Zen Blog

There is a lot of misinformation about fruit and carbs out there these days. The fad (keto) says that your brain and body need fat to work properly, that is misinformation. Your brain, liver and body actually run on glucose. If you do not have enough glucose reserves in these organs they will not function properly.  SIGNS YOUR BODY NEEDS GLUCOSE Brain fog Sleep disorders Lack of focus Anxiety Fatigue Poor digestion ADHD Depression Blood sugar imbalances and much more... I am talking about the glucose and fructose which come from fruit, not the processed sugars in cakes, cookies and other sweeteners. The glucose in bananas and other fruit are bonded to critical life supporting minerals, amino acids, anti-oxidants, vitamins and other phytonutrients, so it's not empty glucose you are eating. These fruits are also made up of fiber, pulp and water that have other wonderful health and digestion benefits. So please, don't be afraid to eat fruit! Finally you have permission to eat fruit! And NO they will not make you gain weight!!    MY EXPERIENCE I went on a very restrictive diet, similar to Keto, to get rid of my candida with very little carbs. That is when my insomnia exploded, as well as, brain fog, anxiety, chronic fatigue, lack of focus and chronic constipation among other things. As soon as I changed my diet to add in lots of fruit, these things started changing.  I have since lost 24 pounds, gotten rid of my candida, and all the other things listed up there (through fruit and eating a healthy cleansing diet). There are a few other fruits as well as raw honey that also help me to sleep and I will talk about each of them on later BLOGs, but I do have a better nights sleep if I eat a banana, honey or one of those other fruits before bed. My brain and body feel calmer and more relaxed which help me to sleep deeper and better.  I eat 1 banana 1-2 hours before bedtime and it really does help.   You could even make a BANANA MILKSHAKE before bed: 1 Fresh banana 1 Frozen banana 1 Date 1/2 tsp Alcohol free vanilla extract 1/3 Cup Coconut water Dash of cinnamon Blend all together in a blender and enjoy!! A perfect evening dessert, but better yet a sleep tonic!!   HEALTH BENEFITS OF BANANAS Powerful anti-viral food Has tryptophan to help you sleep, relieve stress, anxiety and depression Destroys fungus in the body Digestive aid- colitis, IBS, chrons Stabilizes blood sugar Help balance weight Helps with "auto-immune" diseases Helps adrenal fatigue Helps heart disease Alzheimers Bipolar And so much more... Eating 3 or more bananas a day can even help PTSD!   BANANAS AN AMAZING FRUIT Bananas should be one of our go to fruits, because they do so much for our bodies. They are the best thing to eat before and after exercise to give your body what it needs to exercise and to replenish when you are done. They are healthy and filling, for those late night snackers and they taste wonderful!! They really are a perfect food!! So please don't be afraid of fruit anymore, ENJOY!!   For more in-depth information see: Life Changing Foods by Anthony Williams

These powerful natural stone sleep bracelets are designed to help you have a deeper more consistent nights sleep and wake up more refreshed. They help to assist you gently cleanse and re-align your body's energy and get rid of stress and anxiety. Each of the stones that were chosen have a unique purpose, but when put together they work synergistically to create a powerful mood balancer and sleep enhancer, helping you feel refreshed, joyful and balanced in the morning. You can wear them just for sleep or as a bracelet that is fashionable as well as functional. Some of the expensive sleep bracelets out there use magnets to "harness the beneficial frequencies of the Earth." We do that with beautiful natural stones that work with the frequency/energy of your body, helping to reduce stress and anxiety and balance the nervous system and brain. I personally have tried the very expensive bracelets and these work just as well, if not better in my opinion, as my bracelets do so much more for you and your body, AND at a fraction of the $250-$425 cost! MY EXPERIENCE I have been using them on myself and have seen the results! I sleep deeper, I sleep through the night, and I dream!! I wake up refreshed and ready for the day, not groggy and sluggish like I used to. I also feel more calm and relaxed throughout the day. I feel these work better than the expensive magnet sleep bracelets that I have used in the past, because it even helped me clear out some of the imbalances in my health and made my body even healthier!! The other bracelets DID NOT do that! CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE   CHOICE OF BRACELET The bracelets are made with 6mm (3/16") beads, and come with three different stone options- Hematite, Black Tourmaline or for sensitive individuals- Amethyst. These stones are added to the base stone configuration, giving you an option to choose the stone that would best serve and help you to a better nights rest: HEMATITE Calms mind and mental stress Grounding- helps reduce anxiety, worry, feeling stressed and being un-focused Balancing Aids in addictions and concentration Helps to diffuse or get rid of anger and negativity Memory enhancer, focus, clarity of thought BLACK TOURMALINE  Ultimate Grounding Stone- helps reduce anxiety, worry, feeling stressed and being un-focused  Blocks EMF (Electromagnetic Energy) from computers and wireless devices Blocks negative energy Calming  Strengthens immune system Helps you to feel balanced and serene AMETHYST For Sensitive individuals Natural stress reliever Calming Balance nervous system Helps to relieve insomnia CONSTRUCTION  The 6mm bead bracelet is designed for comfort while sleeping or wearing during your daily activities. 6mm was also chosen to assist you a gentle cleanse and re-alignment of your body's energy. Sometimes, for sensitive people,  headaches can happen for a few days as your body "detoxes" but will go away as your body comes into balance. The band is elastic and stretchy, but sturdy, and will just slide over your wrist. Women's size: 7" Average Men's size: 8" Average   HOW TO WEAR Listen to your body while wearing the bracelet, and do what you feel will work best for you and your body: You can wear all day and all night You can wear just during the day, for stress and emotional balancing and protection You can just wear at night, helping to calm and de-stress your body and emotions while you sleep In about 14-21 days, the stones become attuned to you and your body and it's needs, so these aren't bracelets for sharing. And yes, these do work very well.   CARE OF YOUR BRACELET It is good to cleanse and recharge your bracelet every so often. Every couple of days just rinse your bracelet in warm water and once a month if you can, put it out in the moonlight, to cleanse and recharge it.  Other magnetic bracelets have you put theirs out in the sun, but the sun can fade your stones, so I like to put mine outside under a full moon or out in the grass in the shade for a couple of hours.   CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE

Here is a video on how to make the bestest most yummiest, before bed beverage. It really does help you have a better nights sleep!! Full of natural, healthy ingredients to help with insomnia, anxiety, depression and more. LOOK BELOW VIDEO FOR MORE INFO AND THE RECIPE     Best Before Bed Beverage   This drink is an amazing combination of tasty seasonings that do a lot for your body. Some of the many things it helps with are; supports your thyroid, gets rid of candida, helps memory and cognition, helps weight loss, helps balance blood sugar, boosts your immune system, anti-inflammatory, anti-anxiety, anti-cancer, reduces cholesterol and best of all it HELPS YOU SLEEP AT NIGHT! It is very tasty too! I include a couple of optional ingredients that you can add to make it taste the way you want, even a chocolaty mocha-chino. Yum yum! This isn't a drink you want to miss and is especially comforting during colder weather. When it's warmer I will share my awesome coconut almond ice cream, that can take it's place.   Best Before Bed Beverage Serves: 1               Ingredients: 8-10 oz        Coconut or Almond Milk, Water, Lemon Balm Tea  1 TBL           RAW Honey 1/8 tsp          Nutmeg- Ground 1/8-1/4 tsp   Cinnamon  1/4-1/2 tsp   Turmeric Powder A FEW SHAKES OF EACH - TO TASTE:                     Ginger Powder                     Cardamom Powder                        Cloves- Ground        Optional, use any or all: 1-2 TBL            Coconut milk/cream- If you chose the water or tea 1 TBL               Raw Cacao powder (makes it hot-chocolaty) 1-2 TBL            Cafix beverage (a caffeine free, coffee-like tasting beverage for more flavor)   Heat the liquid of choice and then add the honey and other ingredients. Blend all ingredients with a blender or hand blender for 20-30 seconds. Then totally enjoy and sleep amazingly!   DON'T KNOW WHERE TO GET THE INGREDIENTS? LOOK BELOW     Cafix All Natural Instant Beverage - 7.05 oz  This link will take you to the Vitacost website where you can purchase the item. Thank you for using this link, as I do receive a commission for recommending their awesome product!!         NOW Foods Organic Raw Cacao Powder - 12 oz This link will take you to the Vitacost website where you can purchase the item. Thank you for using this link, as I do receive a commission for recommending their awesome product!!        Spicy World Authentic Foods Turmeric Powder - 14 oz This link will take you to the Vitacost website where you can purchase the item. Thank you for using this link, as I do receive a commission for recommending their awesome product!!    If you have a medical condition or take any medication, consult with a doctor before trying this supplement.     

  So many of us these days have an issue with sleep. Why is that? I myself had dealt with insomnia for 7-10 years. I would be up for 1-2 hours in the middle of the night, every night. I got a lot of reading done…but that was about the only good thing. 😉 In the last year, I have healed myself from my chronic insomnia. I figured out that for me to have a good night’s sleep, it took a variety of things working together to fully balance my body. I feel that it’s not just one thing… 1 magic bullet that will knock us out for the night. I know we all like the idea of the easy fix, but more often than not, that’s not the case. We are complex beings and I feel that we need to treat the multiple areas that affect us, wholistically, to finally get relief. I feel there are many reasons contributing to the insomnia epidemic, some of the main ones are; nutrition, stress, and exercise. Below are some quick highlights of each of these areas. I will go deeper into each of them in the future, but I wanted to at least give you a quick overview; to get you thinking on the areas that could contribute to your issues and some quick solutions that you can start on right away to start giving you some relief.   NUTRITION As a nation, we have moved into convenience, especially in our food. Most of those convenient, prepackaged and fast food items are full of chemicals and other ingredients that mess with our bodies and brain and contribute to anxiety and insomnia. I myself have adopted a pretty clean regimen of eating, by eating lots of fruits and vegetables. One of the best ways to start eating healthier is to have at least half of your meal be either fruit or veggies. One reason is that these foods have the live nutrition that your body and brain need to work properly, and they also help clear out all the nasties that build up in your body, to help it be healthy and balanced. Our brains run on glucose, not the fat that is the “fad” right now. I had been on a low carb, high fat diet and it actually made my insomnia worse. Once I added more fruit to my diet I started sleeping better and I have even lost 24 pounds while eating this way. Some of the best fruit you can eat an hour or two before bed is a banana or mango, or a spoonful of honey like in my BEST BEFORE BED BEVERAGE. Both fruits and the honey have certain properties within them that fight insomnia, calm your system and feed your brain. So, don’t be fruit afraid!!! Enjoy, and sleep! Nutrition also includes herbs. I have listed some supplements and herbs on my website that support sleep. You can check them out here and give them a try to see how they can help you. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO   STRESS Our society today is probably one of the most stressful societies in the world. We are very work and production oriented and don’t allow time for the finer things in life that give us joy and relaxation. You only have one life and one body, I think we all can do better in supporting ourselves in this area. Take time to enjoy life, make time for yourself and the things you love. I know there is NO WAY to get rid of stress entirely, because we do have to work and interact with people, which are some of the most stressful things in our lives; BUT we can learn how to release the stress that we accumulate daily. One of the things that works wonders for me is deep breathing!! Deep breathing has been shown to lower blood pressure and cortisol levels. I have created 2 video routines from what I have learned in my 16 years of studying natural healing. I do them myself, to help relax and de-stress at the end of the day. I can really tell the difference when I let life get in the way and don’t do it for a while. My sleep does suffer. One video is more focused on deep breathing and grounding movements, the other has some stretching added in to really help you physically get rid of pent up stress in the body. You can click on the links below to find out more information: DEEP BREATHING TO RELIEVE STRESS AND ANXIETY STRETCH AND BREATHE     EXERCISE Exercise is one of the last areas I am going to expound upon today. Yes, no surprise, right? Why don’t we do it or if we do, are we overdoing it? If we don’t exercise at all, it leads our bodies to hold stress, become stiff and calcified, and is just plain un-healthy. You need to exercise to keep your body young and functioning well. And for those of you on the opposite spectrum…those who exercise for hours and hours a week. Surprisingly, too much exercise has proven to raise our stress hormone cortisol. Exercising for too long or too intensely for too long, will actually stress your body out more than it is helping. So, what is the happy medium between those of us who don’t want to spend hours and hours exercising and those who tend to overdo it??? CELLERCISE!!!!! It is an engineered, safe, trampoline, and IN JUST 10 MINUTES A DAY you get an amazing full body workout that cleanses and de-toxifies your body, reduces stress, and makes your muscles rock hard, even on a 50 year old woman like myself!! You can go to my site for more information, but here is a recommendation from a doctor about the CELLERCISER. GET MORE INFO “I recommend the Cellerciser to all my patients. It is the one and only, original mini trampoline that I trust to recommend. This product has literally changed the lives of many of my patients. You could bounce on this all day and only feel more energized and strong. Your joints will never hurt and it complements any other exercise routine a person has. It is great for those who are old and feel they have trouble moving, it builds strength and stability. It helps people who are cleansing or in a detox by increasing circulation and moving the lymph. For those who want to lose weight, get in shape or just firm up it is a must to their routine. I have even reports of its natural face lift ability. It firms under arms, neck, and butt sags. It is especially good for those needing to start exercising but have little energy and strength; nothing is better at building energy and strength without stress on any level. This Cellerciser is amazing and the only one I have recommended for years. There is no comparison to the others out there.” Dr. Moira Casey D.C.   That was a brief, well maybe not so brief,  😉 overview of some of the main things that can affect your sleep. I will be talking about each of these things more in-depth in the future, but for now you have at least a good framework that can get you moving towards a better night’s sleep. Eat, breathe and cellercise!!!  Blessings!!

NOT ALL SHEETS ARE CREATED EQUAL So why do we carry bamboo sheets instead of cotton on Zenofsleep.com... ...and are they worth the hype?   First of all, there are 5 reasons to buy bamboo over cotton: They are hypoallergenic and anti-microbial- so they smell fresher, keep oders and micro-organisms away and are good for sensitive individuals They are breathable and wick away moisture 70% better than cotton They keep you warm in winter and cooler in the summer (on average, bamboo is 3 degrees cooler than cotton). The best bamboo sheets are soft, durable, and silky smooth, much smoother, softer and drapier than cotton. They are softer than 1500 Thread Count Cotton sheets. Bamboo is also an extremely renewable resource. Our materials are harvested and manufactured very carefully, so we can produce high-quality sheets in an environmentally sustainable way. So yes, bamboo sheets are worth the hype. They will give you a softer, cleaner, more comfortable and overall better sleeping experience. Once you try bamboo, you will never go back to cotton!   WHAT IS BAMBOO, WHY IS IT MORE PLANET FRIENDLY AND HOW IS IT MADE? Bamboo, is just what you think, the big tall stalks that you see in all those jungle movies, but the best thing about bamboo is, it grows like grass. It's like making sheets out of your lawn clippings. It grows fast and takes considerably less water than cotton to produce and manufacture. How can those rough looking stalks make such incredibly soft sheets? The bamboo plant is the starting material for a process (the viscose or rayon process) that can be performed with any plant and produces the viscose bamboo fabric. This is the same process that is used to make Rayon where the starting material could be any other plant, really. That’s why sometimes you see bamboo bed sheets labeled as “Viscose” and sometimes as “Rayon.”These are actually the exact same thing. 100% Bamboo sheets mean that the sheet manufacturer does not blend the viscose bamboo with any other fabrics (such as cotton) when the fabric is being created.     Our sheets are Oeko-Tex certified, so you can be sure there were NO NASTY CHEMICALS used to make these sheets! Viscose bamboo bed sheets are durable and soft, making them the perfect combination for a long-lasting, welcome addition to your bed linen collection. Viscose from bamboo bedding is considered by many to be the softest sheets that you can buy!   DO BAMBOO SHEETS HAVE A THREADCOUNT? Yes and no. Yes, they do have a threadcount, but it isn’t comparable to the threadcounts you see with cotton. The two main threadcounts available for bamboo sheets are 300tc and 400tc. It’s just not equivalent with the threadcounts for cotton sheets. Even some well-made 300tc bamboo sheets can be much softer than many 1500tc cotton sheets. In regards to bamboo, 400tc sheets will be thicker, softer and drapier than its 300tc counterpart.  Some of the important things to look for when buying bamboo sheets are the quality of the manufacturer, that they are Oeko-Tex certified, and that they are actually using 100% bamboo -NO COTTON OR MICROFIBER, which reduce all the best properties of having bamboo sheets in the first place! Bamboo sheets often come in 2 finishes as well; sateen and twill. Twill is not quite as soft and has the over/under pattern that many of our shirts and jeans have. They are a bit more durable than sateen, but not by much, and they are usually in the thinner, lower 300 thread count sheets. The sateen weave goes over-over-then under in its weave. It is much smoother and silkier on the skin and that is why we choose to use the thicker, higher 400 thread count sateen sheets for our store, to give you the thickest, softest most luxurious experience.   BAMBOO SHEETS ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL Sadly, you are not going to fine real bamboo sheets for less than $100 for a twin set of sheets. There are various companies on Amazon selling sheets they call bamboo, but are really a bamboo mixed with polyester microfiber. These can be as cheap as $30, which is great if you don’t mind sleeping on polyester. When they say bamboo/microfiber blend, you are getting a mostly polyester sheet and as a result lose most of the wonderful benefits of bamboo. Just be aware that if you get sheets like this, you aren’t getting actual bamboo bedding products. Look for 100% Bamboo to make sure you are getting the real deal.   ARE BAMBOO SHEETS REALLY GOOD? Yes! I have purchased them myself and they do help me have a more comfortable, enjoyable, sleeping experience, and that is what we here at Zenofsleep.com are here for, to lead you towards all things that make your sleep better! I think the sheets are amazing! They are definitely the softest type of sheets you can buy, they are cooler, more breathable and feel silky/soft on my skin as well. As a 50 year old woman who deals sometimes with night sweats and hot flashes, bamboo has made those nights so much more comfortable!! I also like that I am choosing a product that is better and more renewable than cotton, which is great for our planet.   But don't take my word for it. Here are what some of our customers are saying about our sheets! 5 Stars!!- "Happy anniversary to us! We are absolutely in love with our new sheets. They are so cool and silky. I am a sheet snob and these definitely suit me. Kelle was awesome to work with. I will recommend this product to all my friends." -Lisa 5 Stars!!- "Best sheets ever! So soft and silky and I don't feel sweaty in them. Nice and thick like resort sheets." - Robyn 5 Stars!!- "We purchased a set of queen-size sheets from Zen of Sleep and are very satisfied with the quality and value. The fabric is luxurious and the sewing is flawless. The elastic all around the perimeter of the fitted sheet makes it so easy to change the bed without struggling to keep the corners in place, and ensures that the sheet stays put. The set looks as good as new after each washing and overall, this was a very worthwhile purchase. We will be ordering additional sets in the near future for our children and guests!" - Stan