Brentwood International

How foods can affect sleep?

What you eat affects how you sleep. Some foods contribute to restful sleep; other foods keep you awake. 

Sleepers are tryptophan-containing foods. Tryptophan  is the raw material that the brain uses to build sleep-inducing substances. Adequate serotonin levels promote deep, restorative sleep. A high carbohydrate meal stimulates the release of insulin, which helps clear those amino acids that compete with tryptophan from the bloodstream, allowing more of this natural sleep-inducing amino acid to enter the brain and manufacture sleep-inducing substances. Eating a high-protein meal without accompanying carbohydrates may keep you awake, since protein-rich foods also contain the amino acid, tyrosine, which perks up the brain.

Foods that are high in carbohydrates and calcium, and medium-to-low in protein are ideal for promoting sleep:

• Dairy products: cottage cheese, cheese, milk
• Soy products: soy milk, tofu, soybean nuts
• Honey
• Almonds

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Sleep-inducing bedtime snacks:

• glass of warm milk with honey is one of the oldest and best remedies for insomnia.
• apple pie and ice cream
• whole-grain cereal with milk

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Hard truth No. 1 Just because diet soda is low in calories doesn't mean it can't lead to weight gain.

It may have only 5 or fewer calories per serving, but emerging research suggests that consuming sugary-tasting beverages—even if they're artificially sweetened—may lead to a high preference for sweetness overall.

Hard truth No. 2 Guzzling these drinks all day long forces out the healthy beverages you need.

Diet soda is 100 percent nutrition-free—and it's important to remember that all that useless liquid is taking up space that could have gone to more healthy alternatives.

Hard truth No. 3 There remain some concerns over aspartame, the low-calorie chemical used to give diet sodas their flavor.

Aspartame is 180 times sweeter than sugar, and some animal research has linked consumption of high amounts of the sweetener to brain tumors and lymphoma in rodents.

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A would-be gangster shot himself in the crutch when his gun went off half cocked in his pocket.  Lukas Neuhardt, 27, had forgotten to put the safety catch on when he stuffed the gun into his trouser pocket to impress pals in Saarbruecken, Germany. He told paramedics that a masked mugger had blasted him in the crutch in a bungled robbery. But police found a hole in his statement when they saw that the gunshot had miraculously left his trousers intact. "Instead there was a charred hole in his pocket so either it was the shot of the century or he did it himself," said a police source. Now - after surgeons stitched his manhood back together - he's facing up to three years in jail for breaching Germany's tough new anti gun laws.

Caesar Cardini:  It is a common mistake to believe that Caesar Salad is named for the Roman Emperor, but in fact it was named after Caesar Cardini, a Mexican restaurateur in Tijuana, Mexico. On the weekend of July 4th in 1924 Caesar served finger foods by placing garlic-scented leaves on platters. He eventually started shredding the leaves into smaller pieces and it evolved into a salad. The salad became famous when it was a big hit for Hollywood stars who visited Tijuana. Soon it was added to the menus of many famous restaurants such as Romanoff’s and Chasen’s.

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The Study Ball gadget is a prison-style ball and chain that you can program to keep track of how much time you spend studying. Once you’ve selected the desired duration, you chain the ball to your ankle and the manacle won’t come off until the schedule study time is up.

Buy it here...

John Steven Szwalla, 17, was charged f he had thought about it, Bobby Ray Mabe probably wouldn't have attacked the man trying to rob his store early Thursday. But when a man holding something under his shirt asked for a Mountain Dew, then demanded money, a patron and Mabe grabbed him. "If he had had a gun he would've shot me," Mabe said. "But he had a banana." with common-law robbery after he tried to rob a store using a banana tucked under his shirt to look like a gun, according to the sheriff's office.  Mabe and the patron held the robber while they waited for the deputies to arrive. Meanwhile, the would-be robber ate the banana.  "And the deputy said, 'Ah hah! He ate the evidence,'" Mabe said. "But we had the banana peel and they took a picture of it."

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The more distracted and stressed we are, the harder we fall, research says.    Unfortunately, since we’re currently in the middle of two wars, a recession, a health care crisis, a banking crisis, massive unemployment, global climate change and a swine flu outbreak, we’re eating, sleeping and breathing stress. And, yes, some of us are tripping over it, too. 

The accident-prone brain
After reviewing the results of 79 studies which recorded the mishaps and misfortunes of nearly 150,000 people from 15 countries, researchers at the University Medical Center Groningen in the Netherlands found that accident-prone people do actually exist. In fact, one out of every 29 people has a 50 percent or higher chance of having an accident than the rest of us.

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FOR SHORT-TERM MEMORY
Drink This!: COFFEE

Fresh-brewed joe is the ultimate brain fuel. Caffeine has been shown to retard the aging process and enhance short-term memory performance. In one study, British researchers found that just one cup of coffee helps improve attention and problem-solving skills.

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Apostrophes are no more decorative than doorways. They take the meaning of letters from one place to another. Just look at the difference between the words he'll and hell. We know which one we'd rather spend eternity contemplating.  

• They show possession. It's the Queen's English. (Not the Queens English -- cause dat New York dialeck sounds like dis, ya know?) Just add an apostrophe plus "s" to a word and it's a possessive. To form a plural possessive, first make the plural version of the word. Chicken becomes chickens, for example. Add your apostrophe and your birds will have a chickens' coop. If a plural doesn't end in an "s," then you'll need to add an apostrophe plus "s." This fills your shelves with women's sweaters.

• They also indicate contractions: This is how will not becomes won't, and cannot becomes can't. Wont and cant are different words. Decorative, schmecorative!

• They indicate missing characters. So you'd write "the '80s" when you're talking about the 1980s. Once you have these three rules down, there are just two more common errors to overcome: confusing you're with your, and it's with its.

• You're is a contraction of you are. Your is a possessive.

• It's is a contraction of it is or it has. Its is a possessive.

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WHEN Pooja Chopra was 20 days old, her mother Neera was forced to make a choice - kill her child or forfeit her marriage.Neera decided to keep her daughter, defying the wishes of a bullying husband who wanted the baby destroyed. She knew she would be thrown out of the family home. 

Twenty-three years later, Pooja’s survival is being celebrated throughout India. Now a vivacious young woman, last month she won a beauty contest to become Miss India World. She has also become a symbol for the campaign against a tradition that values boys above girls; it is said this has led to an imbalance in the ratio of Indian men to women and to social problems.

“When my mum walked out on my dad, she said to him, ‘One day this girl will make me proud’. All my life I’ve wanted my mum to be proud of the decision that she chose me,” Pooja said last week.

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