Restful Sleep

True sleep and rest are integral to a healthy lifestyle. If you find it difficult to slip into the land of nod, hopefully I can help.

Your body can only truly heal and rejuvenate when you are asleep.  Your tissues are regenerated, hormone levels are normalized and your mood and energy is uplifted. But disrupted sleep or altered sleep cycles have a profoundly negative effect on your mental, emotional and physical health especially if it goes on over a number of years and can even shorten life expectancy.  Fortunately, there are natural solutions to help.

What are the Common Cause of Insomnia?

Some of the more common causes of insomnia are:

Anxiety states: excessive mental stimulation. Worries over work, school, health or family can keep your mind buzzing.

Substance abuse: caffeine, alcohol, recreational drugs, long term sedative use, stimulants, nicotine. Prescription drugs that can interfere with sleep include some antidepressants, heart and blood pressure medications, allergy medications and corticosteroids.

Menopause: insomnia affects 30-40% of menopausal women; may be due to hot flushes and night sweats, anxiety and/or change in progesterone levels.  NaturaPause is a totally drug free method of balancing hormones which I endorse for helping with this problem.  See my fact sheet on NaturaPause by clicking here.

Hormonal fluctuations in menstrual cycle: progesterone promotes sleep.

Advanced age: the biological changes of aging, existence of underlying medical conditions, increased sensitivity to environmental factors, neurological disorders that may cause confusion and disorientation, and increased likelihood of depression, anxiety and grief all may interfere with sleep. Sleep often becomes less restful as you age. You spend more time in stages 1 and 2 of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep and less time in stages 3 and 4. Stage 1 is transitional sleep, stage 2 is light sleep, and stage 3 is deep (delta) sleep, the most restful kind. Because you’re sleeping more lightly, you’re also more likely to awaken. With age, your internal clock often advances, which means you get tired earlier in the evening and wake up earlier in the morning. But older people still need the same amount of sleep as younger people do.

Medical conditions: gastro-esophageal reflux disease, fibromyalgia and other chronic pain syndromes, hyperthyroidism, arthritis, heart disease, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obstructive sleep apnea.

Psychiatric and neurological disorders: anxiety neurosis, depression, bipolar disorder, dementia, Parkinson’s disease, restless leg syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Environmental disturbances: noise disruption (eg snoring partners, noisy pets)

Excessive computer work: especially late at night.

Some Top Tips for a Better Nights Sleep:

• Do whatever you have to do to sleep more – have a hot drink, read a book or the paper.  Try not to watch stimulating programs on TV.

• Just as a bedtime routine helps children, so the body and brain of adults respond to bedtime cues and rituals so have a wind-down routine that you follow most nights.

• Alcohol doesn’t help you to sleep, it does the opposite, so if it’s sound sleep you want, avoid alcohol late in the evening. You may fall asleep but you’ll wake a few hours later and be unable to go back to sleep.

• Two drops of oil of Clary sage or lavender on the pillow can aid sleep.

• Being either too hot or too cold can prevent sleep, so spend some effort on making your bedroom temperature equable.

• If you have a tendency to insomnia anything will keep you awake, so turn off dripping taps, close squeaking doors and batten down anything that can flap in a draught.

• Learn some kind of self-hypnosis that induces sleep quite quickly when you can’t drop off – mine is counting backwards from ten, repeating ‘I’m falling asleep’ with each number – I’ve never got beyond five.

• Wear loose-fitting cotton sleepwear or none at all.

• Change your mattress every seven years or so.

• If your partner likes music or television last thing, don’t get worked up – snuggle down with ear plugs and an eye-shade.

• If you wake up in the early hours and can’t get back to sleep, don’t lie there and fume; get up, do the odd chore, make a cup of tea, do a crossword, read and when you’re feeling sleepy go back to bed.

• Only ever take sleeping pills in the short term to get you over a bad patch.

• Sex is the best prelude to sleep.