Managing insomnia
In this article, I’ll teach you how to go to sleep and discuss the best ways of conservatively managing insomnia without medication.
It is my goal to reduce the use of medications as much as possible.
This is one of the main reasons why I try to write about ways of managing different conditions in a less invasive way.
It is important to discuss the structure and phases of sleep. It is clear that in order to treat any condition we need to understand its make-up.
What is sleep?
Sleep is a mysterious part of our lives. We have no idea what happens when we sleep and our knowledge about other individuals’ sleep is very limited. Science has not been able to draw a clear picture about what sleep is. But we know exactly what happens if we don’t get enough sleep.
We should not forget that sleep forms a big part of our lives that we have almost no idea about.
Did you know that sleep makes up around one third of our lives? On average we sleep about 122 days per year.
When you look at somebody who is sleeping you may see inactivity but some part of our body is more active during sleep than when we are active and conscious.
Sleep has been divided into many different stages. However, we look at the rapid eye movement (REM) and non-rapid movement phase (NREM). Most of our dreaming happens in the REM phase when our eyes start moving back and forth rapidly.
The REM phase decreases in older age. According to studies, newborn babies sleep longer (18 hours) and spend about 50% of their sleep time in REM phase and older individuals (50-85 years old) sleep around 6 hours and spend 15% of that time in REM sleep.
Why do we need to sleep?
Some of us would probably like to be awake 24 hours a day. However, sooner or later we have to give in to sleep.
Why do we need to sleep?
Again, we don’t know. It is possible that sleep helps us to charge our batteries and to regenerate our body. Another theory is that nature is protecting us from things that could happen to us in darkness and wants to save us from ourselves.
Did you know that there is growing evidence of a connection between inadequate sleep, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and heart disease?
Here are some simple tips that can improve your insomnia:
Stay regular
We are part of a bigger picture called “nature”. Nature requires regularity and consistency. Therefore, in order to get a good night’s sleep we must adapt ourselves to nature and follow the same biological clock.
Let us compare a person who goes to sleep at 10 PM sharp and wakes up at 6 AM every day of his life to a person who is irregular, goes to sleep at different times of the day and wakes up whenever feels like it. Which of these individuals has a better chance of getting higher quality sleep?
Make your bedroom a great sleep corner
Your bedroom is the place where you want to sleep. Looking at you bedroom should make you to get sleepy. It should look and feel comfortable and relaxing. Keep your room quiet, cool, ventilated and dark. The mattress, pillows and blankets should be soft and inviting.
Relax and quiet down before entering your bedroom
The sleep process should start prior to entering the bedroom and not after. Start with calming activities like meditation or reading a nice calming story or poem. Enter your bedroom whenever you are ready to sleep. The bedroom is not a place to try to sleep. You should choose to enter your bedroom only after the decision to sleep is final.
Have a small snack
You will not be able to have calm sleep with an empty stomach. The opposite is also true. If you have a completely full stomach then getting a good night’s sleep is almost impossible. Try to eat a little bit of food such as a couple of whole grain crackers or a small piece of low fat cheese before sleeping.
Individuals are different. If eating a small snack at night bothers you then you should listen to your body and not do it.
What matters is that we connect to our body and mind and do things that will prepare us for a nice, high quality sleep.
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