Opinion: Trouble sleeping? Here's some advice

By Christopher Labos

I’m not a very good sleeper. I toss and turn for quite a bit before I finally nod off. I can put many a fussy baby to shame with my insomnia.
Sadly, more than 30 per cent of the population is similarly sleep deprived, and that has a profoundly negative impact on health. Inadequate sleep increases your risk of heart disease, obesity, diabetes and stroke.
Counting sheep would seem to be a sensible solution. It has been popularized by everyone from Sesame Street to Mr. Bean. But when it was actually tested in a scientific study, it didn’t work.
In 2002, researchers from Oxford split 50 insomniacs into three groups. They told one group to count sheep, one group to imagine relaxing scenes like a waterfall and told the third group nothing, to serve as a control. Those who pictured a relaxing waterfall feel asleep sooner, whereas the sheep counters did not. It turns out that counting sheep is simply too mundane to distract the brain into falling asleep. As the researchers put it, “Picturing an engaging scene takes up more brain space than the same dirty old sheep.”
Warm milk is another common and folkloric sleep aid. Tryptophan is an amino acid that is converted to the neurotransmitter serotonin, and serotonin does have a role to play in sleep generation. But you are unlikely to drink enough milk (or eat enough turkey) for the tryptophan to have any effect.

If warm milk fails, some may try a nightcap. Unfortunately, though, while alcohol may make you pass out if you drink enough of it, it actually decreases the quality of that sleep. So a drink before bed is best avoided.
Many people are reluctant to take sleeping pills for sleep, and with some justification. Benzodiazepines are commonly prescribed as sleep aids, and they will certainly increase both the quantity and quality of sleep. However, they come with some side effects, namely a persistent drowsiness the next morning. They are also habit forming and if combined with alcohol can lead to an overdose. In older patients, they can cause drowsiness that leads to an increased risk of falls and hip fractures, so they are best used with care. Fortunately, non-benzodiazepine sleeping pills do exist and offer a somewhat safer alternative for those who need them.
As well, so-called “natural” sleeping pills have become popular. One of the most popular is melatonin. Melatonin is made by the pituitary gland in our brains. During the day, light striking the retina of your eye, sends a signal back to the brain to suppress melatonin production. At night when it’s dark, that inhibitory signal disappears and melatonin is produced.
Melatonin levels regulate the diurnal sleep-wake cycle. Shift workers or people suffering from jet lag may get some benefit from melatonin because they are essentially out of sync with their sleep wake cycle. They are in effect trying to sleep while their pituitary is telling them to stay awake.
Melatonin, however, is not that effective for insomniacs.
In the end the best thing you can do if you want to sleep better, is to practise good sleep hygiene. That means go to bed early, avoid large meals late at night, don’t drink or smoke before bed, keep the room dark and put away your smartphones.
It’s tempting to check your phone at night, but our light-emitting smart phones are suppressing melatonin production just as we are trying to fall asleep and this is significantly affecting our sleep quality.
So the social media addicts can put their phones away. While I will get a vicarious thrill every time somebody posts, tweets, likes and shares this article, I for one will sleep better, if I turn out the light and wait till morning.

http://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-trouble-sleeping-heres-some-advice