Awake Again? How to Naturally Get Back to Sleep at Night

By Jennifer C Jackson

Probably the most frequent question asked in my insomnia workshops is what to do about those pesky middle of the night wake-ups. There is no one right answer, especially since it largely depends on what has woken the sleeper in the first place. Today I want to focus on a specific situation common to most every class: "What about those nights when I have NO IDEA why I am awake? Those nights when I am not stressed, upset, or worried about anything in particular, but I just wake up for no reason."
I know those nights well and they are frustrating to say the least! Here is my advice:
1) When you first notice you are awake, do the best you can not to wake up fully. Don't open your eyes and don't look at the clock; just try to soothe yourself back to sleep. Sometimes this works.
2) If you do fully wake up, go ahead and look at the clock, go to the bathroom if need be, and then give yourself a gentle window of about 15-20 minutes to fall back to sleep, using whatever relaxation technique you may know. I sometimes focus on breathing in and out through my heart, imagining white light surrounding me and moving through my whole body. Some of my clients count backwards, others listen to something soothing. Whatever works! If you have not fallen asleep after about 15-20 minutes, ask yourself an important question: Am I genuinely feeling calm, relaxed, and peaceful, or am I feeling frustrated, disappointed or anxious that I am not asleep yet? This may sound silly, but it is a very important distinction to make. In general, for those of us with sensitive sleep systems, emotions such as fear, anxiety, anger, frustration, and disappointment push sleep away, while feelings of love, safety, and trust invite sleep in. If you are genuinely feeling relaxed, peaceful, and calm you will either fall asleep eventually or at least be able to rest your mind and body. I know for myself, however, with my vast history of insomnia and being miserable during the day because of it, I can go from peacefully asleep to irate that I have woken up in a matter of minutes. Some nights I can tune right into white light, deep breathing, comforting thoughts and soothing feelings and go back to sleep fairly quickly and other nights I cannot. I am simply too angry, anxious, disappointed, and/or frustrated that my sleep was disrupted again. For those nights I recommend a version of EFT/tapping called the "Release and Replace Technique."

3) For the release part of the process, I tune into the negative emotion, trying to make it as strong as possible, and tap as hard as I can - practically pounding -- on the points. For example, while tapping on the side of the hand I might say something like,
Even though I am disappointed, frustrated, and anxious that I am awake at this hour when I was so desperately hoping to sleep through the night, I am choosing to feel these feelings fully and release them.
As I drum on each point, I imagine each emotion releasing as black smoke:
Head: all this frustration
Eyebrows: all this anger
Side of the eyes: so disappointed
Under the eyes: I wanted to be asleep but I'm awake
Upper lip: I am awake AGAIN
Chin: so frustrated
Collar bone: so anxious!
Under the arm: all this disappointment
Then I sit for a moment and imagine all these negative emotions drifting away in a cloud of black smoke, eventually vanishing into nothing.
4) When I feel more neutral, I begin the replacing part of the process. The idea is to replace the feelings that keep sleep away, such as frustration, anger, and anxiety, with those that invite sleep in, such as love, trust, and gratitude. These feelings may be harder to get in touch with than the frustration and anger that is right on the surface, but here are some suggestions:

• Focus on someone or something you love deeply: your child's face, your pet's expression, or the face of anyone else you love very much
• Focus on someone or something you are grateful for
• Imagine a place of deep peace and safety
• Imagine connecting with a higher power and being enfolded in its arms and comforted back to sleep.
• Think of anything at all that brings a smile or joy to your heart

I then sit and allow my heart to fill with white light and unconditional love. I send it out to the Universe in all directions.
In just a short time I can go from irate and wide awake to peaceful and ready to sleep. The other night I went back to bed and slept almost six more hours!
Next time you wake up for no apparent reason, and you are unable to soothe yourself back to sleep within 15-20 minutes, ask yourself how you are feeling about being awake. If you are experiencing feelings that are chasing sleep away, trying releasing them and replacing them with feelings that invite sleep in. You may be pleasantly surprised to have a decent night after all.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Awake-Again?-How-to-Naturally-Get-Back-to-Sleep-at-Night&id=9521213

Sleep is key to curing chronic pain

From medicalxpress.com

Research from the University of Warwick reveals that the way chronic pain patients think about pain and sleep leads to insomnia and poor management of pain.
Researchers from the Sleep and Pain Lab in the Department of Psychology have demonstrated that conditions like back pain, fibromyalgia, and arthritis are directly linked with negative thoughts about insomnia and pain, and this can be effectively managed by cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT).
Esther Afolalu and colleagues have formulated a pioneering scale to measure beliefs about sleep and pain in long-term pain patients, alongside their quality of sleep – the first of its type to combine both pain and sleep and explore the vicious cycle between sleep and pain problems.
The scale was tested on four groups of patients suffering from long-term pain and bad sleeping patterns, with the result showing that people who believe they won't be able to sleep as a result of their pain are more likely to suffer from insomnia, thus causing worse pain.
The results show that the scale was vital in predicting patients' level of insomnia and pain difficulties. With better sleep, pain problems are significantly reduced, especially after receiving a short course of CBT for both pain and insomnia.

The study has provided therapists the means with which to identify and monitor rigid thoughts about sleep and pain that are sleep-interfering, allowing the application of the proven effective CBT for insomnia in people with chronic pain.
Esther Afolalu explains: "Current psychological treatments for chronic pain have mostly focused on pain management and a lesser emphasis on sleep but there is a recent interest in developing therapies to tackle both pain and sleep problems simultaneously. This scale provides a useful clinical tool to assess and monitor treatment progress during these therapies."
Dr. Nicole Tang, the study senior author, comments: "Thoughts can have a direct and/or indirect impact on our emotion, behaviour and even physiology. The way how we think about sleep and its interaction with pain can influence the way how we cope with pain and manage sleeplessness. Based on clinical experience, whilst some of these beliefs are healthy and useful, others are rigid and misinformed. The new scale, PBAS, is developed to help us pick up those beliefs that have a potential role in worsening the insomnia and pain experience."

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-09-key-chronic-pain.html

Insomnia and Its Many Thumb-Related Aspects

From bcheights.com

Thumbs Up

Salads That Barely Qualify as Salads – Chicken, croutons, cheese, hard-boiled egg, parmesan cheese, bacon bits, more croutons, half a cucumber slice, and a leaf of lettuce. This is what health looks like.
Insomnia – When you’re stuck in the timeless nothing of tangled sheets and bone-crushing exhaustion, waiting desperately for just the slightest hint of sleep, you start thinking about a lot of things. Strange revelations, disturbing ideas, a barrage of nostalgia, and one or two coherent thoughts about your life all congeal into a meaty brain goulash. Your eyes well with tears as Lana Del Rey lyrics play through the back of your mind. Looking back on your life, you see the truth. You’ve been doing it all wrong. You’ve squandered all the greatest moments. All the amazing people, the experiences, the sausages. All gone. “I’ll change,” you whisper into the night. “I’ll appreciate everybody. I’ll look on the world with the optimistic fervour of a child. Everyone will know the depth of my caring soul. I will triumph over the cruel world.” “What the hell’s wrong with you?” your roommate says. “Go to sleep, or I’m gonna make you sleep outside again.” With an angry grunt, you pass a little gas your roommate’s way to demonstrate your deeply caring soul.

Thumbs Down

Insomnia – The next morning, the world hurts. Lack of sleep scrambles your system. Is this supposed to be in Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down? Why is it in both? I thought I was writing an editorial about sustainable toilet paper. Where am I? Is that an iguana? What is this waking nightmare?
That Shaky Voice Thing/Turning Red/Sweaty Palms/Shaking – There’s nothing worse than your body reminding you that you’re an insecure mess. Whatever the situation may be, you hope to go into it full of confidence, self-assurance, and a little something we here at The Heights call muffinswagger. Instead, the blood rushes to your face in 0.8 seconds, and you know that you look like a cherry, you sound like you’re having a small stroke, you’re sweating like a wildebeest and shaking frantically. Your body is in full-on panic mode. You are being assaulted by embarrassment and your only option is to run. Turning quickly, you take a bounding step and run directly into a frail older man, knocking him to the ground. Everyone’s screaming and you can’t breathe and the walls are closing in. You close your eyes, unable to escape this ridiculous scene, and then realize that you’re just words on a page in a college newspaper being written by someone who has to end this before he runs out of space. Thank God for meta Thumbs Down columns, you think, as you disappear into the nothingness from which you came.

http://bcheights.com/tu-td/2016/insomnia-many-thumb-related-aspects/

A Colder Room Can Decrease Insomnia, Study Finds

From nigeriatoday.ng

Insomnia, according to the Mayo Clinic, is a condition which affects the ability of someone to either fall asleep or stay asleep and results in symptoms like daytime tiredness and sometimes even severe fatigue. But there are a variety of other serious symptoms that go along with this condition, including anxiety, irritability, difficulty concentrating at work or in school, and even emotional problems like depression. To make matters worse, insomnia can be difficult to treat. However, new research might be able to uncover natural ways — such as sleeping in a colder room — to help improve the quality of your sleep.

The new research on insomnia is out of the University of South Australia, where researchers have discovered that one of the underlying causes of insomnia is the failure of the body to drop its core temperature. Apparently, this drop in temperature is necessary to initiate a normal sleep cycle. Lead author Dr. Cameron Van der Heuvel notes that, “These physiological changes happen well before going to bed and may be occurring before people realize them.”
If the body fails to regulate its core temperature — which it does by shifting some of its body heat to outlying areas such as the face, hands and feet — it can affect both kinds of insomnia:
Sleep onset insomnia: This kind of insomnia prevents someone from falling asleep naturally and more often occurs in young or middle-aged adults.

Sleep maintenance insomnia: This kind of insomnia prevents someone from staying asleep once they have gone to bed and causes the sufferer to awake several times throughout the night. This happens more often in older adults.

Researchers at the university found that those who do have insomnia of either type, tend to have slightly higher core temperatures than those who sleep normally or well. This is backed by other research that has shown that an impaired thermo-regulatory system can affect the quality of sleep.
The goods news is that this research may help to develop home treatments for insomnia, such as sleeping in a colder room or using biofeedback to send heat from the body’s core to its periphery. There are other health benefits to sleeping in a colder room as well: in one study published in the journal Diabetes, men sleeping in a cooler room improved their metabolic profile and significantly reduced their chances of metabolic diseases like diabetes.

Other Natural Ways to Get a Good Night’s Sleep

According to the National Sleep Foundation (NSF) apart from sleeping in a colder bedroom, there are other natural ways to help improve the quality of sleep that are backed by scientific research. These include:

• Changing one’s mattress when it becomes saggy or loose in order to get the support you need when you sleep.
• Choosing the materials of the mattress, bed linens, pyjamas, and sleepwear carefully in order to help prevent the body from getting too warm or too cold while asleep.
• Keeping the sleeping environment clean, which can also reduce sleep problems caused by allergies.

It has also been suggested that going to sleep and waking up at the same time each day, keeping the room dark, quiet, and cool will also help. In short, insomnia is a condition which can cause chronic sleep disturbances and has effects on both the mind and body. Thanks to the new research that has discovered a link between core body temperature and sleep disturbances, there are more natural options to help improve sleep quality. As an added bonus, sleeping in a colder room not only prepares the body for better sleep, but it also decreases the risk of serious health problems like diabetes; in short, it’s a simple way to greatly improve one’s general health in the future.

http://www.nigeriatoday.ng/2016/09/a-colder-room-can-decrease-insomnia-study-finds/

4 Foods That Cause Insomnia

By Almaz Rabb

There is nothing more frustrating than not being able to sleep – and even worse, not knowing why you can’t get to sleep. While there may be a number of factors at play that are stopping you from sleeping easy, the foods that you are eating could be standing between you and a night of sweet dreams.
According to registered nutritionist and model Alicia Rountree, when trying to figure out why we cannot sleep we often overlook the food that we are eating. “Sure, we all have times when stress is the culprit and we find ourselves tossing and turning all night. But stress may not be the only reason you’re still tossing and turning,” she wrote in an article on Byrdie.

1. Red meat

According to Rountree, meat is difficult to digest and therefore having it late at night may force your  body to work harder than it should at that hour. “High-protein fatty animal meat is one of the toughest foods for our bodies to digest. If you happen to eat red meat in the evening, make a conscious effort to chew it properly to ease its digestibility,” said Rountree.

2. Spicy foods

“Spicy foods are another treat better left for daytime,” she said. “A spicy meal can cause indigestion and irritation of the upper digestive tract. This can cause pain and acid reflux, which can prevent you from getting a peaceful night of sleep.”

3. Drinks

In the habit of drinking a whole lot of liquids before bed? Rountree says that this could be the reason you just can’t seem to get to sleep. “Yes, that’s why you wake up twice in the night to go to the bathroom. It is so important to have an uninterrupted full night’s sleep. Try to stop consuming any liquids after 8 p.m. (just make sure to stay hydrated throughout the day),” she said.

4. Alcohol

“You may think a glass of wine will help you unwind, but it can actually disrupt your sleep cycle,” said Rountree. “You may fall asleep faster, but you’re likely to find yourself unable to stay asleep—and end up with a headache in the morning. Make sure you drink enough water to balance out the effects of alcohol.”

http://www.m2now.co.nz/11-4-foods-that-cause-insomnia/

Calling all insomniacs

By Tristi Patterson

Do you often spend the night awake and miserable, each passing minute feeling like an eternity? Do you feel like your mind gears up when you are ready to gear down? Do you constantly remind yourself that tomorrow will be awful if you can't get to sleep?
If these questions sound like you, you may be dealing with some form of insomnia.
Seeing as we spend approximately 25 years of our lives asleep, insomnia can be a major player in our health and well-being. More than half of all Americans report having insomnia at any given time, with half of those reporting chronic insomnia.
Chronic insomnia typically takes hold after a bout of acute insomnia, or insomnia that occurs due to some type of distressing event or situation. We attempt to cope with the acute insomnia in ways that seem to make sense. For instance, we may try to catch up on sleep by sleeping in, going to bed earlier than usual, or napping during the day.
Sadly, our well-intentioned adaptations actually encourage acute insomnia to develop into chronic insomnia. The longer we struggle with not sleeping, the more our thoughts become focused on our desire for sleep.
We begin to worry about not being able to sleep, and we focus on our perceived problems resulting from not sleeping. We feel tired and long for sleep, so we repeat the coping strategies over and over in an effort to capture elusive sleep.
Many people turn to sleeping medications to help them achieve a good night of sleep. Although this may be a tool to help in the short term, taking medications for sleep may not be the best the long-term solution. Luckily, for many people there are other treatment options for chronic insomnia. One such option is cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia, or CBT-I.
CBT-I is a form of cognitive behavioural therapy that focuses solely on chronic insomnia that is not attributed to a medical condition, including untreated depression and anxiety. CBT-I is often a helpful adjunct treatment for those already being treated with cognitive behavioural therapy for depression, anxiety, or other mental health issues.
CBT-I has been shown to significantly improve sleep and reduce or eliminate dependence on sleeping medications in 75 percent of people who follow through with the treatment. The treatment is completed in approximately five sessions after a thorough assessment of symptoms.
Why does CBT-I work so well? It is effective for several reasons.
First, it teaches about the different types of insomnia and about our sleep cycles. Understanding these basic concepts makes it easier to see how the treatment works. Secondly, CBT-I teaches us how to strengthen our sleep system and how to make adjustments in our wake system — putting them both back in balance. CBT-I includes a plan to reduce and possibly eliminate sleeping medications.
And finally, CBT-I helps to address our negative sleep thoughts while also offering behavioural techniques that support healthy sleep. Negative sleep thoughts are thoughts we have about our insomnia, such as "I'm going to feel miserable today," or "I won't be able to get through the day without a nap."
As it turns out, much of what we think we know about sleep may not be accurate. One of the fallacies we have come to accept is that we need eight solid hours of sleep to stay healthy. Numerous research studies have demonstrated that this is not the case for everyone. There is actually significant variability in individual sleep needs.
CBT-I helps to identify how much sleep you actually need each night. Knowing this can make a significant difference in how you look at sleep.
Research has also shown that moderate sleep loss may not impair daytime performance as much as we think, particularly in chronic insomniacs. However, sleep loss does tend to negatively affect our mood, which may be exacerbated by the negative sleep thoughts we have when we don't sleep well.
Interestingly, sleep loss due to pleasurable activities such as late-night socializing or vacations is not seen as stressful and therefore does not typically cause impaired daytime mood.

http://www.gosanangelo.com/lifestyle/health/sound-of-mind-calling-all-insomniacs-3b612fd5-06df-6545-e053-0100007f4d83-392478971.html

Health benefits of bambara beans

From graphic.com/gh

Bambara beans have rich nutritional value that makes them essential for enhancement of human health.

              

It can be prepared in different ways for consumption.
Here are some health benefits.
• Protects the body against arthritis
Due to high content of minerals, these nuts are a natural remedy to safeguard the body from arthritis.
• Treatment of anaemia
The bambara beans are best for management of anaemia which is lack of blood in the body. The nuts are rich in iron that boosts blood levels in the body.
• Manages malnutrition
The flour from these beans is ideal for management of malnutrition especially in children. This is because the nuts have high contents of carbohydrates, proteins, calories and varying minerals that boost the growth of the body.
• Remedy for insomnia
These beans are a natural remedy for insomnia. This is because the beans contain amino acids that stimulate release of serotonin from the brain hence bringing about mental calmness that leads to ability to fall asleep.

http://www.graphic.com.gh/news/health/health-benefits-of-bambara-beans.html

Easy tricks to banish insomnia, including sleeping naked

From nzherald.co.nz

With sleep problems on the rise, more and more of us are struggling to nod off, or waking in the middle of the night and staring at the ceiling for hours until morning.
In a bid to help people in their quest for a restful slumber, a US sleep expert and clinical nutritionist, Shawn Stevenson, has penned a book of practical steps to improve sleep quality.
Titled Sleep Smarter, the book outlines the impact a lack of sleep can have on numerous aspects of the body, including weight, mental ability, and heart health.
Stevenson, who also has a popular internet podcast, the Model Health Show, told the Daily Mail that sleep is the key to a well-functioning body.
"Unless you give your body the right amount of sleep, you will never have the body and life you want to have."
Here are his top 10 sleep tips:

Put your desk next to a window

According to Stevenson, a great night's sleep actually begins in the morning.
The amount of sunlight you get during the day has a major impact on your circadian system - a 'body clock' that controls a range of functions and processes.
Sunlight exposure signals to your hypothalamus (a brain area that is the master gland of your hormonal system) and all corresponding organs and glands to 'wake up'.
If we don't get light exposure at the right time, it can interfere with the production of melatonin, a hormone that is secreted at night, to improve sleep quality.
Stevenson says getting more sunlight exposure during the day, and less at night, will greatly improve your sleep.
Studies have found direct sunlight outdoors for at least half an hour is the most effective, and the body clock is most responsive to sunlight between 6am and 8.30am.

Set a 'coffee curfew'

Coffee could be affecting you in ways you don't even realise.
A study published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine in 2013 found that participants given caffeine at different times (immediately before bed, or three or six hours before bed) all showed significant measurable disruptions in their sleep.
Although the participants lost an hour's sleep - as recorded by a sleep monitor at home - they didn't actually notice any difference to their sleep, as shown by their entries in a sleep journal.
In some cases, coffee can help to manage your body's systems, by stimulating the production of cortisol, which can be useful early in the morning.
However, to ensure coffee doesn't impact on sleep, it's best to drink it no later than 2pm, so the body has enough time to process and remove the caffeine before bedtime.

Beware a 'second wind' after 10pm

Put simply, to get the best quality of sleep, you need to be in bed by 10pm.
This is because at about 10pm, your body ramps up the melatonin levels, in a bid to rev the metabolism to prepare for all the process that need to take place while you're asleep - all the strengthening, repairing, and rejuvenating that goes on while you're out like a light.
However, if you're up past 10pm, this metabolic boost can increase your energy and produce a 'second wind'. This can make it even harder to get to sleep.

Break your screen habit

Cutting out screen time is the number one thing you can do to immediately boost your sleep quality.
Using electronic devices increases levels of dopamine, a powerful chemical that drives us towards feelings of gratification. It also keeps us awake and alert.
Experts recommend turning off all screens 90 minutes before bedtime to allow dopamine, melatonin and cortisol levels to normalise.

Go to bed naked

When it's time to rest, there is an automatic drop in your core body temperature to help initiate sleep.
If the temperature in your environment stays too high, it can hard to reach the ideal state for restful sleep.
Research has shown the insomniacs tend to have a significantly warmer body temperature than normal right before bed, though exactly why is unclear.
Going to bed nude can help to regulate body temperature to the perfect level for sleeping, and the temperature in your bedroom should be 16c to 20c, to help you snooze easier.

Get up early

Even if you're a 'night owl', try to make small, simple steps to becoming more of a morning person - your body will love you for it.
Start making your wake-up time 15 minutes earlier than normal, and gradually increase this as you adjust.
By becoming a morning person you'll be working more with your body, rather than against it - humans are designed to be up during the day and sleeping at night.

Ditch your pillow

While some believe sleeping on a pillow helps to align the spine correctly, this is not the case if you sleep under a stack of them.
Larger pillows will misalign the natural curve of your spine, potentially causing neck pain, back pain, and headaches.
If you prefer to sleep on your stomach, ditch the pillow completely, as it can hyper-extend the neck. Instead, place a small firm pillow under your belly and hips to reduce the stress on your back and neck.

Exercise, but not late in the evening

Regular exercise can aid in your quest for a great night's sleep, but working out too late significantly increases your core body temperature, and it can take at least four to six hours for it to come back down to the optimal temperature for sleep.

Invest in some house plants

Not only do they help to promote a more serene, relaxing environment, they also improve air quality in a room.
House plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen, which can improve your chances of a restful sleep.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11702550