Health Blog by YinTeing

There are many people who are night owls by nature- or I would say by habit or preference. It is only at night time or the few hours past midnight that the night owl finds it most inspiring to work on ideas. Or they stay up for the sheer love of it. Unfortunately, the world tend to operate in a mode that is more suited to the morning person than the night owl.

If you hit the snooze button, your surely sleep on for a long time

The normal office hours begins from 8am or 9am- that means most people will have to get up around 6am or 7am depending on how long it takes to commute to work.

Night owls or night person, may naturally be tired in mornings and regain energy as the day pass on. Because performance is required at work, many night owls are beginning to see the benefit of being more productive in the morning. The best way to kick start the day is to exercise in the morning- forcing blood to pump through the system and wake up the entire head and body.

Further factors that pushes the night owl to consider converting to a morning person:

• as age catches up, even though the night owl would like to stay up, she finds it gets harder to keep the eyes open. And if she sleeps too late, she finds that she had to go through the entire day feeling like a zombie
• it come a time when the night owl realises that he gets more done if he wakes up at 6am compared to 10am and try to sleep early.
• exercising at night according to Eastern practices, is detrimental to the body’s system as we are trying to push it to work when it is getting ready to shut down for the night. Furthermore, we all need to bathe after working and bathing right after gym workouts or at night are bad for health- it may lead to arthritis in old age.

What happens if your engine just refuse to start in the morning?

You may find it extremely difficult initially to push through the exercise pedals. You would probably be dismayed that the exercise speed is just too low compared to you normal peak time in afternoons/evenings.

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As mentioned in my previous article, after discussion with a friend, I’ve decided to change my workout time from night to morning.

Initially, it was a bit difficult to drag myself out of bed to go to the gym early in the morning. What I did was to prepare my gym outfits and pack everything the night before. For non morning persons, when we wake up feeling a bit fuzzy, we will surely be tempted to sleep in- especially when the bags are not packed- these task weighed on our heads and literally stop us from getting up from bed.

So far, I’ve been to a few morning sessions in the gym- and through personal experience, I have to admit it is better. At other times, I lose the battle with the pillow- so I sleep in and skipped the gym. Even though I am not a naturally morning person, I must say that morning exercise is better than at night. It gives me a starter boost for the day.

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First thing in the morning when you wake up, try to be conscious of the sensations in your tummy and digestive system- do you experience discomfort and bloating? Sometimes you get pain which you may have thought is due to gastric (since you have not eaten the whole night)? Then you go and have your breakfast- coffee with bread, cookies or some greasy stuff- and then, the entire day, you feel sort of tired?

If that is the case, I would like you to try out having just warm water and taking fruits first thing when you get up. Oranges are convenient because you only need to cut them up and can immediately eat them. Don’t take bottled or canned juice as most of them are nothing but processed sugar- it could make your stomach worst. Take the whole real fruit.

During the days nearing Chinese New Year (it falls on the 26 January 09), I spent many days during housecleaning. At first, my energy levels were high- then not long later, I feel tired to work. I thought it was attributed to the extreme dry and hot tropical weather that sometimes have a tiring effect on the body.  I even tried to switch to start work in the evenings when it was not too hot- and still the same- I felt tired.

Then it struck me that it could be due to sluggish digestive system. I have been going on for too many days eating whatever I could get- such as cookies or cakes, together with my cup of coffee first thing in the morning. One morning, I decided to have a cup of warm water together with 2 oranges. I took the oranges slowly while reading the newspaper.

Fresh fruits sold in Chow Kit market, Kuala Lumpur

And I was surprised- having the citrus fruits sort of zap me up- and I don’t feel tired. But you need to take fruits and warm water (not too much of warm water as it will dilute your digestive abilities) on an empty stomach. Try it- especially if you are suffering constantly from stomach pain and gastric- it really helps. As I’ve mentioned in previous post, I learned about this from a housemate during my university days- this housemate of mine always had severe gastric attacks. Till she started taking oranges on an empty stomach, followed by unprocessed oats about 20 minutes later. After that, her gastric was cured.

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How many times a day or per week that you visit the loo to perform the ‘big business’/pass motion?

I’ll admit not many would talk about this topic. But constipation is a real problem faced by many people. The post that I wrote on holistic cures for stomach pains and spasms is one of my most read post since it was first published in October 07. That gives me the impression that many people outside are suffering in silence.

Possible causes of constipation are:

• the obvious- not taking enough raffage (fibre) like vegetables and fruits (overcooked vege and fruits do not really count)
• not drinking enough water- so the stool is not lubricated
• never visit the loo when the ‘urge’ strikes- normally the excuse given is because too busy. When you hold on to stool, it will harden because your large intestine will absorb the water from it. It makes passing it out very difficult

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