Marine kills two at Quantico base, takes own life

By Ian Simpson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Marine shot dead a male and female colleague at a Virginia base and then killed himself, in the second fatal non-combat incident involving Marines in the United States this week.

The shootings took place about 10:30 p.m. on Thursday at the Officer Candidates School at Marine Corps Base Quantico, about 40 miles south of Washington, base commander Colonel David Maxwell said on Friday.

The male shooter and the man and woman were school staff members and active-duty Marines. Maxwell gave no motive for the shootings and an investigation is under way.

"This is a tragic loss for our Marine Corps family," he told a news conference.

Base security officers received a 911 call at about 10:30 p.m. They responded within five minutes and were backed by local police, Maxwell said.

The shootings took place at Taylor Hall, a barracks. Authorities said there were no shots heard or fired by security officers.

The base, known as "the Crossroads of the Marine Corps," was locked down from about 11 p.m. to about 2:30 a.m. on Friday.

Identity of those killed was withheld pending notification of relatives

The incident was initially reported as a standoff with the suspect barricaded, but Maxwell said it was neither.

Base spokesman Sergeant Rebekka Heite later clarified that police had the shooter isolated in a barracks dorm room before he shot himself.

The U.S. military said in January that suicides hit a record 349 last year among active-duty personnel, outpacing combat deaths.

The Army on Friday reported 31 potential active-duty suicides through February. Ten had been confirmed as suicides and 21 were under investigation, it said in a statement.

The Officer Candidates School provides basic instruction for prospective Marine officers. Quantico is also home to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's training academy.

The incident was the second this week involving Marines. Seven Marines were killed on Monday by a mortar explosion at an Army munitions depot in Nevada during a live-fire training exercise.

Eight other service members were wounded in that mishap, which prompted the Marines to suspend use of 60mm mortars pending a review.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel was saddened by the Quantico shootings, the Pentagon said in a statement.

"This tragedy, as well as the tragedy in Nevada earlier this week, took the lives of Marines who volunteered to serve their nation. His heart and his prayers are with them and their families," the statement said. .

(Reporting by Cynthia Johnston in Las Vegas and Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Alden Bentley)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/marine-quantico-lockdown-fatal-shooting-071654673.html

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Researchers use metamaterials to observe giant photonic spin hall effect

Friday, March 22, 2013

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have once again demonstrated the incredible capabilities of metamaterials ? artificial nanoconstructs whose optical properties arise from their physical structure rather than their chemical composition. Engineering a unique two-dimensional sheet of gold nanoantennas, the researchers were able to obtain the strongest signal yet of the photonic spin Hall effect, an optical phenomenon of quantum mechanics that could play a prominent role in the future of computing.

"With metamaterial, we were able to greatly enhance a naturally weak effect to the point where it was directly observable with simple detection techniques," said Xiang Zhang, a faculty scientist with Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division who led this research. "We also demonstrated that metamaterials not only allow us to control the propagation of light but also allos control of circular polarization. This could have profound consequences for information encoding and processing."

Zhang is the corresponding author of a paper describing this work in the journal Science. The paper is titled "Photonic Spin Hall Effect at Metasurfaces." Co-authors are Xiaobo Yin, Ziliang Ye, Jun Sun Rho and Yuan Wang.

The spin Hall effect, named in honor of physicist Edwin Hall, describes the curved path that spinning electrons follow as they move through a semiconductor. The curved movement arises from the interaction between the physical motion of the electron and its spin ? a quantized angular momentum that gives rise to magnetic moment. Think of a baseball pitcher putting spin on a ball to make it curve to the left or right.

"Light moving through a metal also displays the spin Hall effect but the photonic spin Hall effect is very weak because the spin angular momentum of photons and spin-orbit interactions are very small," says Xiaobo Yin, a member of Zhang's research group and the lead author of the Science paper. "In the past, people have managed to observe the photonic spin Hall effect by generating the process over and over again to obtain an accumulative signal, or by using highly sophisticated quantum measurements. Our metamaterial makes the photonic spin Hall effect observable even with a simple camera."

Metamaterials have garnered a lot of attention in recent years because their unique structure affords electromagnetic properties unattainable in nature. For example, a metamaterial can have a negative index of refraction, the ability to bend light backwards, unlike all materials found in nature, which bend light forward. Zhang, who holds the Ernest S. Kuh Endowed Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California (UC) Berkeley, where he also directs the National Science Foundation's Nano-scale Science and Engineering Center, has been at the forefront of metamaterials research. For this study, he and his group fashioned metamaterial surfaces about 30 nanometers thick (a human hair by comparison is between 50,000 and 100,000 nanometers thick). These metasurfaces were constructed from V-shaped gold nanoantennas whose geometry could be configured by adjusting the length and orientation of the arms of the Vs.

"We chose eight different antenna configurations with optimized geometry parameters to generate a linear phase gradient along the x direction," says Yin. "This enabled us to control the the propagation of the light and introduce strong photon spin-orbit interactions through rapid changes in direction. The photonic spin Hall effect depends on the curvature of the light's trajectory, so the sharper the change in propagation direction, the stronger the effect."

Since the entire metasurface sample measured only 0.3 millimeters, a 50-millimeter lens was used to project the transmission of the light through the metamaterial onto a charge-coupled device (CCD) camera for imaging. From the CCD images, the researchers determined that both the control of light propagation and the giant photonic spin Hall effect were the direct results of the designed meta-material. This finding opens up a wealth of possibilities for new technologies.

"The controllable spin-orbit interaction and momentum transfer between spin and orbital angular momentum allows us to manipulate the information encoded on the polarization of light, much like the 0 and 1 of today's electronic devices," Yin says. "But photonic devices could encode more information and provide greater information security than conventional electronic devices."

Yin says the ability to control left and right circular polarization of light in metamaterial surfaces should allow for the formation of optical elements, like highly coveted "flat lenses," or the management of light polarization without using wave plates.

"Metamaterials provide us with tremendous design freedom that will allow us to modulate the strength of the photonic spin Hall effect at different spatial locations," Yin says. "We knew the photonic spin Hall effect existed in nature but it was so hard to detect. Now, with the right metamaterials we can not only enhance this effect we can harness it for our own purposes."

###

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: http://www.lbl.gov

Thanks to DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127407/Researchers_use_metamaterials_to_observe_giant_photonic_spin_hall_effect

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Chicago announces mass closing of elementary schools

By James B. Kelleher and Mary Wisniewski

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Chicago will close 54 schools and 61 school buildings by the beginning of the next academic year in the country's third-largest public school district, a move that education experts called the largest mass closing in the nation.

The district will shutter 53 elementary schools and one high school, primarily in Hispanic and African-American neighborhoods. The district, which has a $1 billion annual deficit, has said it needs to close underutilized schools to save money.

Enrollment in Chicago Public Schools has fallen 20 percent in the last decade, mainly because of population declines in poor neighborhoods. The district said it can accommodate 511,000 students, but only about 403,000 are enrolled. It said that nearly 140 of its schools are more than half empty.

The controversial decision to close dozens of schools follows a bitter strike by Chicago teachers last September, fought partly over the Chicago Teachers Union's accusation that Mayor Rahm Emanuel was undermining community schools in poor areas of the city.

The 61 closings account for about 10 percent of elementary school facilities, according to the school district.

"Consolidating schools is the best way to make sure all of our city's students get the resources they need to succeed in the classroom," said Mayor Rahm Emanuel in a statement.

The union objects to school closings, saying they destabilize minority neighborhoods and would not save money.

"They keep saying that closing schools is going to save money," said Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis. "This will not save money. It's going to cost money and it's going to leave abandoned buildings, which is another recipe for disaster."

During a news conference at Mahalia Jackson Elementary School, which is marked for closing, Lewis accused Emanuel of being on a ski trip when the announcement was made.

"Mayor Rahm Emanuel should be ashamed of himself. Shanda!" Lewis said, using the Yiddish word for shame or scandal. Both Lewis and Emanuel are Jewish.

The staff of the mayor, whose children attend private school, were not immediately available to comment on his whereabouts.

Several parents don't want to see the schools closed.

"It took three schools to find the right place for my grandchild," said Menjiwei Latham, a grandparent and guardian of a student at the Mahalia Jackson Elementary School, which serves special-needs students.

DECLINING ENROLLMENT IN URBAN SCHOOLS

Urban school districts around the country have been grappling with the issue of declining enrollment, according to a 2011 study on school closings by the Pew Charitable Trust.

Over the past decade, 70 large or mid-sized cities have closed schools, averaging 11 per district, according to the National Education Association, a labor union for school teachers.

This includes Washington, D.C., which closed 23 schools in 2008 and plans to close 15 more over the next two years. Philadelphia announced earlier this month that it would close 23 schools.

Education experts contacted by Reuters on Thursday said no other single district has closed as many schools as Chicago would in the announcement.

At the heart of the dispute over school closings in Chicago is the expansion of charter schools, which are publicly funded, but mostly non-unionized. The number of charter schools has risen even as neighborhood public schools are closed.

The union said 88 percent of students affected by Chicago school closings or other actions in the past decade were African-American and most closed schools have been in poor neighborhoods. The union said 86 Chicago public schools have closed in the past decade. The district has not provided its own number.

Chicago has promised a five-year moratorium on school closings, following this year.

A commission appointed to hold public meetings and hearing community feedback on school closings over recent months recommended that no high schools be closed to avoid making students cross gang boundaries to get to a new school.

Parents and school activists have complained that closing neighborhood schools endanger students because they are exposed to greater gang violence if they cross neighborhood boundaries. Chicago recorded 506 murders due to gang violence in 2012, and its homicide rate continues to draw national attention.

(Reporting by Mary Wisniewski and James Kelleher in Chicago and Stephanie Simon in Boston; Editing by Greg McCune and Lisa Shumaker)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/chicago-close-54-elementary-schools-union-222452377.html

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30 Minute Annihilation Cardio Abs Workout - Cardio Abdominal ...

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Source: http://hasfit.com/workouts/home/ab/cardio-abs/

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3 Marines Killed in U.S. Military Base Shooting | TheBlaze.com

QUANTICO, Va. (AP) ? A Marine killed a male and female colleague in a shooting at a base in northern Virginia before killing himself, officials said early Friday.

Authorities were called to the scene at Marine Corps Base Quantico around 10:30 p.m. Thursday, where they found one Marine dead at a barracks, base commander Col. David W. Maxwell told reporters.

Authorities later found a second victim dead, along with the body of the suspected gunman, who died of self-inflicted gunshot wound.

A base spokesman initially described the situation as a standoff. Maxwell said later in the morning that there was no standoff. Base spokesman Lt. Agustin Solivan later clarified that after the first shooting, police had the shooter ?isolated? in a barracks dorm room at the base?s Officer Candidates School.

The Marine Base Quantico, spokesman Lt. Agustin Solivan briefs reporters following a shooting incident on the base Friday March 22, 2013. Three people, including the suspect, were killed in the shooting at Marine Base Quantico, Solivan said early Friday. He said they believe the suspect, whose name wasn?t released, is a staff member at the officer candidate school at the base. No information on the victim was immediately released. ?Credit: AP

No names were immediately released but officials said all three were staff members at the school.

Solivan said the shooting was isolated to the school and authorities were confident there were no other casualties. The base was put on lockdown after the shooting but the lockdown was lifted early Friday. During the lockdown, residents were warned over a loudspeaker to stay inside.

The shooting is the second tragedy the Marine Corps has faced this week. Seven members of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force were killed Monday when a mortar shell exploded in its firing tube during an exercise at Hawthorne Army Depot in Nevada. Eight others were injured.

In a statement, Pentagon press secretary George Little said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was saddened to learn of the shooting.

?This tragedy, as well as the tragedy in Nevada earlier this week, took the lives of Marines who volunteered to serve their nation,? Little said. ?His heart and his prayers are with them and their families.?

The Quantico base, which is about 37 miles south of Washington, is also home to the FBI?s training academy. Its Officer Candidates School is the equivalent of basic training for Marines interested in becoming officers.

According to a Marine Corps website, the mission of Officer Candidates School is to train, screen and evaluate candidates. The training includes both academics and physical training such as endurance hikes and obstacles courses. Candidates are evaluated on leadership potential as well as moral, physical and academic strengths. Candidates must also demonstrate a grasp of battlefield-tested leadership traits, the website says.

Marines become second lieutenants on graduation from the school?s 10-week program.

In 2010, the Quantico base was one of several targets of an ex-Marine reservist who, during five nighttime shootings, fired on military targets including the Pentagon. Yonathan Melaku, on two separate occasions, fired at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico. No one was injured and Melaku was ultimately sentenced to 25 years in prison.

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Other Must-Read Stories:

Source: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/22/3-active-duty-marines-killed-in-u-s-military-base-shooting/

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1 in 600 may be owed unclaimed life insurance money - The Daily ...

According to a recent study in Consumer Reports, there's a one-in-600 chance that you're owed unclaimed life insurance money. NBC's John Yang reports.

By Jamie Novogrod, Producer, NBC Nightly News

NEW YORK -- Andy and Christina Fox, retirees living in Maryland, were shocked when they received a letter in late 2011 from a small life insurance company in the Midwest.

"To be honest with you, we thought it was a scam," Chris says. "It was five years after my father had passed. We had no knowledge of any insurance policies whatsoever."

It was no scam. It turned out that Chris's father -- an airplane mechanic and pilot -- had left thousands of dollars in a life insurance policy and never told his family.

"Final request," the letter announced. According to law, the money would soon be considered abandoned and turned over to state authorities.

How to find unclaimed life insurance benefits

Chris never knew the money existed because her mother had been named in the policy. But Chris's mother had since died, too, and Chris had sold her parents' Missouri home. Earlier notifications slipped through the cracks until the final request found its way to Maryland.

The letter set the Foxes off on a journey. To recover the policy, they hired a lawyer to create an estate for Chris's mother. They made countless phone calls. Scouring a Missouri unclaimed property database, Chris learned there was even more money out there. In sum, her father had taken out three life insurance policies, worth about $48,000 total.

"You had to look at the generation that he came out of. You're talking about the depression," Chris says. "People that didn't have any money at all didn't put it one particular place. They took small bits and put it in several different places."

The Foxes' experience isn't unique. According to a recent study in Consumer Reports, there's a one-in-600 chance that you're owed unclaimed life insurance money. Those are better odds than winning $100 on a Powerball ticket.

---

"The average benefit that's waiting to be collected is only about $2,000. But some of them are up to $300,000," says Jeff Blyskal, a senior editor at Consumer Reports and the author of the study. According to Consumer Reports, the total amount of unclaimed life insurance money nationwide is upwards of $1 billion.

The breadth of the problem has come to the attention of authorities, too.

Regulators set up a multi-state task-force in 2011, and last year major life insurance companies began paying millions of dollars in settlement fees and back benefits. The money, flowing into state unclaimed property offices across the country, comes after officials said that companies regularly delay finding beneficiaries of unclaimed money.

In January, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that more than $200 million had been collected for beneficiaries in his state. Florida, which led the multi-state investigation, has collected at least $51 million in back benefits -- and hundreds of millions of dollars more in fines. Other states that have collected money include California, Illinois, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania.

"When Floridians put their family's needs in another's hands, they have a right to know their company will deliver on its promises and be transparent in its dealings," Florida's insurance commissioner, Kevin McCarty said in a statement.

Jeff Blyskal, Consumer Reports Senior Editor, on the life insurance money many American families don't know is waiting for them. 

As a result of the settlements, companies have agreed to perform regular checks against the so-called Death Master File -- the electronic record the federal government uses to track Social Security recipients.

Among the companies that have reached settlements:

-- AIG reached an $11 million settlement with multiple states and has paid more than $100 million to beneficiaries who had not previously filed a claim;

-- Nationwide reached a $7.2 million settlement and has paid about $144 million to beneficiaries;

-- and MetLife paid $40 million in settlement money, and tells NBC News it is "on track with... remitting policy proceeds" to beneficiaries.

But critics say the life insurance industry should do even more.

"If the insurance company, or any company, wants to find you to collect a bill, for example, they have a pretty easy time doing it, through the credit bureaus and such," says Jeff Blyskal of Consumer Reports. "If they can find you to pay a bill, they can find you to pay you your life insurance benefit."

The American Council of Life Insurers, an industry group, says companies are adapting to shifts in technology, including the government's electronic records.

According to the group, there are 150 million life insurance policies in force across the country. Last year alone, the group says, the industry paid a total of $62 billion dollars in claims.

"While the amount of unclaimed life insurance benefits at issue represents a very small percentage of total claims paid, we know the percentages represent real people," the group said in a statement.

Read the full statement from the American Council of Life Insurers

Mary Jo Hudson, a spokeswoman for the group, added during an interview that it's not uncommon for months to pass before companies hear from beneficiaries. ?Within a reasonable amount of time -- 18 months -- people would make a claim, so we would wait," Hudson said. "Often, people don't file a claim right after someone is deceased because of grieving issues."

Now, regulators are looking to draft model legislation that would require all life insurance companies to locate and pay beneficiaries faster.

Meanwhile, both critics and representatives of the life insurance industry agree that it's vital for policy holders to discuss their plans with family and loved ones.

"One of the problems with this whole issue is that it involves death, and people don't like to talk about death," Jeff Blyskal says.? "But you really should. As you're getting older, if you have a life insurance policy, you should let your family know about what they're entitled to."

ACLI, the industry group, is offering a free website it hopes will makes such conversations easier, where users can put information in one place and share it with family and loved ones.

After the Foxes collected their money, they distributed it evenly among Chris's sisters. Chris and Andy Fox kept $16,000.

"I took my share, and hopefully invested it wisely," Chris says. "We'll use that to send my grandchildren to college."

Source: http://dailynightly.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/21/17403831-1-in-600-may-be-owed-unclaimed-life-insurance-money?chromedomain=usnews

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Ronna Benjamin: Lose Weight With The Sleep Diet

I couldn't resist the truffle gnocchi. It was aglow with melted cheese and olive oil. When my husband reached over for a taste, I almost stabbed him with my fork. "Don't get between me and the gnocchi," I warned, and he retreated as I sopped up the oil with Tuscan bread.

"I can't believe I ate the whole thing," I told myself, echoing the voice of the pajama-clad man of the Alka Seltzer commercial from my youth. (Does anyone else miss that commercial?) But on the walk home, I could not resist a double scoop of the dark chocolate gelato.?I was wearing stretchy leggings, and they were quite forgiving.

"Resistance," my husband noted, "is futile."

I brought back an extra four pounds from my trip to Florence visiting my daughter who is doing a semester there, as well as some fantastic truffle oil. But it turns out there was a legitimate reason for my complete lack of discipline.

It was the jet lag. According to recent studies, the less you sleep, the fatter you get. When we are overtired, we get more pleasure from indulging. It's real science.

A study led by the University of Colorado Boulder and published last week online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences compared two groups: one whose sleep was restricted to five hours a night, and another group whose sleep was not restricted.?While the volunteers in the sleep-restricted group burned about 5 percent more calories, they also consumed 6 percent more calories.?That's pretty simple math.? Moving to a restricted sleep schedule resulted in weight gain -- nearly an average of two pounds in two weeks.

This is important information here, so all of you who were up at 4 a.m. and are now popping jellybeans while reading this, wake up!?If you are sleep deprived, you are less resistant to unhealthy foods -- especially when it comes to sugar and spice and everything nice (well, sugar and salt, for sure).

This is particularly lousy news for women of "a certain age," who are up at night tossing and turning, tearing off and putting on layers, kicking off covers, listening to snoring spouses and worrying about everything -- including not sleeping.?Now we have something else to worry about: weight gain.

And how I wish I could tell you that was the whole story! But, alas, it is not.?The news gets worse.

According to a report issued by the Washington Post on March 13, 2013, Disease and Sleep: Recent studies find new links, when we don't sleep not only are we more likely to eat more, but we may be more susceptible to Alzheimer's, diabetes, Parkinson's, and memory and learning issues. Oh, yeah, and we are more likely to have an accident, too.

So all of this makes me wonder... aren't we better off taking the damn sleeping pill?

I am an "on-again-off-again" sleeping pill user.?Recently I stopped cold turkey after my husband recorded my iSnore on his iPhone, shortly after I had fallen into one of those lovely, drug-induced deep sleeps. He sent the recording to me in an email which I received the next day, the subject of which was "this was you last night." Luckily for him, I had slept quite well and did not bash him in the head.

But it did provide a wake-up call that took me off "the pill" again, and I lapsed into a few weeks of unpleasant insomnia.

With the release of these recent studies, I think a little cost/benefit analysis is in order.

On the one hand, insomnia: increased chance of Alzheimer's, diabetes, Parkinson's and memory and learning issues... basic misery and inability to stop at a handful of M&Ms.

On the other hand, chemically induced sleep:? increased chance of chest pain, difficulty breathing, sleep walks, psychotic reactions, addiction and a host of other possible side effects, but a decrease in overall bitchiness and binge eating.

So excuse me if I choose better living through chemistry.

And if I eat a sleeve of Thin Mints after a good eight hours of beauty rest, at least I'll know that I am completely to blame.

Read more from Better After 50:
7 Natural Solutions For A Good Night's Sleep
7 Iconic Women BA50?s Love
How Mary Tyler Moore Helped Me Sleep
Sleep Divorce

Earlier on Huff/Post50:

• Get Moving

  Exercising can naturally help you sleep better by raising dopamine levels, which in turn reduce anxiety and depression. Avoid exercising too close to your bed time, however, as this may make it more difficult to fall asleep soon after. Cognitive hypnotherapist <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/01/17/10-sleep-tips-to-beat-insomnia_n_1209908.html#s617090&title=Exercise_" target="_hplink">Lesley McCall suggests</a> having at least three hours between exercise and sleep in order to give your body ample time to wind down and prepare for rest.

• Watch What You Eat

  Avoid devouring <a href="http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/sleep/HQ01387" target="_hplink">large meals before bedtime</a>. Along with the discomfort of being stuffed, large meals take the body longer to digest, thus leaving you more tired when you wake. Conversely, going to bed hungry can be just as disruptive. <a href="http://www.oprah.com/health/What-to-Eat-to-Sleep-Better-Nutrition-Advice-from-Dr-Katz" target="_hplink">Dr. David L. Katz</a> recommends fruits, vegetables, beans and whole grains for sound slumber as these "tend to produce a slow, steady rise in blood insulin that helps the amino acid tryptophan enter the brain. Tryptophan is used to make serotonin, a neurotransmitter that helps induce sleepiness along with improving your mood".

• Adjust Room Temperature

  Try adjusting the temperature of the bedroom for a more optimal sleeping environment. According to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/19/winter-sleep_n_1215136.html#s622068&title=Keeping_The_House" target="_hplink">Jennifer Trachtenberg, M.D., FAAP</a>, you should aim for somewhere between 68 and 72 degrees. For easier temperature regulation throughout the night, ditch the singular heavy comforter and opt for piling on light layers that can be easily kicked off as needed.

• Make The Bedroom A Bedroom

  According to <a href="http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/sleep/HQ01387" target="_hplink">The Mayo Clinic</a>, the ideal bedroom should be three things: Cool, dark and quiet. It may be time to invest in earplugs, an eye mask or even heavier curtains to block out extra light and sound. Don't be afraid to give fidgeting pets the boot and avoid eating, watching television or finishing work in the bedroom. Instead, make the space strictly for sleep and sex only.

• Sign Off

  Don't ruminate. Practice <a href="http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/positive-thinking-stopping-unwanted-thoughts#" target="_hplink">"thought-stopping"</a> where you only allow yourself to worry about a problem during daytime hours. Refrain from checking texts and e-mails (physically banish your cell to a different room if necessary!) before and during your bedtime routine. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/01/17/10-sleep-tips-to-beat-insomnia_n_1209908.html#s617081&title=Do_A_Brain" target="_hplink">McCall suggests doing a "brain dump"</a> before bed, in which you spend 10 minutes writing down what is on your mind. Whether you're making a to-do list or merely scribbling by minute eight, leave everything on the page.

• Channel Your Inner Yogi

  Relaxing stretching and meditative breathing can help reduce anxiety and leave you more at ease and ready to put your body to rest. Follow a gentle sequence, such as the "night time flow" featured in this video, designed to help prepare the body for a restful slumber by quieting the mind and soothing the nervous system. In the clip, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/30/yoga-journal-21-day-chall_n_1240556.html" target="_hplink">Jason Crandell</a> reminds "Practicing with a receptive, non-striving tone is essential for relaxation and moving into a state of sleep."

• Start A Sleep Diary

  Keeping a sleep diary can both help you maintain a consistent sleep schedule and reveal the possible culprit (or culprits) behind your difficulty falling asleep naturally. Create your own sleep diary following <a href="http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/guide/how-to-use-a-sleep-diary" target="_hplink">a general template</a> and use it in conjunction with a visit to your doctor to discuss any questions or concerns you may have.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ronna-benjamin/insomnia-lose-weight-with-the-sleep-diet_b_2910428.html

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