How to Sleep Better

If you're having trouble sleeping, I have a tip for you: start using your feet.

Say what?

Look, anyone who knows squat about natural health knows daily exercise is a sensible thing to do.

Well, medical science recently confirmed what us health nuts have known forever: older and middle-age people reported sleeping better when they added regular exercise to their days.

These aging baby boomers fell asleep about 15 minutes earlier and slept about 45 minutes longer at night.

Since most of us live frenetic lives and are seriously sleep-deprived anyway, doesn't it make sense to use our feet and legs for something other than appendages to move us from car to desk to car to home?

Of course it does.

So make a commitment today to exercise at least four times during the next seven days.

Begin today by brisk walking, swimming, or biking for at least 20 minutes.

This approach beats the tar out of the drug approach.

Sadly, though they compose only about 20% of the population, older Americans receive almost half the medications prescribed by doctors to aid sleep.

And these sorry drugs cause confusion, falls, extended drowsiness, and a host of other nasty side effects.

Here are some other exercising tips:

• A drop in body temperature aids sound sleep. So time your exercise five to six hours before bedtime.
  
  
• Make your exercise vigorous enough to make you sweat a little. Previous studies have shown that non-aerobic stretching and concentration exercises alone did not impart sleep.
  
  
• Stick with it! Participants in this study did not report improved sleep until they had been exercising for 16 weeks.
  

By the way, people sleep better on a healthy bed. If you have time, check out our Healthy Bed Checklist.

Chet "Sleep Tips" Day
Editor, The Natural Health Circus
http://chetday.com/blog

Refrigerated Spice Cookies

It's been quite a few years since one of the readers of our free Amazing Cookies newsletter sent in the recipe I'm going to share with you today.

But even though a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since I first tried this recipe, it's as good as ever.

Try it and see if you don't agree! :)

Bielka's Refrigerated Spice Cookies

1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup light molasses
2 cup unbleached white flour
1/4 cup ground almonds
1/2 tsp grated orange peel
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp baking soda
Vegetable cooking spray

In a small pot over medium heat, combine honey, butter, and molasses and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and let cool for three minutes.

While mixture is cooling, combine remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Stir in honey mixture until well combined.

Divide dough into four equal pieces and roll each piece into a log. Wrap each log in plastic wrap and refrigerate two or three hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 375 F. Lightly coat a non-stick baking sheet with cooking spray and set aside. Lightly flour work surface. Roll each log into a thin dough about 1/8" thick. Cut into shapes with cookie cutters. Transfer to baking sheet and bake for five minutes or until firm. Cool on wire cooling racks.

Makes 4 dozen delicious cookies.

Oh, before I shut this off, if you have a favorite spice cookie recipe you'd like to share, please use the "comment" link below to do just that.

Chet "Spice Cookie" Day
Editor, The Natural Health Circus
http://chetday.com/blog