Blog & Columns
Useful information about health and Korean medicine.
Total 207 posts
"A drink helps me sleep" is only true for the first half of the night
Alcohol before bed puts you to sleep fast in the first half of the night, then wakes you often in the second. Three nights is enough to change your sleep. Stop at least 4 hours before bed and avoid three nights in a row.
"Coffee doesn't affect my sleep" — is that really true?
Caffeine doesn't remove tiredness; it hides the sensor that notices it. Coffee 6 hours before bed still cut sleep by over an hour, and people didn't notice. Don't quit — just move your last cup earlier.
Herniated disc: do you have to lie down and rest to heal faster?
In an analysis that pooled 10 clinical trials with 1,923 people, there was no difference in pain or function between those who rested in bed and those who stayed active. Here's how to avoid the movements that hurt and get your normal life back when you have disc pain.
I have bow legs. Why are you looking at my pelvis instead of my legs?
A good part of the bow legs you see in the mirror comes from how your pelvis is positioned. Here's why a tilted pelvis makes the legs look more curved, and the order we follow: correct the pelvis first, then build muscle.
Frozen shoulder: once you've had it, is that the end of it? It rarely returns to the same shoulder, but know about the other side
In a study that followed 223 people with frozen shoulder for an average of 4.4 years, no one had it return in the same shoulder, but 1 in 5 also had it in the other shoulder. Here's how people who've been through it once can recognize the early signs and respond.
Is it OK to nap? Napping borrows from the sleep you'd use at night
A nap uses up some of the sleep pressure you'd otherwise use at night. If you have insomnia, cut back. If you need one, keep it under 20 minutes, early in the afternoon, and out of bed.
Herniated disc: how should you sleep, and how should you get up?
Night is recovery time, when the disc rests and soaks up water again. Contrary to the advice to sleep on something hard, a study of 313 people found a medium-firm mattress worked better. Here are sleeping positions, turning over like a log, and four steps for getting up in the morning.
When you bend forward, your hips should fold, not your lower back
In a study that measured the pressure inside the disc directly, bending forward while standing was about twice the pressure of standing upright, and the same 20 kg box produced more than twice the pressure depending on how it was lifted. Here's how to practice bending from the hip joint, the real star of the forward bend, and five things to change in daily life.
Feeling groggy in the morning isn't proof that you slept badly last night
The transition between waking up and feeling alert, called sleep inertia, lasts 30 minutes to an hour even for people who slept well. Grading last night's sleep by how you feel in the morning feeds anxiety. Here's an experiment of shifting your alarm by 30 minutes on especially groggy days, and ways to cut a groggy morning short.
Can't sleep at night and can't get up in the morning? Start by changing your morning light
Falling asleep late and waking up late most likely means your body clock has been pushed back. Morning light pulls the clock earlier, and evening light pushes it later. Here's why indoor lighting isn't enough, how to get light outdoors as soon as you wake up, and what to try tomorrow morning.
If you feel too hot to sleep when you lie down, your body may not be cooling down
To fall asleep, your core body temperature needs to drop, and the body releases that heat through the hands and feet. In an analysis of 17 studies, a 10-minute warm shower or bath 1–2 hours before bed shortened the time it took to fall asleep. Here's what to try tonight, from heated mattress pads and blankets to late-night habits.
"How many visits until it's better?" How to think about the length of spinal stenosis treatment
We can't promise a number of visits for spinal stenosis treatment. Instead, at the start we set a baseline, a first check date and the criteria for each fork in the road, and then decide whether to continue, change course or get a surgical consultation based on whether your walking time is on an upward track.