7 scientific tricks for falling asleep

By Kevin Loria

If you have a few days off over the holidays, there's one thing you can do to take care of yourself that will significantly change your life for the better — try to fix your sleeping schedule.
Of course, sometimes that's easier said than done. In our busy, wired, non-stop culture, 40% of people sleep less than the recommended seven to nine hours a night.
Indeed, between a third and half of all adults in the US and around the world suffer from insomnia at some point in their lives. In up to 15% of people, this inability to sleep is persistent enough that it causes serious distress. 

But there's hope!
According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, insomnia can be treated and without drugs or so-called "natural" remedies like melatonin and valerian root. 
Some types of insomnia are caused by external factors, like a hostile sleep environment or a substance-abuse problem. These are cases of "secondary insomnia," and they can often be remedied simply by finding a solution to the external troubling factor.
In cases of "primary insomnia," where sleeplessness isn't being caused by a secondary source, however, being unable to sleep can result in a vicious cycle where being unable to sleep makes someone angry or frustrated, which in turn makes it even tougher to sleep. In those cases, breaking the cycle is key.
There's no one best strategy, but here are seven sleep-aiding strategies that experts say work. 
The following 3 strategies have been shown to work in randomized well-designed studies:
1. Stop freaking out about sleep. The chronic inability to sleep is horribly frustrating, and people who start to face the night with dread and stare at their clocks until it's time to get up start to develop negative emotions like fear, anxiety, and anger that they associate with trying to sleep.
Stimulus-control therapy seeks to break those associations, so you simply associate bed with sleep and not all that extra baggage. Doctors recommending this approach will suggest things like not keeping a clock in bedroom and not lying in bed when you can't sleep.
The Ohio Sleep Medicine Institute recommends that "patients should not 'catastrophize' when faced with a 'bad night.'" Instead of worrying about how awful your day is going to be because you are tired, realize that you may be better able to sleep the next night because of it.
2. Practice relaxation. When you're anxious about being unable to sleep, your body produces stress hormones that make it harder to let go of that anxiety.
Training yourself to relax using a technique like progressive muscle relaxation (individually focusing on relaxing every part of your body in sequence) or meditation can help.
3. Change how you think about sleep. This is a two-part strategy. The cognitive part includes changing people's beliefs about their insomnia. In many cases, people who are stressed about their inability to sleep tend to exaggerate the problem, thinking they've slept even less than they actually have. Changing these negative thoughts can reduce some of the distress.
For altering behaviour, experts recommend combining both the relaxation training and stimulus control therapy described above. Creating an environment conducive to sleep, like a cool dark quiet room, can help too.
The following strategies have been shown to be effective but not tested as thoroughly as the ones above:
4. If you can't sleep, get out of bed. This strategy is simple — if you can't sleep, don't lie in bed and try to fall asleep.
If you've been trying for more than 20 minutes, get out of bed and go do something else. Don't use your computer, phone, or watch TV though — those can all make sleep problems worse.
Experts say that staying out of bed when you can't sleep helps break the cycle of linking your bed with negative emotions. Plus, the mild sleep deprivation this causes could make it easier to sleep the next day.
5. Change your behavior. Just doing the stimulus control therapy described in #3 and adding relaxation training and a better sleep environment can be effective too. Give it a try.
6. Stop trying so hard. As funny as this may sound, the trick to falling asleep might be trying to stay awake.
By lying in bed content to be awake and not worrying about falling asleep, insomniacs have been shown to actually fall asleep more quickly and sleep better. Experts say this is because trying to stay awake (without looking at phones or computers and just doing nothing) removes the anxiety people can feel while trying to fall asleep.
7. Learn to recognize stress. Therapists often use biofeedback to help patients manage stress, and it can work for insomnia too. This involves learning how to recognize stress symptoms like an elevated heart rate, muscle tension, and rapid breathing, and then focusing on bringing those stress symptoms back to a normal level.
If you have trouble sleeping, give one or several of these strategies a try. Do something for yourself over these next few days and give some of these strategies a try. If they help, you can stick with them going forward.

http://uk.businessinsider.com/how-to-beat-insomnia-and-sleep-better-2016-12

Was the Bard an insomniac?

By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson

MEVASSERET ZION, Israel –Some time ago I had one of those ‘white nights’ that occasionally descend and prevent me from sleeping. I cannot say whether it was my night-cap cup of tea or thoughts about the dire political situation, but whatever the cause, sleep eluded me.

As I lay in bed passages from Macbeth kept popping into my head. ‘Macbeth hath murdered sleep.’ ‘Sleep no more.’ And ‘Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care.’ And of course there was Lady Macbeth’s famous sleepwalking affair. Although I read the play at school a great many years ago I was intrigued to note that those phrases had remained in my mind.
That set me thinking. Was it possible that Shakespeare, the brilliant poet, dramatist and psychologist, himself suffered from insomnia? That could, of course, explain his immense output in a relatively short life (think about it; as well as writing thirty-nine plays and undertaking research into historical sources for some of them, he also acted in some of them, produced most of them, formed his own theatre company and wrote dozens of sonnets and sundry poetry). My volume of his complete works in minuscule print with two columns on each page runs to 1,080 pages. That’s a stupendous output that could put many other writers to shame.

So I decided to re-read Macbeth, and see if I could find any clues to my theory. I was surprised to find very early on in the play a reference to Aleppo, of all places, which is mentioned in passing by one of the three witches, a curiously topical reference in this day and age. My re-reading of ‘the Scottish play’ also reminded me that Macbeth and his wife were both as evil as each other, egging one another on to further acts of betrayal and murder in order to clear the path for Macbeth to become king. And both paid a heavy psychological (and eventually physical) price for their deeds.
In Act II, scene I, after Lady Macbeth tells her husband not to dwell on negative thoughts (essentially saying ‘snap out of it’), Macbeth replies saying that he thought he heard a voice cry ‘Sleep no more!’ At this point Shakespeare puts words in Macbeth’s mouth that describe the blissful state of sleep that ‘knits up the raveled sleeve of care,’ and constitutes ‘the death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, Chief nourisher in life’s feast.’ In other words, sleep is nature’s way of bringing comfort and consolation to our troubled minds, so that if we are deprived of it our psychological equilibrium is upset. This is something that is known to anyone who has been reading espionage novels and knows anything about interrogation techniques.
In Act III, scene II Macbeth talks of ‘terrible dreams that shake us nightly,’ and declares that it would be better to be dead than ‘on the torture of the mind to lie in restless ecstasy.’ I understand what he means by ‘restless,’ but it’s not clear to me what he means here by ‘ecstasy,’ which seems to be a contradiction in terms, but the bit about ‘terrible dreams’ is pretty obvious.
Those ghosts and other apparitions that he keeps seeing also constitute some kind of psychological disturbance, though in this case not necessarily associated with sleep. But in the same scene he speaks almost enviously of Duncan, whom he has murdered, being ‘in his grave; After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well… Nothing can touch him further.’ Now that’s a wonderful description of peaceful sleep if ever there was one, and that seems to be how he perceived death (‘the bourne from which no traveller returns,’ as he describes it in Hamlet).
I decided not to pursue my researches any further, as doubtless there are references to sleep in others of his plays, not to mention A Midsummer Night’s Dream, where it’s almost as if the whole play takes place in our sleeping minds as well as on stage, and Shakespeare even recommends us to regard it as such at the end of the play..
Then I had the bright idea of googling ‘Shakespeare and sleep,’ and sure enough, there I found that the sleep and dream images in Shakespeare’s plays (not to mention his sonnets) come thick and fast, with varying degrees of positive and negative associations. So it seems I’m not alone in seeing additional meanings into this particular aspect of the Bard’s work.

http://www.sdjewishworld.com/2016/12/22/was-bard-an-insomniac/

Insomnia Found to Be Highly Prevalent in Adults With Asthma

From merckmanuals.com

FRIDAY, Dec. 9, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- Insomnia is common in adults with asthma and tied to worse asthma control and other health problems, according to a study published in the December issue of CHEST.
University of Pittsburgh researchers found that 37 percent of adults with asthma also had significant insomnia. Those with insomnia had worse lung function, weighed more, and tended to have lower incomes than those without insomnia, the researchers found.
Insomnia was also linked to a reduced asthma-specific quality of life. Patients with asthma and trouble sleeping had more depression and anxiety symptoms, the investigators found. They also needed more asthma-related health care in the past year.
"Our results show that poor sleep may not be solely due to night-time awakenings due to asthma symptoms but may represent comorbid insomnia," lead author Faith Luyster, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the university's School of Nursing, said in a journal news release.

https://www.merckmanuals.com/en-pr/professional/news/external/2016/12/10/00/53/insomnia-found-to-be-highly-prevalent-in-adults-with-asthma

The Tiny Thing That Could Help With Insomnia

By Sarah Hosseini

Trying to function after you've had several sleepless nights in a row is one of the worst feelings in the world. You feel groggy, completely brain dead, and maybe in a bad mood. Even worse — extreme tiredness can be really unsafe. Insomnia can negatively impact your life and your health in some pretty monumental ways. Treating your repeated sleeplessness might take a little more than counting sheep, but not that much more. So what is the tiny thing that could help with insomnia?
It's first important to realize that persistent sleep problems are not rare. According to a 2016 report done by the Centres For Disease Control And Prevention (CDC) more than a third of American adults aren't getting enough sleep on a regular basis. Of course, adequate sleep levels vary person to person, but the same organization recommended that adults should get an average of seven hours of sleep at night. The Sleep Foundation explained that many people go in and out of bouts of insomnia, especially if the insomnia is stress related (and not medication or substance related).
Basically, at one time or another, you may have a period where you aren't sleeping well and the deficit adds up. If this happens you may start to look at your lifestyle for ways to stop the insomnia.
The small thing you could do right away is to stop using your smartphone, tablet, computer, or television right before bed. No doubt you've heard this before, but screen time, especially before bed, can really mess with your sleep. According to Web MD, reading on the computer or watching TV before bed can stimulate you, not make you sleepy. The site explained that the light and noise from these devices can reduce brain melatonin levels. Melatonin is a hormone made by your body that helps you with your daily sleep cycles, as explained on the National Sleep Foundation's website. It increases in the evening after the sun goes down making you sleepy, then wears off in the early morning waking you up. It might be really tempting to surf the internet before bed, check Facebook, watch a television show you enjoy to relax, or even check your email one last time, but if you want to sleep it's best to stay away.

Instead of turning to your devices, there are other relaxing and sleep-inducing activities you can try to help you wind down. Help Guide suggested reading as a way to relax, but not on a device. People laugh at me for still going to the library and picking out actual books or buying books, but I literally can't read books from a screen because it will keep me up forever. Other suggestions included listening to soothing music, meditative breathing, turning down the temperature in the room, and making the lights dim.
Dealing with persistent sleep problems is no fun and can really impact your life, mood, and overall health. As mentioned, if the simple fixes and advice from your doctor don't work you may have to try some more invasive treatment options that include prescription medication. Considering how many side effects some medications carry it's at least worth it to try small things first when trying to favourably impact your sleep cycle. These small methods can often carry a big and positive payoff.

https://www.romper.com/p/the-tiny-thing-that-could-help-with-insomnia-24114