Reading and Training Recommendations:

Below are articles, books, links and interesting websites, as well as, educational opportunities to check out. I often come across information I’d like to share with others. Here are some titles and links I’ve found.

Articles: This area is for links to articles with beneficial information
1) The Effect of Magnesium Supplementation on Primary Insomnia in Elderly: A Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial. J Res Med Sci. 2012 Dec; 17(12): 1161–1169.
2) The Effect of Melatonin, Magnesium, and Zinc on Primary Insomnia in Long‐Term Care Facility Residents in Italy: A Double‐Blind, Placebo‐Controlled Clinical Trial.

Books: These are books with beneficial information or that I’ve found helpful.

Links and Interesting Websites:
• Unique Hobbies Link https://www.mantelligence.com/unique-hobbies/
• National Council on Aging, Center for Healthy Aging site: https://www.ncoa.org/center-for-healthy-aging/

Educational Opportunities: This area has opportunities for beneficial courses, programs or training.

Products

Lifestyle Support: This area will highlight products that might fill some need in your life or make your life easier in some way.

• Exercise Equipment: There are many pieces of in home exercise equipment that can support you as you add exercises to your daily routine. One piece that I have found very helpful is the Therapist’s Choice, a specialty stretching strap. Adding this to your in-home exercise program can help make stretching easier for individuals with reduced flexibility and mobility. This strap can help you perform exercises that will improve your flexibility.
• Smart Technology: If you haven’t made the switch yet, consider upgrading to a smartphone. If that seems too much of a stretch for you, consider getting a tablet first. A few years back, my mom was still using a flip-phone. I could see the writing on the wall. It wouldn’t be long before her old device would need to be replaced, either because it would break, or it would no longer be updated. Initially, Mother was very resistant to a newer gadget, and really new technology, in general. There was another thing she seemed to be struggling with. Her local paper had gone to two editions per week, which made her daily newspaper crossword puzzles a thing of the past. For her birthday, I talked my siblings into chipping in together to get her an iPad. We set her up with a word game that has been a favorite of hers ever since. The following year when her old phone was giving her problems, I took her to an AT&T store and upgraded device to an iPhone. In the meantime, she was already using an iPad, so the transition wasn’t difficult for her at all. Now, she loves her iPad, and I don’t know if she would be willing to switch back from her iPhone to her previous phone, even if she could. We spent over an hour last week, learning how to delete many blurry or unwanted pictures from the variety of photos she has enjoyed taking with the camera feature on her iPhone, so the new smart technology has enriched her life in lots of ways.

Activity Support: This area will list information and products that can support your hobbies, activities, and ways to continue enjoying them or being able to getting involved with them again if you gave them up for physical reasons.

Nutritional Support: This area will include nutritional information and supplement products for specific purposes or to support different health situations. It may provide links to specific high quality nutritional products available or to sites where they can be purchased. It may also link to articles on nutritional support on this site or elsewhere.

1) Sleep Support: What’s the quality of your sleep? Do you wake in the morning feeling less than rested? Do you struggle to fall asleep at night? Sometimes a change to your nighttime habits can make all the difference, for example, turning down the brightness of lights in the evening, turning off devices that blast you with light that comes from the blue end of the spectrum (TV, mobile phone, laptop, etc.), drinking a cup of hot tea, or setting up a routine that moves you from your daytime activities, toward getting horizontal in your bedroom.
Often people find that using melatonin can help them get better rest. I have a friend who uses melatonin at bedtime, and then if he wakes up in the night, he uses a spray form of melatonin that gives him another little dose to help him sleep through until morning.

I found something that helps me. Recently, I started using magnesium before bedtime. I am finding that I wake up feeling more rested and refreshed. I also sleep more soundly, when I take magnesium before bed, and am able to fall off to sleep sooner, as well. Quite an improvement from the difficulty I experienced with insomnia since deployments on combat tours. I have often been unable to fall asleep until very early in the morning, sometimes not able to drift off until 4 or 5 am. Short nights of sleep were created when the world began its day long before I was ready for my day to start. I looked for research on the topic and found an article on magnesium supplementation and insomnia in the elderly, that I have listed on the Reading and Training Recommendations, section.