Insomnia help!
Tired, tired, tired.
Sleep deprivation is a form of torture, as anyone with insomnia will tell you. Sometimes there are obvious causes, like a new-born baby, but often it can be difficult to find the root cause. There are many reasons our minds and bodies need good quality sleep. During sleep, our bodies heal and rest. Our minds need rest to process all the day’s events. Long term insomnia has been linked to coronory heart disease, diabetes, several inflammatory conditions and a poor immune function.
So what can we all do to help get a good night’s sleep?
Here are my top 10 tips and why they are so effective:
- Practice sleep ‘hygiene’. This means looking at your physical sleeping environment. The bedroom should be fairly cool, but with enough bedding to keep you warm. Light should be blocked by heavy curtains or an eye-mask. Ear plugs can help block out sound.
- Warm bath and warm milk before bed. These are both linked to our sleep routines as babies. Warm breastmilk was both nutritious and comforting. A warm bath relaxes our muscles and minds. Moving to a cooler bedroom mirrors the temperature change as the sun goes down. This tricks the body into producing melatonin, the ‘sleepy’ hormone.
- Loose cotton pyjamas. Some people sleep naked, others with full length pyjamas on. One thing is clear – you need to be comfortable to sleep! Cotton is a breathable material so is best for sleeping in.
- Avoid stimulants before bed. Caffeine is a known stimulant, often used to wake us up in the morning! So not the best idea to consume this before bedtime. Don’t forget caffeine is in cola, green tea and chocolate.
- Avoid ‘blue’ light before bed. Checking our phones/ tablets, or working late into the night on our computers is very common nowadays. This is not good just before we sleep. It can trick our brains into thinking it is daytime.
- Use a weighted blanket. This can simulate being ‘swaddled’ or wrapped up tightly as a baby, both in the womb and cot. This can help us to drop off quicker.
- Keep a notepad near your bed. If you are having lots of thought running around your head as you try to drop off, write them all down in the notepad. This works like a ‘screen-dump’ to get them out of your brain, and help you relax.
- Meditation and breathing exercises. These help people to wind down and relax after a long day. Find one that works for you – there are lots to choose from!
- Check the side-effects of your medication. Some medication has ‘alerting’ effects whilst others actually list insomnia as a side-effect. For example, the decongestant in Sudafed has an ‘alerting’ affect, meaning you will be unblocked but awake if you take it before bed!
- Magnesium and Melatonin. Magnesium helps us to relax. Melatonin is the ‘sleep’ hormone and is found in oats, bananas and dairy products.
If you are waking at a certain time every night, have re-occurring dreams or fear is preventing you sleeping, then contact me for specific homeopathic remedies to help with this!