme it is possible to contract more than just that one disease. This is called a co-infection. It is super important to pay attention to your symptoms. See link.

https://twp.freehold.nj.us/480/Disease-Co-Infection

A good resource from the State:

https://www.nj.gov/health/cd/topics/tickborne.shtml

 

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