Teen zzzzzzzz's

Teen zzzzzzzz's

Add good sleeping habits to the list of things people should learnas adolescents.

Dr. John Villa, co-director of the Northern New Jersey Center forSleep Medicine at Holy Name Hospital, says teen-agers must recognizethe dangers of overlooking sleep as an important component tomaintaining overall health.

Adolescents need a minimum of nine or 10 hours of quality sleepeach night. Being deprived of sleep can inhibit mental clarity,endurance and overall performance in school. Here are some tips fromVilla:

'Go to bed and awake at the same time each day, even on weekends.

'Establish a daily "cool-down" time. One hour before bedtime, dimthe lights and eliminate noise. Use this time for low-levelstimulation activities such as listening to quiet music.

'Associate beds with resting. Do homework or surf the Internetelsewhere.

'Don't drink caffeinated drinks in the afternoon or evening.

'Don't eat dinner close to bedtime or allow overeating. Sleep canbe disrupted by digestive systems working extra hard after a heavymeal.

'Avoid exercise close to bedtime. Physical activity late in theday can affect your body's ability to relax into a peaceful slumber.

May Day beauty

Peek out your window early in the morning May 1 and you mightcatch your neighbor rubbing her face in the grass. "Superstitionholds that washing the face in the May Day morning dew," Better Homesand Gardens magazine reported in its May issue, "will retain youthfulbeauty."

Why, you might decide to do -- er, dew -- it, too!

Woes of marriage

A study of couples in long-term relationships shows that womenmake a health trade-off for "doing the surgery and fixing the tearsin the marital fabric."

According to Health magazine's May issue, "Women are like the"physicians' of marriage....Yet women really pay a price for whatseems to be "the right thing to do.'"

The magazine reported that women tend to experience "much morestress over time, which can lead to cardiovascular andgastrointestinal problems, wear out the body's organs, and compromisethe immune system, making it harder to stave off disease."

The study was conducted by Dr. Robert Levenson of the Institute ofPersonality and Social Research at the University of California atBerkeley.

From staff and wire reports