Got a health question? Don’t trust those “Doctors” at the University Health Center? Are you scared of Web M.D. because it always tells you you’re gonna die? Ask a real doctor, our friend Dr. Lissa Rankin. She’s here every Thursday to answer whatever you throw at her – like how to know if your guy is clean – so ask away. Leave your question in the comments or send it over to us. Don’t be shy; she’s waiting for ya!

Q: Between finals, graduating and other personal stress, I can’t fall asleep at night. And then when I do, I can’t stay asleep. I’m always tired and grumpy and it’s only making everything even more stressful. Do you have any ideas for getting sleep? I heard sex might help, but I’m not sure if that’s true or if my boyfriend is just telling me that for his own selfish reasons. I really need to be alert and focused for exams and this is killing me. Help?

A: I hear you, sweetie. Insomnia can kill you (trust me, I’ve been there), especially when you’re in school, with tests, projects, and grades looming over you. The question is why can’t you sleep? Is it stress? Is it hormones, like your thyroid? Is it caffeine, alcohol, or other drugs/medications that are disrupting your sleep? Is it poor nutrition?  Is it the crazy sorority girl next door who keeps banging you up with her rocking orgasm? How to treat your insomnia depends on what’s causing it. Here are some causes:

Why Can’t I Sleep?

1. Emotional disturbances: Anxiety and depression tend to sap your energy and they may also contribute to insomnia, which leads to poor sleep.
2. Nutrition: If you’re filling up on junk, it’s no wonder you have trouble sleeping. Food is fuel, and if you’re filling your tank with caffeinated sugar water instead of whole foods and green things, you can’t expect to sleep well. If you treat your low energy with sugar and/or caffeine, you’re stimulating our sympathetic nervous system and revving up your pancreatic insulin production. Then when you crash, you only feel worse. Insomnia follows.
3. Thryoid imbalance: If your thyroid hormones are out of whack, you may have trouble sleeping.
4. Sex hormone imbalance: Fluctuations in sex hormones, such as estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone, may lead to insomnia.
5. Change in your Circadian rhythms: Do you pull all-nighters and then sleep all day? If you’re messing with your body’s schedule, you’ll have trouble sleeping.
6. Poor sleep hygiene: Do you engage in restful activities before bed, or are you cramming until 3 minutes before lights out? We can’t expect our bodies and minds to just shut down without some help.
7. Caffeine/alcohol/medications: All of these can affect your sleep patterns.

10 Tips For Helping You Sleep

1. Try to get 8 hours of sleep at night on a regular schedule. Go to bed earlier and rearrange your schedule to allow your body the rest and rejuvenation it needs to recapture energy.
2. Establish bedtime rituals; herbal tea, a warm bath, cinnamon milk, reading a relaxing book, meditation – whatever works for you.
3. Avoid studying, having tough conversations, or other stressful situations just before bed.
4. Eat a balanced whole foods diet rich in produce, lean proteins, and whole grains.
5. Avoid caffeine, sugar, high carb foods, alcohol, and nicotine. If you’re taking medications, talk to your doctor about whether any of them might have insomnia as a side effect.
6. Buy a juicer and drink green juice. It works miracles for insomnia and improves energy and performance, I swear!
7. Exercise regularly, but not right before bed. It helps you fall and stay asleep.
8. Listen to guided imagery (I love Belleruth Naparstek’s CDs and listen to them almost every night.)
9. Sure, go ahead and try sex. Orgasm has been scientifically proven to help you sleep (won’t your boyfriend be jazzed?)
10. If all else fails, try a safe, over-the-counter sleeping aid like Benadryl (an anti-histamine that makes you drowsy). But be aware that regular use can lead to psychological (though not physical) addiction that may make it hard for you to sleep without it. Sometimes breaking the cycle makes all the difference.

Sleep well, love!

- Dr. Lissa Rankin’s book, What’s Up Down There? Questions You’d Only Ask Your Gynecologist If She Was Your Best Friend, will be published by St. Martin’s Press in Fall 2010. She invites you to join her Pink online community (www.owningpink.com/forum) or read more of her writing at Owning Pink (www.owningpink.com).

The holiday season is now in full swing, and with it comes a lot of struggles when it comes to maintaining a healthy lifestyle.  I've been asked by a couple of parents of kids and teens that have attended our weight loss camps, or are thinking of attending one of our camps, about tips for the holiday season that they can use at home.

While it's true that most of us (kids and adults) often feel like we gain weight over the holidays, studies have shown that less than 10% of us gain 5 pounds or more.  That is not to say that only gaining 5 pounds is a good thing.  In fact, it is not, and the goal should be to not gain any weight.

So what is the trick?  Not so surprisingly, there is no secret to maintaining a healthy weight during the holiday season – it's the same as it is every other time of the year:  Diet and Excercise.  What makes the holidays more difficult, though, is that there is often so much going on that our normal routines get thrown off.  We quickly find ourselves forgoing the family hike on a Saturday afternoon because some friends are hosting a holiday party.  And it's hard to go to any sort of holiday gathering without being presented with plate after plate of (usually) unhealthy appetizers, chips, dips, and so on.

So what can a parent that has a child struggling with weight issues do to maintain the consistency in diet and exercise that they're striving for?

Here are a few suggestions that center on both sides of the healthy weight loss coin (diet and exercise).

Exercise

This is one of the hardest part of the holidays as exercise/activities are often pushed aside in favor of party planning, shopping, decorating, and everything else that makes this time of year so busy.  So, instead of simply forgetting about having your child exercise for the next month, the trick is to have them make the most of the activities that they are doing.  Such as:

• Decorating – get your kids to help out hanging decorations and/or cleaning the house.  Things like climbing ladders, moving boxes of lights, getting decorations from storage, etc. are all forms of exercise.
• Take advantage of the opportunities you have – If you get a big snowstorm, encourage the kids to go sledding, have a snowball fight, or whatever else they like to do in the snow.  They won't realize it, but all the running around, walking up and down the hill, etc. are fantastic forms of exercise.
• Shopping – Yes, even the very act of shopping can be used as a form of exercise.  If you don't have time to go for a walk with your kids after dinner but still need to find that gift for your sister, take the kids to the mall with you and walk around there instead.

Diet

Many people often feel that they eat far too much and far too often during the holidays.  If you have kids that struggle with weight issues, this can be especially problematic.  Here are some tips for helping to keep your child's diet in focus during this time of year.

• Start the day off right – make sure you start each day by giving them a healthy and wholesome breakfast.  This will help prevent them from feeling hungry all day and being tempted to fill themselves on junk food, cookies, etc.
• Keep a close eye at any parties – if you go to holiday parties where there are a lot of kids, chances are there will also be a lot of "kids snacks" – things like cookies, candy, and all sorts of junk food that a lot of parents feed their kids without thinking twice.  Unfortunately, these are probably the kinds of things that you and your child are trying to avoid.  So, encourage them to snack on veggies instead.  You can also have them eat a nice healthy meal before going to the party, which will curb their desire to fill up on snacks at the party.  Finally, it's not realistic to ask anyone to completely avoid the food at any party, so tell your kids to only take one item at a time and have them wait 20-30 minutes before returning to the snack table.

It's true that this time of year can be challenging for people (kids and adults) trying to lose weight or trying to avoid gaining weight, but by following some of these simple steps, you can ensure that the lessons learned this past summer at weight loss camp do not go to waste.

Weight loss is never easy when you attempt it on your own. It's easy to get off track and the other people in your household may not be on a diet, which makes matters even worse. While there isn't anything like a good weight loss buddy, there are weight loss tools that will help you. These weight loss tools do an amazing job at not only keeping you on track, but they also provide information that is useful to your weight loss goals. The following websites are just a few of my favorites. At these websites, you will find weight loss tools that are free and easy to use.

Websites That Offer Amazing Weight Loss Tools #1: Slim Fast

You don't have to use Slim Fast products to take advantage of the amazing weight loss tools that the Slim Fast website has to offer. You will need to setup a free account, but that's simple to do. The first weight loss tool you will encounter is the weight chart. When you sign-up, you will be asked your height and weight. You will then be given a suggested weight goal, but you have the option to choose the goal that you want. Each week, you can go to the website and enter you current weight. There will be a chart that shows your progress and will help keep you on track. Another great tool is the weight loss calculator. With this calculator, you will see if you can reach your weight loss goal by a certain date. You will choose the occasion, enter in your current weight, and then chose the date of the event. The calculator will give you a realistic idea of how much you could lose by that date. The last weight loss tool the Slim Fast website has to offer is the BMI calculator. You will enter in your current weight and height and be told what your BMI is. You will also be shown a chart that explains what your BMI should be. While this is a great tool, it's not for everyone. It's impossible to tell your true BMI if you have a large bone structure, but if you have a normal bone structure, this is a great weight loss tool to use.

Websites That Offer Amazing Weight Loss Tools #2: Principal Health News

Another great website is the Principal Health News website. This website has several different weight loss tools, but my favorite is their nutrition toolbox. With this weight loss tool, you will be able to quickly lookup the foods you have eaten throughout the day and add them to a list. This list will quickly tell you how many calories you have consumed. If you work from home, you could keep this toolbox open throughout the day and add additional foods after each meal and snack.

Websites That Offer Amazing Weight Loss Tools #3: Calorie Connect

Calorie Connect is an easy to use website that is amazing for people who are serious about weight loss. Once you create a free account, you will be able to use different weight loss tools that allow you to add foods to your daily total. You can search for different foods and add them to your list. You can then view an overview for the day, which will tell you how many calories, fat grams, carbs, protein, etc you have eaten throughout the day. Next to each item, you will also see numbers that are your target goals for the day. For example, you will see how many calories you should be eating for that day. But, that's not all. You will also be able to lookup different types of exercises and select how long you worked out. This will also be added to your daily profile. This website is truly amazing and I'm still shocked that it's free.

Websites That Offer Amazing Weight Loss Tools #4: Connecticut's Team Nutrition Program

One last website I want to mention is Connecticut's Team Nutrition Program website. While, it's not the greatest website on earth, it is a great way to see how different foods can really add up. You will be able to choose an entrée, drink, two side dishes, and a dessert from the rate your plate weight loss tool. For example, I chose a turkey wrap, broccoli, a baked potato, Gatorade, and yogurt. When I was done I was able to choose how I wanted my results displayed. The choices were The Food Pyramid Guide, The Dietary Food Guidelines for Americans 2000, Food Label, and Nutrient Analysis. I chose the Nutrient Analysis option, which took me to a page of the website that listed the fat, calories, etc of each item and also gave me a total. This is a fun weight loss tool to use if you need to be shocked into seeing how many calories you really are eating.

Patients with chronic lung disease like emphysema or bronchitis can strengthen their legs and arms with resistance training, and this strength may help them perform everyday tasks more easily, a new review of 18 studies confirms.

Rehabilitation programs are intended to help people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), who often experience loss of muscle strength and fatigue, learn to exercise safely, doctors of Charles Sturt University in Albury, New South Wales, Australia note in their report in the medical journal chest.

There has been a growing emphasis in these programs on progressive resistance training, in which a person moves increasingly heavy weights to improve their strength, the researchers add. They undertook a review of the literature on resistance training for COPD patients to update current understanding of the benefits and risks.

Small but significant increases in strength of leg and arm muscles were seen after short-term progressive resistance training. The two clinical studies evaluating whether people reduced their body fat and added muscle mass were inconclusive.

Five of the trials included in their analysis looked at cycling endurance. When compared to no exercise at all, cycling offered some endurance improvement, but aerobic training was more beneficial, and it wasn't clear whether combining the two types of exercise offered any extra.

The four trials that looked at measures of daily function showed benefits for stair climbing and the speed at which a person was able to rise from a chair, and these benefits were greater than those seen with aerobic training. But the design of these trials meant they could have overestimated the benefits of exercise, the university colleagues say.

Often, the researchers noted, COPD patients don't have access to weight machines, so it's important to determine if home exercises with resistance bands, free weights, and other simple equipment could be helpful.
They concluded, “Long-term strategies for maintaining health in COPD patients are essential; therefore, an examination of longer-term outcomes, suitable maintenance dose exercise prescriptions, and long-term adherence is warranted.”

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