Sleep

Getting enough shut-eye doesn’t just boost your energy — it may increase brainpower as well. Research shows that a good night’s sleep helps improve memory. In one recent study published in Nature Neuroscience, researchers found that sufficient sleep is also necessary to help retain episodic memory — your ability to remember times, places, and events. Although sleep needs vary, most of us require about eight hours a night.

Waking up in the morning should be as pleasant as falling asleep at night. The Zen Alarm Clock’s gradual, gentle awakening is transformative.

adapted from Body + Soul Magazine, 2010

Japanese Maple Leaves Dial Face, the Zen Alarm Clock and Timer

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Stillness at Start and End of Day

The best stress remedy is to do nothing, use a chime timer for a gentle reminder

If checking your email has become as vital to your wake-up and bedtime routines as brushing your teeth, it’s time to unplug.

“Starting and ending the day in stillness is essential to stress reduction, so it’s absolutely critical not to jump into email during either of those times,” say”

In the morning and at night, turn off your computer (and TV) and pick up a book — or simply delight in the rare pleasure of doing nothing suggests Joan Borysenko, Ph.D., author of “Your Soul’s Compass.

A little nature therapy can also ease the stress of too much computer time. A stroll through a park or on a trail counteracts overstimulation and can also boost your mood and energy.

Our Digital Chime Zen Clock & Timer’s long-resonating Tibetan bell-like chime makes waking up and meditating a beautiful experience – its progressive chimes begin your day with grace.

adapted from Body + Soul Magazine, 2010

Zen Alarm Clock in Maple Finish, Japanese Leaves Dial Face and Stillness

Now & Zen’s Chime Timer Store

1638 Pearl Street

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(800) 779-6383

yogi tea

Yogi tea is a hall-of-famer because it’s a timeless classic. The ayurvedic yogi tea (also known as chai) contains aromatic spices to warm and stimulate digestive fire while nourishing body and soul.

1 quart spring or filtered water
1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
2 teaspoons cardamom seeds (or 3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom)
3-inch cinnamon stick, broken
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1-inch piece fresh ginger (or 1 teaspoon ground ginger)
1 teaspoon black tea leaves (may substitute decaffeinated black tea)
1/4 cup nonfat milk, or to taste (may substitute soymilk)
2 tablespoons honey, or to taste (optional)

1. In a medium saucepan, bring the water to a boil over high heat. Set your Zen Timer with Chime for 30 minutes.  Add the spices, reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes.

2. Set your Zen Timer with Chime for 10 minutes.  Add the tea leaves and let steep for 10 minutes. Strain the tea and add milk and honey, if using.

240 calories, 3g fat, 70g carbohydrates, 3.5g protein

adapted from Natural Home Magazine, Nov./Dec. 2005 by Elaine Gavalas

Bamboo Zen Clocks and Chime Timers, a Natural Sound Timer for Tea

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yoga sitting exercise

Life is stressful, and it’s not unusual to feel fearful or anxious on occasion. A common symptom is the sense that you are “not in your own skin.” This feeling is caused by your energy, or qi, rising up and out of your body, according to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). In TCM, fear is believed to spring from the kidneys, and anxiety is thought to be a sign of disharmony between the kidneys and the heart. Dantians are the body’s three reservoirs of energy, located between the eyes, the middle of the chest, and below the navel. This simple centering practice creates harmony between the middle and lower dantians, which can keep you calm in times of stress.

This exercise is designed to ground your energy, bringing you back to earth by reconnecting you with your breath and your center, says Shoshanna Katzman, L.Ac., author of “Qigong for Staying Young.” Keep your eyes open throughout the exercise, so you are fully present in your body.

1. Choose a comfortable place to sit, preferably away from other people. Sit up straight and keep feet flat on the floor. Imagine, and feel, your feet being rooted and connected to the earth.

2. Place your hand on your chest (at your middle dantian — one of your body’s three reservoirs of energy, located between the eyes, the middle of the chest, and below the navel) to nourish the energy of the heart, which “houses the mind.” Place your other hand on your belly just below your navel (at your lower dantian) to nourish the energy of the kidneys.

3. Begin taking slow, deep breaths; concentrate on your body expanding and contracting. Visualize your energy sinking lower and lower into your body. Breathing into the lower dantian strengthens kidney energy and helps release fear and anxiety. In doing so, you create more stability, becoming more centered and secure within yourself. Set your Zen Chime Timer for three minutes.  Continue this breathing exercise for one to three minutes.

adapted from Body + Soul, July/August 2005

Zen Chime Timer & Alarm Clock - Digital Version

The Zen Chime Timer & Clock can serve as a countdown and interval timer for yoga, meditation, bodywork, etc.; and it can also be set to chime on the hour as a tool for “mindfulness.”

Chime Sound Clock, an Alarm Clock and Timer for Breathing Exercises with Soothing Sounds

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harunobu suzuki, Beauty at the Veranda

The things you do when you’re tired—like reaching for the fourth cup of coffee, the remote, the cupcake(s)—are almost never the things that’ll get you untired. We’ve got a radical new idea: How about a real rest? Do you even know what that means?

For most women who chronically bump along on near empty, it’s no mystery that getting to bed a little earlier would help. “The sleep system really does work like a bank,” says William Dement, MD, PhD, who—as chief of the sleep medicine division at the Stanford University School of Medicine—should know. “We can keep going for a long time on borrowed energy because our survival mechanisms kick in. At some point, however, every hour lost needs to be paid back.” But instead of the pillow, we’ll often reach for coffee—37 percent of American women chug more than three caffeinated beverages a day, according to the National Sleep Foundation—or a glass of wine, or something sweet, or the remote control to “wind down” with Anderson Cooper, who’s inevitably reporting from a war zone with things blowing up in the background. None of these efforts restores energy—some, in fact, do the opposite. Even when you do finally climb into bed, there are times when anxiety invades your sleep, leaving you bleary-eyed and dragging day after day. So we decided to investigate what—short of permanent residency at a spa—gives you a real rest.

Paradoxically, according to the newest research, when you’re looking for a profound rest cure, rather than trying to tune out, you may be better off tuning in and anchoring your awareness in the present moment. You can approach such engagement through various routes, like fully using your senses, practicing mindfulness, getting into a flow state, and—most difficult for many, but perhaps most effective—giving up the need to be in control.

tune in

Loch Kelly, A New York Buddhist-trained psychotherapist and meditation teacher, uses a technique called “resting in the heart space” to help people relinquish the reins; in his experience it provides the deepest rest in the shortest amount of time. “Traditionally, meditation focuses on getting to a state so neutral that there isn’t a problem to solve. Some monks spend 20 years in isolation working on just that.” But anyone, Kelly claims, can attain a sense of flow—and many of us already do through ordinary activities like gardening, knitting, working, or driving. When you’re in a car, for example, you have to focus on the road as it looks in the moment and, at the same time, stay alert to continually anticipate the next move. Eventually, your brain resolves the two directions it’s working in by falling into a rhythm, which leads to an open state of awareness that Kelly calls flow. You’re most likely to feel it after an unfettered drive in the country—no urgent sense of time passing or future demands impinging, but rather a merging into the current, a harmony with the environment as the present unfolds. “There’s something that’s unhooked from the mind, prior to thought, and at the same time intelligent,” Kelly says. “You can respond quickly.” Entering this flow state signals the brain that you’re safe, not in danger mode.

Once you’ve gotten a sense of what flow is, you’re ready for the heart space meditation. Kelly suggests deciding ahead of time how long you can allow yourself to rest—people usually do it from one to 20 minutes, but you may want to go longer. To prepare, take a big inhalation, filling your stomach from the bottom to the top like a water pitcher. Exhale as you normally would. Next, look up and gradually allow your peripheral vision to expand, a gesture intended to keep you engaged with your surroundings. Smile to tell yourself that you’re doing something you enjoy.

get the rest you need

By Sara Reistad-Long
O, The Oprah Magazine

Now & Zen's Family of Alarm Clocks

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(800) 779-6383

Tips for better sleep

If you’ve already managed to figure out at last, how tofall asleep, but you’re having trouble getting goodsleep through the night (i.e. tossing, turning , waking up more than once), this article will tell you what you can do to ensure a peaceful night’s slumber!

Get on schedule. Varying your sleeping times by more than an hour can severely disrupt your sleep quality by “advancing the sleep phase”. For example, let’s say you normally wake up at 6 a.m. on weekdays to get to work, so you get to bed around 10 p.m. because that’s when you start to feel sleepy (and it’s also a good time to ensure 8 hours of sleep). If, on the weekend, you sleep in until 9 a.m., you probably won’t be able to fall asleep that night until 1 a.m. again. In other words, your body thrives on running on a routine; erratic sleeping sessions will interfere with your internal “biological clock”. For some people, and depending on work and routine, a very short rest in the afternoon (the Spanish call it the siesta) could help alleviate drowsiness some people experience during the day.

But make sure not to oversleep.  By choosing the most soothing alarm clock to help you wake more naturally.  Check out The Zen Alarm Clock with Chime by Now & Zen, Inc. – Boulder, Colorado.

What makes this gentle awakening experience so exquisite is the sound of the natural acoustic chime, which has been tuned to produce the same tones as the tuning forks used by musical therapists. According to the product’s inventor, Steve McIntosh, “once you experience this way of being gradually awakened with beautiful acoustic tones, no other alarm clock will ever do.”

adapted from Wikihow.com

Zen Clocks for a Gradual Awakening with Chimes

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sleeping outside, a perfect place for dream time...

There’s something irresistibly romantic about sleeping outside. Long a part of cowboy and camping traditions, it achieved architectural expression in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the rise of the sleeping porch. The idea continues to evolve.  Whether used for a daytime catnap or a full night’s rest, open-air sleeping platforms can give you a chance to enjoy summer weather to the fullest.

Garden sanctuary
As a child, Marni Leis wanted a backyard playhouse.  She realized her dream as an adult by building what she calls her “teahouse.” The 6- by 13-foot screened pavilion occupies a wooden platform near a small pond.  Gauzy curtains frame the entrance and provide privacy and bug protection when needed.  A shallow gabled roof covered with translucent fiberglass shelters the area from rain and drizzle without blocking the light.  A portable Digital Zen Alarm Clock sits on a basket table by the futon bed on the platform bed.

She furnished the space with comfortable, stylish pieces, including a chair found at a flea market, an old coffee table, and an antique bookcase.  “I used fabrics I could wash easily, because they are exposed to the elements,” she says.  “I also used pieces that meant something to me.  These give the place an air of nostalgia.  When you’re there, you feel like you could be in another time or place.  It’s great to get outside away from the noise and be alone with nature.”

Boulder, Colorado—an innovative company has taken one of life’s most unpleasant experiences (being startled awake by your alarm clock early Monday morning), and transformed it into something to actually look forward to. “The Zen Alarm Clock,” uses soothing acoustic chimes that awaken users gently and gradually, making waking up a real pleasure.  Rather than an artificial recorded sound played through a speaker, the Zen Clock features an alloy chime bar similar to a wind chime.  When the clock’s alarm is triggered, its chime produces a long-resonating, beautiful acoustic tone reminiscent of a temple gong.  Then, as the ring tone gradually fades away, the clock remains silent until it automatically strikes again three minutes later.  The frequency of the chime strikes gradually increase over ten-minutes, eventually striking every five seconds, so they are guaranteed to wake up even the heaviest sleeper.  This gentle, ten-minute “progressive awakening” leaves users feeling less groggy, and even helps with dream recall.

adapted from Sunset Magazine by Mary Jo Bowling

Digital Zen Alarm Clocks, for a calm awakening

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Choose a Gentle Chime Alarm Clock

View your sleeping environment and decide what you can control. Awakening can be triggered by external cues such as light and sound; hence the effectiveness of the alarm clock. These triggers can override the circadian rhythm.

• Light: Your mind will respond to light and bring you out of sleep. Leave your curtains or blinds open to wake up with the sunrise. Close them if you need to sleep later. Adjust the positioning of your bed to catch the light at the right time—you may need to move your bed occasionally since the sun will strike your room at a slightly different angle as the seasons progress. If you are camping, locate your tent so that the sun will hit it unobstructed (make sure there are no trees, hills, etc. that will prevent the sun from hitting your tent early in the morning). Remember that the sun rises in the east; in the northern hemisphere a south-facing orientation will receive more sunlight, and in the southern hemisphere a north-facing orientation will get more, but unless you are trying to wake up when the sun is high in the sky, you will still want to face to the east to catch the sun when it rises. As stated earlier, the position of your bed will depend heavily on the time of the year, and the time you want to wake up. If you need to get up before the sun rises, putting the lights in your room on a timer can also help, as this may not seem as disruptive as an alarm clock. Or better yet, choose a gentle, soothing way to wake up like using a Zen Chime Alarm Clock.  When the clock’s alarm is triggered, the acoustic chime bar is struck just once … 3-1/2 minutes later it strikes again … chime strikes become more frequent over 10 minutes … eventually striking every 5 seconds until shut off.
  

  Zen Chime Alarm Clock, for a progressive awakening

• Sound: Noises (such as that pesky alarm) also bring you out of sleep. Identify what sounds regularly occur around where you sleep—and when they occur. Trains, automobiles, animals, and other people going about regular tasks can serve as waking cues. You can take advantage of this by noting what wakes you up and when. Consider leaving your window open to capture more sounds.
• Temperature: Your sleeping body is very sensitive to temperature. If you turn your heat down at night and have a timer on your thermostat, you can set the heat to come back on about an hour before you want to wake up. Assuming you were at a comfortable sleeping temperature all night, this should prompt you to awaken. You can also use temperature in conjunction with light, since sunlight hitting your bed directly will warm you up. You may even be able to choose what blankets you use so that you will be comfortable throughout the night (your body temperature drops after midnight), but begin to get too hot as your body temperature naturally rises (regardless of external temperature), toward the end of your sleep cycle. If you want to take a brief nap outside on a hot day (when you are camping or backpacking, for instance), you can choose someplace to sleep where you will be in a shadow initially, but where you will eventually be in the sun.
  

  sleep

• Smell: If you drink coffee regularly, the easiest way to use smell as a trigger to awake is to put your coffee maker in your bedroom and set its timer for just before when you want to wake up. Smell is not generally a reliable way to wake up, though, so use this in combination with other methods.
• Feeling: Drink a tall glass of water before going to bed. You will find that you wake up very promptly.and will occasionally have to wake up and use the bathroom, so you’ll be up at least 30 minutes before target time.

adapted from wikihow.com

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gentle alarms can wake you up so that you are still relaxed

Meditation

Problem:  You are Tired All the Time

Culprit: Your Adrenal Glands

They’re responsible for secreting the fight-or-flight hormones adrenaline and cortisol, which surge as a response to stress—whether the prehistoric-days type, like being chased by a tiger, or the modern-day version, like financial worries or your mother-in-law. But when you’re feeling stressed all the time, those glands may become overworked and can tire out—a condition commonly called adrenal fatigue, says Keenan. The inability to secrete enough cortisol during the day can cause energy dips, then spikes at night that can interfere with restful sleep.

To give your adrenal glands a chance to recharge, Keenan recommends meditation, which she thinks of as parking the body in neutral. “Meditation has the effect of slowing down the production of cortisol for a while,” she says. Try sitting quietly and clearing your mind.  Set your Zen Clock for at least five minutes a day and increase until you are able to sit comfortably for 20 minutes each day. Vitamins B5 and C have also been shown to support adrenal function, says Jacob Teitelbaum, the Kona, Hawaii–based medical director of the Fibromyalgia & Fatigue Centers and the author of From Fatigued to Fantastic!. He recommends getting at least 50 milligrams of B5 and 500 milligrams of C daily. Other stress-reduction techniques work well, too. “Exercise is particularly effective,” says Park.

adapted from RealSimple.com

Meditation Tools and Timers by Now & Zen, Inc.

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Harunobu Suzuki, A girl Collecting Cchrysanthemum Dem by the Stream

Culprit: The Blues

Research has indicated that people with depression may be four times more likely than the nondepressed to experience unexplained fatigue. Aerobic exercise—specifically, 30 minutes or more three to five days a week—is effective at treating mild to moderate depression, and may minimize the sleepiness associated with it. Set your Zen Timer for 30 minutes and try a few yoga poses in the comfort of your own home.  If that doesn’t help, however, speak to your doctor, who may recommend talk therapy or a mood-boosting medication, like a selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (SSRI). If your depression and related fatigue seem to strike more frequently in winter, you could have seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Treatment for SAD may include using a special light box, says Marla Wald, a psychiatrist at Duke University Medical Center, in Durham, North Carolina. But venturing outside for about 20 minutes a day can provide similar benefits, she says.

banish the blues by setting your zen timer

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(800) 779-6383