Just because you’re moving into a dorm doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice your eco-friendly values for the sake of convenience. Instead, you can get all of your dorm essentials as sustainable options. Eco-friendly solutions for utensils, notebooks, cleaning supplies, and furniture are widely available online so that you can live a green-friendly four years at your university. 

Before you move in for orientation, here are eight planet-friendly dorm essentials to help you become a lean, green college machine.  

An organic mattress topper

An organic memory foam mattress topper can help with sleep because the organic materials in the design keep your body cool at night. Organic mattress toppers also don’t harbor bacteria or other allergens, making them easier to clean and less harsh on your lungs.

Because they’re organic, these mattress toppers are also less stressful on the environment. Organic mattresses and toppers are a no-brainer for a sleep solution that heals the planet in a way that you don’t need to buy a completely new mattress, and thereby it melts away that finals week stress.

Plants

Plants are a great way to add personality and color to your dorm room. Plus, they can act as natural air purifiers. Just make sure that you choose plants meant for indoors and that you can take care of within your schedule. A few excellent low-light options include pothos, peace lilies, and monsteras. 

Bamboo utensils

Bamboo utensils are a great way to reduce your day-to-day waste because they are reusable. These utensils are also made from eco-friendly bamboo rather than silver or metal, making them better for the environment. So, you can feel good about what you eat and how you eat. 

Reusable coffee mugs

For students who can’t go without their daily coffee but want to stay on top of environmental duties, you can’t forget about reusable coffee mugs when picking out your dorm essentials. Reusable coffee mugs, especially those made by a local potter are cute, support your local, and can help cut down on your daily waste. You can take your environmental efforts further and choose a reusable thermos for those last-minute mornings. We love these ones by Kedma.

Biodegradable notebooks

Notebooks might not cross your mind as the place to reduce your carbon footprint, but biodegradable notebooks can be an excellent way to cut back on emissions. These notebooks come in different fun patterns and designs and offer a more sustainable option to the alternative, which often ends up in landfills. 

All-natural cleaning supplies

Your dorm room is bound to accumulate dirt and what better way to clean it than with all-natural cleaning products. These products can whip your room into tip-top shape without the harmful chemicals that ordinary cleaning supplies use. Plus, all-natural cleaners often don’t have the same overpowering chemical smell, making for a relaxing afternoon in your freshly cleaned room. 

Reusable paper towels 

Reusable paper towels have begun gaining traction in more recent years. These towels act like a sponge but are made from thinner material to resemble a cloth napkin. Reusable towels can clean up spills and messes just as easily as a standard paper towel, minus the waste. If you are taking food from the cafeteria on the run, consider wrapping food in beeswax cloth that you can reuse time and time again.

Deodorant

Don’t wear this with your favorite eco-silk blouse because it stains from the coconut oil and it leaves a white residue, but for every day use, this Humble deodorant is a fine way to make it through the stress of exams and late night assignments. If you buy the product, all the ingredients inside it are listed. If you are entrepreneurial you can deconstruct it and make your own. 

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Snoring and mouth-breathing may be a sign your ADHD kids is actually just sleep deprived. ADHD medication may be doing harm

Parents turn to physicians to get an ADHD diagnosis to explain troubles at school or play with friends. And more and more adults are coughing up $600 in Canada to get an adult ADHD diagnosis online through clinics like Frida. But before you dispense the Brillia or get a prescription for Ritalin or Concerta for your kid’s ADHD, there may be other causes in play, finds a new study that points to sleep:

“There is a high probability that many children who receive medication for ADHD actually suffer from breathing disorders during their sleep. Due to the incorrect diagnosis, the real problem is left untreated, and the unnecessary treatment may even worsen the situation,” say researchers from Tel Aviv University.

The study’s findings showed that children who suffer from breathing disorders during sleep received ADHD medication at a rate 7 times higher than children who don’t suffer from sleep-disordered breathing.

The article was published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine and a follow-up study was published in the same Journal of Clinical Medicine in 2023.

Dr. Shani Kaminsky-Kurtz, Dr. Sigalit Blumer, Prof. Ilana Eli, Dr. Alona Emodi-Perlman, and Dr. Yarden Shreiber-Fridman, all from the Goldschleger School of Dental Medicine at Tel Aviv University carried out the research.

“People with ADHD may experience sleep issues, such as insomnia or circadian rhythm disorders,” say specialists on the Frida website: “These issues may cause delayed sleep patterns, poor sleep quality, and difficulty waking up in the morning.”

Or the reverse may be true, at least in children: sleep issues may be causing what looks like ADHD. A recent unrelated study on sleep also found how lack of sleep can be linked to suicide in teens.  Dr. Blumer explains: “For the most part, sleep breathing disorders in children usually manifest as snoring (according to various studies, between 8% to 27% of children snore in their sleep) and/or partial or as complete interruptions of breathing (between 2% to 3% of children suffer from an extreme state of obstructive respiratory arrest during sleep).

These disorders disrupt the oxygen saturation levels in the blood during sleep, which is especially important in children, because most of the growth and development processes take place during sleep. The lack of oxygen in the blood can harm the growth and development of the brain and cause cognitive and behavioral disorders while awake – such as learning difficulties, hyperactivity, fatigue and lack of concentration. These symptoms are similar to the characteristics of ADHD or ADD, which often leads to a misdiagnosis and treatment with drugs such as Ritalin, which is ineffective and causes side effects.”

Dr. Shani Kurtz-Kaminsky: “Despite the great significance of sleep-disordered breathing, there is still a considerable under-diagnosis of the phenomenon among children, in the world in general and in Israel in particular. The most reliable way of diagnosis is by monitoring them in a sleep lab, but this is an expensive procedure with limited availability, and is also unsuited for children.

For this reason, a reliable and more accessible diagnostic tool was developed in the US, which has been proven to be simple and effective: the Pediatric Sleep Questionnaire (PSQ). The questionnaire, which is addressed to the child’s parents, includes 22 yes/no questions and refers to three main categories: snoring and breathing problems during sleep, alertness levels during the day, and behavior during the day. Answering ‘yes’ to 8 or more questions requires further investigation.

The study was conducted among 227 children aged 4-12 who were treated at the children’s clinic of the TAU School of Dentistry in the years 2020-2022. The children underwent a comprehensive clinical examination of the oral cavity, and their parents were asked to fill out a PSQ questionnaire, alongside a questionnaire surveying the child’s general health. A statistical analysis of the findings of the tests and questionnaires revealed an unequivocal picture: children who suffer from sleep-disordered breathing were taking ADHD medication at a rate 7 times higher than children without sleep-disordered breathing.

In addition, the findings indicated clear correlations between the disorder and the symptoms of discontinuous sleep (6 times higher than their counterparts), mouth breathing (5 times higher), and snoring (3 times higher). Dr. Emodi and Prof. Eli warn that “Our findings raise a red flag: there is a high probability that many of the children who suffer from sleep breathing disorders are receiving medication for ADHD due to a misdiagnosis.

And so, not only is the real problem being left untreated, but the unnecessary treatment may even make the situation worse. Following the study, we compiled a list of 4 characteristics related to sleep-disordered breathing, which can be identified with the help of a few simple questions presented to parents: taking medications for ADHD, discontinuous sleep, snoring, and mouth-breathing.

We wish to shine a spotlight on the phenomenon and its dire consequences, and recommend that medical professionals who treat children – dentists, family doctors, pediatricians and others – ask a simple series of questions for each patient. A positive finding should raise a red flag, and requires further inquiries.”

The post Consider your ADHD child might just need a sleep clinic: new study appeared first on Green Prophet.

Do you know just how important sleep is to your overall health? With nearly 1 in 3 Americans not getting enough sleep, it’s safe to say that many of us seriously underestimate just how crucial a good night’s rest is to our health. When’s the last time you had a good sleep? What do you do before bed on the nights you get the best sleep? Your bedtime routine has a huge impact on your sleep quality, and if you don’t have one to begin with, your sleep will suffer.

Luckily, Green Prophet is here to help. This short guide will help you create a bedtime routine that will last and that can seriously improve your overall sleep quality. We’ll cover everything from a consistent bedtime to spiritual matter, to what activities you should and shouldn’t do right before you sleep. Let’s dive in!

First and Foremost: What Do You Do Now?

First, we have to look at your daily bedtime ritual—or lack thereof. What do you do during the last hour before bed? Do you even have a set bedtime, or do you put on Netflix and wait until your eyes are too heavy to stay open to go to sleep? Do you watch screens, your  TC, scroll on social media, or read a book before bed?

Most of us overworking snack at night or drink a late caffeinated drink to help stay awake during the evening hours or maybe a last-minute work Zoom call or meeting for school, but this can have a negative effect on  sleep. Analyze your routine and look closer at what things might be keeping you awake. Even green teas have caffeine, so research a but to make sure your diet isn’t keeping you awake. 

Step 1: The Bedtime You Choose

The time that you go to bed is a crucial part of the routine. Staying up late is fun, and you might feel like you’re getting more done or more time to yourself, but you’re just making it harder to perform the next day. So, instead of putting off sleep or not listening to Siri telling you when it’s bedtime, it’s time to embrace sleep. Because it can be a wonderful thing.

Set a bedtime for yourself and stick to it every night. You’ll have nights where things come up, and that’s fine—as long as you don’t make a habit of being late. Think of bedtime as being just as important as getting to work on time. 

Step 2: Relaxing Your Mind And Body

Obviously, if both your mind and body are tense, or full of anxiety it’s significantly more difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep. So, the next thing you need to do is figure out how you’re going to relax before bed. Put aside at least half an hour each night to relax before sleep. During this time, it’s incredibly important to protect both your environment and your brain from distractions. That means relocating to a room free of electronics, as blinking blue light from phones, air conditioners, humidifiers, and TVs actually keeps you awake.

What things help you relax? Is it reading a good book? Snuggling up with a partner, pet, or child? Writing? Maybe you can start keeping a gratitude journal so you can track all of the things you’re grateful for each day. A few years looking back you will be grateful that you did this. 

Some people include spiritual practices in their bedtime routine, to great effect. Bedtime prayers, simple meditations or intentions, or even just taking deep breaths and asking for a good night’s sleep can help calm you down and prepare you for rest. Remember those old wave machines from the 90s? You can find apps that simulate the sound of the sea. 

Don’t forget your spirituality as part of your overall health standard. Prayer and spirituality both can have a positive impact on your overall attitude, your sleep, your good dreams and your quality of life. 

Step 3: Try To Be More Active

It’s far easier to fall asleep at night when you’ve been active all day. Getting plenty of exercise like yoga or going for a run or parkour trail and eating healthy foods can put your body into a healthier natural rhythm, and once you’re there, sleep should come much easier for you. Ditch the high-fat and sugary foods that are the staple of American fast-food diet. These foods not only damage your body, but also cause extra stress with their ill effects and long-term financial effects.

Getting exercise is easy when you think about it. You don’t even have to go to the gym. A simple daily walk can have positive effects, and when you’re more active, you’ll feel better, too. If you take a walk each day, come home and eat healthily, and stick to your bedtime routine, you’ll find that your overall sleep patterns become much more consistent and healthy. Health is not a single-facet pursuit; there are several factors to consider, and you have to make sure you’re hitting all of them.

Final Thoughts on Zzzzzz

An effective and lasting bedtime routine can improve your overall quality of life, your self-esteem, and so much more. Don’t underestimate the power of a consistent good night’s rest! People that get better sleep are happier, more productive, and tend to perform better in all aspects of their life. Ready to get started? It’s time to set up your nightly routine.

The post How To Create A Lasting And Effective Bedtime Routine appeared first on Green Prophet.

Having a hard time sleeping during Covid? Or maybe you are sleeping better because you have less stressors from the commute? Or maybe you are self-medicating with CBD? During good, deep sleep, we rarely respond to external stimuli such as sounds, unless they are strong enough, like an alarm clock, or meaningful, like a baby’s cry, which wake us up.

Being able to sleep continuously in the face of sounds is critical for our health and well-being. But we differ in how easily we wake up: Light sleepers wake up from every faint sound, while deep sleepers can sleep through just about anything. We all can have dramatic changes in our sleep quality during periods of stress. Turns out sleep is regulated by a chemical in our brain called noradrenaline.

A new study by the lab of Prof. Yuval Nir from Tel Aviv University explores the reasons why, during sleep, we rarely respond to external stimuli such as sounds even though our brains remain highly active. The team’s discovery is that a tiny region in the brainstem called the locus coeruleus, which secretes the chemical noradrenaline throughout the brain, is a key factor that determines how deeply we sleep.

The study, which was published in the journal Science Advances, finds that noradrenaline, which is secreted in response to stress, lies at the heart of our ability to “shut off” our sensory responses and sleep soundly. The higher the activity is in this brain system, the more likely we are to wake up from a sound. The normal healthy situation is for noradrenaline activity to be silent/minimal during sleep, but when noradrenaline activity is high, we wake up more frequently, even from low-volume sounds. This discovery can explain the changes in sleep quality between different people.

For the purpose of the research, the scientists used rat models to determine the level of locus coeruleus activity during sleep and which sounds, if any, would be responsible for waking up the rodents.

They found that the rats’ varying levels of locus coeruleus activity accurately predict if the animals would awaken in response to sounds. The team then silenced the locus coeruleus activity through optogenetics, which harnesses light to control neuronal activity, and found that the rats did not readily awaken in response to sound.

Why grandma is sleeping well?

“When we increased the noradrenaline activity of the locus coeruleus while a sound played in the background, the rats woke up more frequently in response, but when we decreased the activity of the locus coeruleus and played the same sound in the background, the rats rarely woke up,” says Hayat. “So, we can say that we identified a powerful ‘dial’ that controls the depth of sleep despite external stimuli.”

“Sleep disturbances are a major health issue and are frequent in aging, as well as in neurological and psychiatric disorders,” concludes Prof Nir. “It is important to test if our findings on varying noradrenaline levels can explain hyperarousal that characterizes condition such as anxiety disorders and PTSD, and if so, to build on these findings to develop novel methods to improve sleep quality.”

The research was conducted in collaboration with Bristol University, the Weizmann Institute of Science and the University of Montpellier.

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