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SLEEP: PART 2

On November 10, I posted on   how important sleep was for a longer and healthier life .  I Indicated I had a revelation which could well be the key to solving my sleep problem. This clue had to do with the fact that I had difficulty sleeping when my blood pressure was high.  So I searched the world-wide web and found numerous  studies linking poor sleep to high blood pressure .  Amazing, in that I've been taking these hypertension pills for decades and I never in the past connected high blood pressure with trouble sleeping.   From Harvard . Compared to women who slept seven to eight hours daily, those who slept six or five hours were 7% and 10% more likely to develop hypertension. Those women who had trouble falling or staying asleep were 14% to 28% more likely to have high blood pressure. Surely, can't be much different for males, too. But does lack of sleep cause high blood pressure, or vice versa?  From the  Mayo Clinic . Is it true that not getting enough sleep can cause hi
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SO HOW WAS OUR 35-DAY CRUISE ON THE NORWEGIAN ENCORE?

  Our 35-day Norwegian Encore cruise from Seattle to Southampton was both very good and very bad.  The ship, service, food, drinks and entertainment were wonderful.  Probably best ever of any cruise. The bad had to do with me.  Maybe it was the traveling east, or that I'm more of a landlubber.  My body is old, and could not adjust to the constant time changes.  I found in the past that flying east was terrible for me.  So all my global journeys have been in the westward direction.  It's possible that I will in the future avoid anything going east, including on ships.  The worst thing is that I had difficulty sleeping.  Sleep is very important.  Last night, for example, I was in bed for 14 hours and slept only 3 hours, at most.  On land.  I'm worried about the remaining days.  We don't return to Hawaii until December 7, which is 16 days away.  I hope I can ultimately recover at home. With that dire thought, let me mention some of the other negatives. I drank, ate and par

LA CORUNA, SPAIN to ZEEBRUGGE, BRUSSELS, BELGIUM

 This is Day 33 of our cruise on the Norwegian Encore.  Before writing about this trip, first, one comment about Donald Trump's expected, yet medically irrational selection of Robert F. Kennedy Jr as director of the Department of Health and Human Services.  Why?  From the  New York Times  this morning: T rump picked Robert F. Kennedy Jr.   to lead the Department of Health and Human Services . Kennedy has spread conspiracy theories and falsehoods about vaccines causing autism. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer with no training in medicine or public health, would   oversee the F.D.A., C.D.C., Medicare and Medicaid . All  these perplexing and historically outrageous selections by Trump mean two things.  He has total control over the U.S. Senate, and similarly, will have a heavy hand on what they do in office. Day 32 on the Norwegian Encore.  Pre-dinner scotch at Mixx, then to Taste. Corn soup with jalapeno and Country Fried Chicken. Then to see the Beatles in their Sgt. Pepper performa

OUR 35-DAY CRUISE ON THE NORWEGIAN ENCORE IS OVER...WE ARE NOW IN AMSTERDAM

Our cruise on the Norwegian Encore from Seattle to Southampton, UK, is over.  Day 35, yesterday, might well have been the worst day, while Day 1 on land, mostly in Amsterdam, could well have been the best day of the trip.  I'll explain. To begin, I began to have some sleep problems during the final few days on the ship.  The final night was the worst, with only one hour of sleep.  This was partly because of the stress of having to awake at 5AM to be off the ship at 7AM.  Just the thought of then having to catch a bus to Heathrow Airport, then fly to Amsterdam was stressful.  Well, on the bus, and goodbye to the Norwegian Encore. After an hour and a quarter, Heathrow Airport.  Got there at 8:30.  Our flight was to leave at 2:15PM.  On the board were signs that indicated you could not check in to the flight until 2 hours before departure, which meant a wait of almost four hours.  But then, we learned that business class passengers can go to another area in Terminal 5 and check-in at