7 Insomnia Cures That Will Almost Certainly Help You Sleep

From menshealth.com

Staying awake sucks. Here's how to get some much-needed shuteye.

Everyone has one or two nights where they just can't manage to get much sleep. But if you have insomnia, being unable to sleep isn't an occasional struggle — it's a constant battle.
"Insomnia is the inability to fall asleep, stay asleep, or waking up too early that results in daytime dysfunction (fatigued, tired, trouble focusing), and occurs 3 nights a week for 3 months to be considered chronic," says Vikas Jain, MD, sleep medicine physician at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
According to the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, approximately one in four Americans develop insomnia each year. The most common causes of insomnia are anxiety, stress and poor sleep habits.
"Chronic insomnia affects roughly 6-7% of men between 20-40," says Hrayr Attarian, MD, medical director of the Sleep Disorders Centre at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Often, guys will take sleeping pills to try to combat insomnia. But pills shouldn't be your first line of defence. Try one of these sleep tips to beat your insomnia.

Get rid of the TV in your bedroom. Sounds like a bummer, but if you want better sleep, you better do it. "Having a TV in the bedroom is a no-no for people with insomnia," says Dr. Attarian. "It’s stimulating, from the noise to the light it emits."And research backs him up. A 2017 study published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine found that watching TV before bed and binge-watching led to more cognitive arousal that resulted in poorer sleep and insomnia.

1 Read a (hard copy of a) book.

If you have insomnia, you're often waking up multiple times in one night. Instead of tossing and turning, read a book. "If you're unable to go back to sleep after 20-30 minutes, get out of bed and go out into another area and do relaxing activity," says Attarian. "Or do another 'unproductive' task that is not work-related (like emails, cleaning the house, etc.) Reading or listening to music are good options."
That said, you should definitely skip your iPad or Kindle for a paperback. A 2014 study had participants read on an e-reader for 5 nights, then had them switch to a paper book for 5 nights and tracked their sleep each night. Researchers found that the nights e-readers were used, it took participants longer to fall asleep and they had lower quality sleep than those who read actual books. The reason? The blue light emitted by the e-readers has been found to interfere with melatonin production, which is why Attarian recommends getting the f.lux software to help minimize blue light.

2 Use your bed only for sleep and sex.

"Insomnia is a learned behaviour. When you get into bed, you want your brain to have a simple decision--to fall asleep or have sex. If you use your bed to do 30 different things, your brain has to figure out what it wants you to do, and it becomes more and more difficult to fall asleep," says Jain. So reserve your bed just for sleeping — or sexing.

3 Try some melatonin-rich kiwis.

"Melatonin helps you to fall asleep. Foods with more melatonin may be more conducive for sleep," says Jain. Try a melatonin-rich fruit like a kiwi: one study found that those who ate 2 kiwis an hour before bed for 4 weeks showed improved sleep onset, duration, and efficiency (i.e., less waking up in the middle of the night).

4 Try some tart cherry juice.

A recent 2018 study found that those who drank 1 cup of tart cherry juice twice a day for 2 weeks increased their sleep time by 84 minutes compared to those in the placebo group.

5 Try a relaxation technique.

Chilling out is key to prepping for a peaceful night sleep. "Avoiding doing work/emailing/mentally stimulating activity before 20-30 minutes before bed and dedicating it to relaxing activities is key to beating insomnia," says Attarian. "Studies have shown that breathing exercises, mindfulness/meditation, and muscle relaxation are all helpful." Attarian recommends the Calm app for guided meditations.

6 Eat an early dinner.

There is such a thing as a food coma — but stuffing your face before bed may leave you waking up more often in the middle of the night. "Try to eat dinner 3-4 hours before bed," says Attarian. "If you have a lot of food in your stomach when you go to bed, especially food heavy in fat, you can get reflux, which disturbs sleep. Reflux may not be burning acid, it could just be food content from the stomach that comes up, which will wake you."

7 Get rid of the TV in your bedroom.

"Having a TV in the bedroom is a no-no for people with insomnia," says Attarian. "It’s stimulating, from the noise to the light it emits." And research backs him up. A 2017 study published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine found that watching TV before bed and binge-watching led to more cognitive arousal, which resulted in poorer sleep and insomnia.

https://www.menshealth.com/health/g23357527/insomnia-cures/

Why using an app to track your sleep could make your insomnia worse

From newstatesman.com

Achieving “good sleep” is becoming a new source of stress, which has been termed “orthosomnia”.

Sleep is the obsession of the self-improving classes. Best-selling books, dense with science, insist on the importance of sleep to physical health and cognitive acuity, and tell us that hardly anyone is getting enough of it. We are said to be living through a catastrophic sleep-loss epidemic, created by the pressures of modern life. It’s enough to keep you up at night.
Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who once regarded sleep as a waste of good coding time now see opportunity. By 2020, consumers will collectively spend $80bn on devices and apps that quantify our sleep in granular detail. We are being encouraged to think of sleep as a form of exercise, and as an activity – or rather inactivity – enhanced by fastidious accounting.

The data-driven pursuit of better sleep may be counterproductive, however. In a paper published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, a group of US clinicians who specialise in sleep disorders argue that self-monitoring can get out of hand. They tell the story of Mr R, a 40-year-old man, who had been sleeping poorly for years. Since this made him irritable and unable to concentrate, his girlfriend bought him a wrist-worn device that sent information on his sleeping patterns to his smartphone. Now he thought about little else. “According to my data,” as he put it to his doctor, he required eight hours of deep sleep, yet was getting only seven hours, 45 minutes. He admitted to feeling pressure, every night, to meet his target. Achieving a precise measure of “good sleep” is becoming a new source of stress, say the doctors, and thus sleeplessness. Mr R is one of three case studies in the paper. “They were actually destroying their sleep by becoming so dependent on these devices,” one of the authors, Sabra Abbott, told Health magazine. The researchers coin a new term, “orthosomnia”, to describe a disorder caused by the quest to achieve perfect sleep.

In naming the disorder, the clinicians were alluding to the existing condition of “orthorexia”: an unhealthy preoccupation with healthy eating. Self-tracking apps are one of the big successes of the smartphone era. There are apps for tracking your productivity, mood, menstrual cycle, even your digestive system (Cara, a “poop tech” start-up, raised $2m in funding last year). While these apps can be useful, they are creating new ailments of perfectionism.

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Apps do more than simply collect data. They nudge us towards goals, often quite arbitrary ones. Different individuals require different amounts of sleep, and the amount itself varies depending on whatever else is going on in their life. The apps reduce all this complexity to a number.
Data objectifies our vague worries, makes them more concrete, and more urgent. Give someone a goal and they can decide whether or not they’ve achieved it; give them a number and they know when they have not. Walking 9,999 steps in a day isn’t enough. Unless you make the ten thousandth, you feel like a failure.

The effect is potent regardless of whether or not the data is reliable. Kelly Glazer Baron, the paper’s lead author, told me that some sleep apps rely on flawed assumptions and crude measurements, and that even the more advanced ones have not had their data validated in scientific trials. Yet to the user, every bar graph represents a judgement from on high.

By measuring something, we assign it value, and consequently devalue whatever we are not measuring. In a blog post, Candice Lanius, a lecturer in communications at the University of Alabama, recounts how her self-tracking led her to start avoiding “unquantifiable” situations. She gradually stopped running in forests or pathways where her watch could not pick up a GPS signal. She found herself declining a friend’s homemade brownies because she couldn’t be sure which ingredients to put into her nutrition app and didn’t want to ask.

If your aim is to curb bad habits, self-tracking makes sense. For instance, most university students put on weight in their first year (you can probably guess why). Several scientific studies have found that if students simply weigh themselves every day, they are less likely to get heavier. But unlike excess weight or excess beer, sleep is good for us. What’s more, it tends to go better when we’re not thinking about it.
Worrying over one’s inability to sleep is a long-established cause of insomnia. Sleep scientists employ the word “rumination” differently to its ordinary usage. Rather than describing deep thought, it refers to the recursive mental loops that can rile the brain when we’re trying to get some rest. We lie awake because we can’t stop thinking about how much we need to sleep. These loops now pass through our phones, where they get supercharged.

Glazer Baron told me she often has chief executives coming to her practice. Accustomed to being able to organise and plan every minute of their day, they can be bewildered by the way sleep eludes command. Self-tracking apps create the illusion that we are the chief executives of our own lives; that we can regiment and master our bodies and minds. Sleep is a nightly lesson in humility. “Sleep is a process that just has to happen,” Glazer Baron told me. “You can get the circumstances right but there’s always an element that is out of your control.”
Recursive loops are, by their nature, hard to escape. A spokesperson from the Sleep Foundation, an American non-profit, recently advised people to monitor any anxiety caused by analysing their sleep data: “You should become very clever with checking for early warning signs, and manage it before things get out of control.”
In other words, you should self-track your self-tracking. There must be an app for that. 

https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/technology/2018/09/why-using-app-track-your-sleep-could-make-your-insomnia-worse

#HealthBytes: 4 tips to help beat Insomnia

From newsbytesapp.com

A common yet dreadful sleep disorder, Insomnia's cases are perpetually on the rise, across the globe.
Loosely speaking, stress, anxiety, sedentary lifestyles, and modern working hours are to be blamed for this.
Insomnia is highly irritable, and can take a toll on your mental health.
However, there are simple ways that can help you deal with insomnia. Here are 4 handy tips.

Tips (1)Maintaining a sleep schedule; following a relaxing ritual

A simple formula for getting quality night time sleep is to maintain a regular sleeping and wake-up routine every day, even on weekends. This regulates your body clock, helping you fall asleep and get up on time without fail.
Perform a relaxation ritual (like reading) everyday. This can help people suffering form insomnia fall and stay asleep undisturbed, for long.

Tips (2)Eliminate naps; consider working out

Avoid taking naps: Although naps can be good for health, you may have to consider eliminating them from your daytime routine, so you fall asleep quickly and easily during the night.
Work out: Working out during the day can be effective as well. This helps you get quality sleep at night as exercise makes you physically tired, which eventually helps you fall asleep.

Tips (3)About lighting patterns and maintaining healthy habits

One way to avoid sleeplessness during the night is by exposing yourself to bright lights during the day, and dimmer ones later in the evening.
Also, avoid health-hampering habits such as smoking, drinking, excessive caffeine consumption etc., as these may lead to insomnia.
Further, avoid heavy, spicy meals for dinner, instead go for lighter food options, to ensure digestive troubles don't disrupt sleep.

Tips (4)Set up your room; ensure quality of mattresses/pillows

Setting the right environment in your bedroom is important to facilitate good quality sleep.
Dim down the lights, switch off your phones and other devices, and get rid of distracting noises. Using earplugs and eye-shades might also help.
It's also advisable to buy mattresses and pillows of genuine quality as ones with poor quality might hamper sleep and promote insomnia.

https://www.newsbytesapp.com/timeline/India/32117/142814/how-can-you-beat-insomnia

7 Things in Your Diet That Could Be Sabotaging Your Sleep

From brit.co

Everyone knows that drinking coffee after a certain hour can keep you up past bedtime, but the connection between what we ingest and how we sleep goes a lot deeper than an after-dinner cup of joe; various excesses and deficiencies in the diet can have a surprising effect on sleep quality. If you struggle with insomnia, striving for the right balance of these foods, drinks, and specific nutrients may help you get a good night’s rest. Here’s a look at some of the top dietary sleep disruptors.

1. Too Much Sugar: Did your parents ever tell you that if you ate sweets to close to bedtime you’d never get to sleep? They may have been on to something. Though sugar won’t make you hyper as people often claim, it can interfere with your rest. Frequent consumption of energy drinks and sugar-sweetened beverages has been associated with poor sleep quality. Research reveals that a diet generally high in carbohydrates — especially simple sugars — often results in increased night-time wakefulness. To boost your chances of waking up refreshed, moderate your sugar intake throughout the day, opting instead for a balance of complex carbohydrates, protein, and healthy fats.

2. Too Much Alcohol: Beer, wine, and cocktails can make us feel so relaxed and sleepy. Aren’t they a friend to our night-time rest? Not necessarily. Too much alcohol can actually keep us awake. Consumption of three or more alcoholic drinks before bed promotes sleep disturbance within just three days. Experts recommend people with trouble sleeping exercise caution when it comes to the amount of alcohol they imbibe, especially in the evening.

3. Too Little Vitamin D: Did you know the “sunshine vitamin” you soak up during the day can also help you at night? Authors of a new study in the journal Nutritional Neuroscience set out to test the theory that robust levels of vitamin D could improve sleep quality — and their research proved them right. When study subjects with sleep disorders took high-dose supplements of the vitamin, they fell asleep faster, slept longer, and had improved sleep quality overall. Many Americans are chronically deficient in vitamin D, and the only way to know for sure if your levels are low is to get a blood test. If one reveals you need more, foods rich in vitamin D like milk, cheese, egg yolks, and fatty fish can help — or talk to your doctor about incorporating supplements.

4. Too Much Caffeine: True, coffee can keep you wired and jittery at bedtime, but it’s not so much the coffee itself as the caffeine it contains. Hard evidence backs up this common knowledge: A 2017 systematic review confirmed a host of caffeine’s ill effects on sleep, from reduced slow-wave sleep, to difficulty falling asleep, to decreased total sleep time. Cutting out coffee and espresso drinks close to bedtime is an obvious solution, but you may also want to take a closer look at your diet to uncover unexpected sources of caffeine. Soda, chocolate, and even chocolate-flavoured foods like ice creams and cereals could contain enough to keep you up at night.

 5. Too Much Water — or Too Little: While drinking too much coffee before bed can keep you up at night, so can drinking too much water. (Haven’t we all experienced the sleep-disrupting effects of a full bladder?) But too little hydration may also have a negative effect on your rest. While some research indicates that mild dehydration shouldn’t pose a threat to sleep quality, the National Sleep Foundation states that even a moderate lack of fluids can cause problems. Parched airways make you more likely to snore, and dehydration-induced leg cramps are a painful cause of night-time waking. To find the right hydration balance, try to drink non-caffeinated, non-alcoholic beverages throughout the day, but don’t overdo water intake in the hours leading up to bedtime.

6. Too Little Magnesium: Of all the nutrients we keep track of in our foods, magnesium doesn’t generally rank very high… but perhaps it should. Among its many functions in the body, this dietary mineral promotes healthy digestion, helps maintain blood sugar levels, and can improve the body’s performance on various measures of insomnia. Foods like legumes, spinach and other leafy greens, and salmon are just a few options to boost your magnesium levels and promote better sleep. 

7. Too Much Spicy Food: Notice a recurring trend of poor sleep after Taco Tuesday? Spicy foods are notorious for causing sleep troubles. In some people, this may be because these foods promote indigestion or aggravate acid reflux. But even if tummy troubles aren’t your issue, spicy foods could pose another hindrance to rest. In an effort to explore the connection between spicy food and sleep disruption, researchers in one study had subjects eat Tabasco sauce and mustard with their evening meal, then monitored their night-time sleep. Not surprisingly, it took subjects longer than usual to fall to sleep, and they experienced increased total wake time. The study authors concluded that this was because capsaicin — a chemical compound in many spicy foods — raised body temperature in the first stage of sleep.

If you’re struggling to get a good night’s rest, try keeping a food and drink journal to identify recurring patterns. You may find your diet has more to do with your sleep than you ever dreamed.

https://www.brit.co/how-diet-could-be-affecting-your-sleep/

Clinical tips: insomnia

From ajp.com.au

Issues caused by poor sleep can be wide-ranging, writes Karalyn Huxhagen

Insomnia is defined by the American College of Physicians as “dissatisfaction with sleep quantity or quality and is associated with difficulty initiating or maintaining sleep and early-morning waking with inability to return to sleep”.
Insomnia has a ripple effect on the health of the individual as lack of quality sleep can then lead to other medical issues:

• Fatigue
• Cognitive function disorder e.g. impaired concentration and/or memory
• Mood disturbance
• Irritability
• Pervasive malaise
• Inability to perform tasks such as driving a motor vehicle, operating machinery which may in turn impact on employment
• Inability to perform tasks of personal hygiene, parenting children, household maintenance.

The Diagnostic criterion for chronic insomnia is:

Symptoms must cause clinically significant functional distress or impairment

Be present for at least three nights per week for at least three months

Not be linked to any other sleep, medical or mental disorder

In adults, the recommended treatment for chronic insomnia disorder is cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT). Other behaviour therapies that can be trialled are multicomponent behaviour therapy or brief behavioural therapy (BBT). Therapies such as stimulus control, relaxation strategies and sleep restriction can also be trialled.
If CBT alone is not successful then short-term use of pharmacological agents can be trialled. Patients need to be made aware of the benefit and harm and scope of the medication. Some of these medications are expensive.
Patients presenting to pharmacy requesting assistance with sleep are an ideal Medscheck patient as the questions that need to be asked and the counselling that is needed can be extensive and takes time.

Sadly most patients are looking for the ‘quick fix’ option and may not be ready for the discussion that is needed to identify:

• Underlying cause
  • Stress, anxiety, worry, pain
  • Medical condition e.g. irritable bladder, restless leg syndrome
  • Medication e.g. antipsychotics, appetite suppressants, beta-blockers, beta-agonists, fluid tablets, levodopa, methyldopa, SSRIs, thyroid preparations
  • Over the counter medication e.g. pseudoephedrine
  • Illicit drug use e.g. ICE, amphetamines
  • Withdrawing from medication or illicit drug use
  • Diet issues e.g. heavy reliance on caffeine, chocolate and sugar overload before bed
  • Poor sleep hygiene e.g. sleeping with the ipad
  • Poor circadian rhythm due to shift work or rotating rosters
  • Family issues e.g. teething baby, sick children
  • Pets or children in the bed
  • Snoring and/or sleep apnoea of patient or sleep partner
  • Nicotine before bed
  • Stimulating strenuous exercise before bed
• Circadian rhythm disturbance
• Sleep hygiene issues
• Lifestyle issues e.g. heavy exercise before bed.

 Discussion points when counselling:

• Most people require six to 10 hours of sleep.
• Less than four hours and more than nine hours of sleep is associated with higher mortality rates than the average eight hours.
• When sleep requirements are not met, sleep deficit accumulates.
• If sleep deficits accumulate, sleep episodes will occur through the day – micro sleeps.
• A decrease in sleep of 1.5 hours is enough to reduce daytime alertness by 33%.
• Chronic insomnia may contribute to depression.

Medications that may be used for treating insomnia

Over the counter

• Antihistamines—only sedating types, as they are lipid soluble and cross the blood brain barrier.

The issue with using the sedating antihistamines for sedation is that tolerance does develop. The realistic question in every pharmacist’s mind when the habitual patient purchases a weekly box of Restavit/Sleep Aid/ Dozile is whether this medication is effectively helping with sleep or is there now a placebo effect?
Is it truly sedation occurring or is the antihistamine having another action e.g. reducing anxiety/reducing muscle tension? These are centrally acting antihistamines.
After three to seven days of continuous dosing tolerance to the sedative effect of antihistamines will occur. There needs to be a washout period (three to five half-lives) to regain the sedative effect of the centrally acting antihistamine.

• Supplements –many manufacturers have sleep products that contain herbs for relaxation, essential oils, milk derivatives

Pharmacological

• Short acting benzodiazepines (BZDs)
• Long acting benzodiazepines can be used if treating drug withdrawal as well as establishing normal sleep patterns. Not recommended for insomnia due to risk of daytime drowsiness. May be used in chronic insomnia as the short acting BZDs are more likely to cause withdrawal effects.
• Low dose tricyclic antidepressants
• Mirtazapine
• Atypical antipsychotics may be beneficial in olderschizophrenic patients with sleep disturbance; Alzheimer’s
• Antipsychotics e.g. Serenace, Largactil
• Agomelatine e.g. Valdoxan
• The Z drugs e.g. Zolpidem, Zopiclone-only a sedative action. Very rapid onset and short acting. Major issues when combined with any form of alcohol. Tolerance to sedation may occur after several weeks. They have minimal anxiolytic, muscle relaxant and antiepileptic properties.
• Melatonin
• Suvorexant e.g.Belsomra an orexin receptor antagonist-works to suppress the wake drive. It is indicated for the treatment of insomnia for those patients who experience issues with sleep onset and/or sleep maintenance.

Alternative therapies

• Behavioural therapies e.g. CBT, Mindfulness
• Bright light therapy
• Passive body heating
• Management of sleep disorders such as snoring, sleep apnoea
• Sleep hygiene counselling
• Relaxation therapies e.g. hypnosis , meditation, deep breathing and progressive muscle relaxation
• Stimulus control
• Sleep restriction

Sleep hygiene counselling tips:

• Sleep only when sleepy.
• If they cannot fall asleep within 20 minutes get up and do something boring until they fall asleep.
• Do not take naps.
• Make a sleep diary including daytime naps and add up hours that they are asleep. See nps.org.au for a sleep diary.
• Ask someone else to record the sleep hours as the patient may have a different perception of whether they are asleep or not.
• Develop a consistent time of going to bed and rising from bed.
• If disturbed during sleeping hours fix the issue e.g. toileting, snoring, animals or children in/on the bed..
• Do not use blue light emitting devices before sleep e.g. Ipads, Smart phones.
• Bedrooms are for sleep and intimacy not watching television or doing computer work
• Refrain from exercise at least four hours before bedtime.
• Stay away from alcohol, nicotine and caffeine at least four to six hours before bed.
• Avoid alerting, stressful ruminations before bedtime. Discussion on controversies, financial and family problems need to occur earlier in the day.
• Have a light snack before bed.
• Place water beside the bed so they do not rise for a drink.
• Take a hot bath 90 minutes before bedtime.
• Make sure the bed and bedroom are quiet and comfortable.
• Use sunlight/bright light to reset circadian rhythms.

Discussion on how to manage insomnia and sleep hygiene is a large topic but a topic that community pharmacists face constantly. We live in an age of fast paced activity and good quality sleep may be lost in our quest to achieve all of our daily goals.

Karalyn Huxhagen is a community pharmacist and was 2010 Pharmaceutical Society of Australia Pharmacist of the Year. She has been named winner of the 2015 PSA Award for Quality Use of Medicines in Pain Management and is group facilitator of the Mackay Pain Support Group.

https://ajp.com.au/columns/clinical-tips/clinical-tips-insomnia-2/

To Sleep, Perchance to Heal

From thereader.com

" ‘tis sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care."

by Michael Braunstein

Cool Autumn nights are made for sleep. A cozy comforter and a warm bed can trigger that hibernation urge. But for millions of Americans, sleep does not always come easily or linger pleasantly. Inadequate sleep or outright insomnia can torment modern man as terribly as it did Macbeth.
Sleep disorders take many forms. They may include difficulty falling asleep, waking several times in the middle of the night, struggle to return to sleep after waking, light or troubled sleep or waking too early in the morning.
Sleep dysfunction is more than just inconvenience. It can lead to poor health. In September of 2006, “The Archives of Internal Medicine” dedicated an entire issue to the relationship between sleep and health. Research connects inadequate sleep with hypertension, weight gain, diabetes, heart disease, cancers and stroke to name but a few health risks. It seems every organ depends on sleep to balance and heal. It’s silly that we need a research study to convince us of these relationships. But then again, sometimes common sense is all to uncommon.

Beat it. The heart especially benefits from a good night’s sleep. During sleeping hours, the heart can actually get some rest, at least comparatively. Blood pressure lowers, heart rate decreases and that most vital blood pump has it much easier for those few resting hours.
Daytime performance can be impaired by sleepless nights. Productivity at work, common decision-making and even safe driving are now linked to how much or how little sleep we get.
The current dictum from sleep docs is that the best number is seven hours of sleep. Less than that, or more than that, and they see a bulge in the numbers of health difficulties. 4.5 hours or less is considered a real no-no and 10 hours or more is also significantly less healthful.
When sleep difficulties creep in, the common medical approach is to get to the doctor and ask for any one of the several prescription drugs advertised on TV and everywhere else. None are intended as a long-term solution, however, and usually come with a warning about dependence.
Before we buy into the ads with the elusive “butterfly of sleep,” there are many, more natural options one may consider.

How’s your day been? If you are having trouble sleeping at night, take a look at what you are doing during the day. Are you eating right and at the right times? Dining too late and on a heavy meal can certainly affect night-time sleep. What about stimulating foods or beverages or those that may not agree with you? It seems obvious, but stimulant drinks like colas, coffee and tea deserve consideration as a hindrance to quality sleep.

Are you getting adequate exercise during the day? It’s not about simply tiring the body out. Exercise helps to regulate hormone levels and that has tremendous effect on sleep patterns.
Are you taking time out to meditate or do a true relaxation technique to help release stress during the day? After all, how many times can the complaint be traced to an overactive mind in the middle of the night? It’s usually our thoughts that keep us awake and training the mind is an important, if not the important first step. An enlightened health care professional is often more likely to suggest a routine of stress reduction like meditation, tai chi or massage over a chemical intervention.

The mechanics. There are certain proactive mechanical steps one can take to help usher in the Sandman. They include keeping the bedroom as a place of sleep only, keeping a cool but not cold room temperature, retiring at that perfect sleeping time of 9:30 or 10 p.m. Avoid mind-stressing things like television or quarrels.
Alcohol has a devastating effect on ability to sleep. Excess bypasses the natural process of the body in falling to sleep. Many Alcoholics Anonymous attendees point to terrible sleep problems. If I were having sleep problems, one of the first things I would look at is alcohol consumption.

Natural aids. When sleep is a problem, some people find that certain herbal teas work well. I have found that whole teas made directly from the herb work far better than capsules of powdered herbs. For one, there is a little better knowledge of what you are using when you can actually see the small pieces of valerian root or the actual chamomile flowers, for example. Both of those herbs and many others have been used as sleep aids. A little research will yield many possibilities and a visit to a licensed herbalist will do even more. One should always seek the advice of a health care professional when self-prescribing certain herbs. Some can be very powerful.

Onion soup for the soul. Don’t overlook old wives’ tales. Many former insomniacs claim onions can induce sleep. Methods include sniffing diced onions before going to bed. Friends of mine have simply had a nice bowl of French onion soup in the evening and it works for them.
So put down that iPhone — far away from the bed — and dream.
Be well.

Heartland Healing is a metaphysically based polemic describing alternatives to conventional methods of healing the body, mind and planet. It is provided as information and entertainment, certainly not medical advice.

https://thereader.com/heartland-healing/to-sleep-perchance-to-heal/

Celebs Suffer From Insomnia Like the Rest of Us – Here’s How They Treat It

From organicauthority.com

There are those who can lay their head on a pillow, shut their eyes, and be immediately whisked away to dreamland. But then there are others, including celebs like Madonna, Jennifer Aniston, and Amy Poehler, who’ve opened up about their bouts of insomnia, making sleep a difficult thing to grasp.
Recently Michael J. Breus, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and sleep expert in Los Angeles, revealed to US Magazine that the anonymous celeb clients he treats for insomnia might suffer from it for different reasons (early morning shoots, for example), however, most remedies will work across the board, including celebrities and the rest of us.
Suffering from insomnia, and need help catching some solid Zs? Here’s what you need to know.

What is Insomnia?

Having one rough night of little sleep is one thing, however, having insomnia is quite another. According to the National Sleep Foundation, insomnia is when a person has difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, even when you have the chance to do so. As a result, you may experience fatigue, low energy, moodiness, and your work performance might suffer.
Acute insomnia is temporary, and is often the result of something stressful or triggering, including coming on after receiving bad news or the night before you have to give a presentation at work.
Chronic insomnia, on the other hand, occurs at least three times a week and has lasted for three months or longer.
It’s estimated that 40 million Americans suffer from insomnia, with most of them being women or older adults. The U.S. Office on Women’s Health reports that one in four women have insomnia symptoms.

Why More Women?

When it comes to why more women suffer from insomnia than men, we can blame it on our hormones. According to the U.S. Office on Women’s Health, a woman’s menstrual cycle, as well as menopause and periomenopause, can disturb sleep. Even pregnancy, particularly during the third trimester, can cause insomnia symptoms.
Other factors include depression and anxiety, which women are more prone to experience than men.

How to Treat It

There are a variety of methods to help treat insomnia, with some being more effective for others. It’s really about finding the ones that work best for you.
Dr. Breus recommends working up a sweat. “The single best way to improve the quality of your sleep is with exercise. I’m not talking about running a marathon. I’m talking about 20-minutes of cardio of day,” he told US Magazine.
No wonder Michelle Obama has said that, for her, “exercise is more than physical — it’s therapeutic.”
Dr. Breus added that you don’t want to work out too close to bedtime either as it will raise your body temperature, making it difficult for you to fall back asleep.
Keeping your smartphone away from your bed is another good idea. A 2016 study has shown that looking at your phone prior to bedtime was associated with a longer time to fall asleep and worse sleep quality during the night.
Which is probably why Jennifer Aniston has said that she keeps her phone “at least five feet away from me. That’s helped me tremendously…The biggest thing is the electronics shutdown, ideally an hour before I turn off the lights. It’s really a big deal.”
Keeping a sleep diary is also recommended by sleep experts to help keep track of sleep patterns as well as to write out any racing thoughts that might be preventing you from falling asleep. Kelly Clarkson, who has spoken about her trouble with sleep, has shared she often writes out song lyrics before bed.
And then there’s marijuana. Researchers from the University of New Mexico recently found that cannabis works with treating sleeping disorders, including insomnia. You might want to heed Rachel McAdams’ experience with the drug after she complained of sleeping issues to her local grocer.
“I said I was having a really hard time sleeping and he said, ‘Well, um, I’ve got something for you’ … so he takes me to the back and he pulls out this little bottle with no label. It’s full of this dark green substance and he lifts [the lid] and says, ‘Take a whiff of that.’ And it’s like, well it’s, it’s marijuana … I take the tiniest teaspoon, brush my teeth, and by the time I’m getting into bed, I’m like, My brain, what’s happening? I was not thinking normal, human thoughts. I was hallucinating. I was totally hallucinating and I’m just lying there like cursing him, ‘I can’t believe this is happening!'”

The Takeaway

Bottom line: Sleep is essential to optimal health. If you’re suffering from insomnia, it’s always best to speak with your family doctor and/or a sleep expert, so that you can map out which sleeping strategies might work best for you.

http://www.organicauthority.com/celebs-suffer-from-insomnia-like-the-rest-of-us-heres-how-they-treat-it/

Can’t sleep? People are swearing by this US military method for curing insomnia

From irishexaminer.com

We all know that sleep is good for us. It can improve your immunity, minimise your risk of heart disease and stroke, and stop you from having that cranky brain fog that stops you from functioning properly at work.
But if you’re one of the 16 million adults in the UK that suffers from regular sleepless nights, it can be really difficult to clock up the eight hours you need to feel fully rested.
From staring at the ceiling for hours on end to periodically checking your bedside clock, there’s really nothing worse than having a bad night’s sleep – especially when you feel like you’ve tried every sleep technique going.
But we think we may have found one final secret to getting that much-needed shut eye you’ve long been dreaming of.

Apparently the US military has a secret method for helping its pilots get to sleep in two minutes flat, and it doesn’t involve thousands of press ups or trudging through mud.
In a 1981 book titled Relax and Win: Championship Performance, author Lloyd Winter details a sleep-giving technique that was reportedly developed by army generals to help eliminate mistakes in their ranks.
The method has been knocking around for years, but recently resurfaced online amongst sleep-deprived internet users, according to men’s lifestyle website Joe.co.uk.

So how exactly does it work?
Firstly, you need to close your eyes and relax your face – feel your jaw, tongue and forehead drop.
Next you should drop your shoulders as low as they can go and then relax your upper and lower arm on one side, and then the other.
Breathe out steadily and relax your chest, before relaxing your legs, from the thighs to the calves.

Finally picture yourself either lying in a canoe on a calm lake, with nothing but blue sky above you, or snug in a black velvet hammock in a pitch-black room.
If visualisation doesn’t work, you can also try saying, ‘don’t think, don’t think, don’t think’, over and over again, for ten seconds.
According to the book, the method is said to have a 96% success rate after six weeks of practice.
So if you’ve tried counting sheep and meditation apps, and you’re still coming into work fuelled by coffee, there’s really no harm in giving this easy brain exercise a go. You may just trick yourself into the land of nod.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/lifestyle/cant-sleep-people-are-swearing-by-this-us-military-method-for-curing-insomnia-866454.html