Page 20 - Florida Sentinel 2-5-16 (2)

Health
Cervical Cancer Preventative Measures
5 Habits To Kick For A Good Night’s Sleep
Here are five habits to kick for a better night’s sleep:
1. Sleeping in. If it feels like it’s harder to wake up Monday morning after two days of sleep- ing in, it’s because it is. When you wake up at different times throughout the week, your inter- nal clock gets constantly reset. Instead, wake up at a similar time on the weekend so that you don’t break your body’s rhythm.
2. Overloading on caf- feine. From coffee to tea to soda, the caffeine you drink dur- ing the day adds up. Eliminate caffeine from your diet at least six hours before bedtime, based on research.
3. Long afternoon nap- ping. Short naps that are 15 to 20 minutes can help you recharge when you’re exhausted and it’s nowhere near bedtime, but sleep longer than that and you’re in trouble. Try to stop napping if it’s causing insomnia, but if you can’t get through the day without a little siesta, make sure that it’s short.
4. Skipping the day’s workout. It’s easy to skip a workout when your schedule is jam-packed, but exercise is an important part of reducing stress and improving your mood, which helps you sleep. Sketching out just 30 minutes of moderate exercising most days of your week will help, according to a study by Harvard Medical School.
5. Staring at too much light. To sleep, you need mela- tonin — a neurohormone that causes sleep — and to produce it, your brain needs dark. Too much light, especially from star- ing at a computer or television screen before you go to sleep, can stop you from falling asleep quickly.
• Cut your risk by 50% and promote normal cells by eating broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts or bok choy.
• Cut your risk by 60% by drinking 4 cups of green tea daily. • Cut your risk by 50% and
speed repair with clean air by not smoking. Avoid secondhand smoke and reduce your risk by 29%. Keeping cigarette toxins out of your bloodstream will increase your body’s ability to repair dam- aged cervical cells.
Heart
attacks in women
often have different
causes and symptoms
than those
in men, and
they’re deadlier, too.
Worldwide, cardiovascular dis- ease is the leading cause of death for women. Since 1984 in the United States, heart attack sur- vival has improved for women. But the heart death rates among women still outpace heart deaths in men, according to the AHA statement.
The statement is published in the Jan. 25 online edition of the American Heart Association jour- nal Circulation. Among the high- lights:
• Plaque buildup in the arteries — a frequent cause of heart attack — can differ between the sexes. Women are less likely to need stenting to open a blocked artery, but they still suffer blood vessel
damage that reduces blood flow to the heart, causing a heart attack.
• High blood pressure is a stronger risk factor for women than for men. And diabetes raises a young woman’s heart disease risk up to five times higher com- pared to young men.
• Guideline-recommended medications are underused in women, compared to men, and women are referred less often for cardiac rehabilitation. When they are referred, they are less likely than men to go or to finish it.
• For men and women, chest pain or discomfort is the most common heart attack symptom, but women are more likely to re- port shortness of breath, back or jaw pain, and nausea and vomit- ing.
• Black women of any age have a higher incidence of heart attacks than white women. And black and Hispanic women have more risk factors such as obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure at the time of heart attack compared to white women.
How Women’s Heart Attacks Are Different Than Men’s
PAGE 8-B FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2016