“Sleep is a condition of body and mind which typically recurs for several hours every night, in which the nervous system is inactive, the eyes are closed, the postural muscles are relaxed, and consciousness practically suspended.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than one-third of U.S. adults get sleepless than six hours a night. Now, this is seriously a concern because lack of sleep can give you numerous health issues. Sound sleep is important because when you sleep your body gets adequate time to heal and rejuvenate, so you must find apposite ways to get proper rest and sleep. Mostly, many of us either can’t sleep or don’t get enough sleep and it is compulsory to have a sound sleep so that all activities of the day and personal commitments can be performed easily. Sleep deficiency can weaken your immune system; it can also cause mood changes like irritability, depression, and anxiety.
Take help of organic sleep assistances and fight with insomnia without any drug. Let’s have a look at some natural sleep remedies and tips to doge your insomnia, here are some do’s and don’ts:
Do’s
- One of the easiest ways to cure insomnia is taking a bubble bath or hot shower for about 90 minutes, an hour before going to bed. It is a great way to wind-down, to relax and to ease your good night sleep. Studies show that people inflicted with insomnia when took a hot bath before bedtime slept much better that night than those who didn’t.
- Drink some warm milk with honey before sleeping; it is one of the effective homemade sleep remedies because milk contains amino acid tryptophan, which increases the amount of serotonin, a hormone that works as a natural sedative.Chamomile, lemon balm, hops and passionflower are all known for their sleep-inducing properties. An even more effective herbal insomnia cure is a herbal valerian tea, consuming valerian tea before bed may help you to get a good sleep.
- If your goal is to bore yourself to sleep, you might try counting sheep, or counting backwards by multiples of three or any of a number of other counting-related mind-numbers, it is kind of mind game pushing your brain to get into sleep mode.
- Bedtime yoga is better than hitting the gym or going for a run couple of hours before bedtime. Yoga can calm your body and mind to get a good sleep. Rachel Salas, MD, associate professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine suggests to go for simple yoga postures/exercises that allow you to focus on your breathing and releasing the tension of the day.
- A relaxing sleep environment is very much needed to overcome your sleep problems, make sure your room should be in its best environment to attain a deep sleep if you want a decent sleep go for a good bed and comfortable room temperature. Make sure you have a bed with a neat and tidy bedsheet with some of the best cooling mattress pad for rest and relaxation. To add on a good environment perhaps one of the most effective insomnia cures is keep aside all the electronics item, like mobile phone, gadgets, tablets, or even a digital clocks that glow, even if you don’t wake up in the middle of the night, but the pings from your cell phone or email can interrupt your sleep cycle, so it is better not to keep the gadgets in the room where you sleep.
Don’ts
- Do you take heavy bedtime snack or late night meals? If yes, then say it a Good Bye! Late night meals reduce melatonin production which results in sleeplessness. And if you really need a snack? Choose something like a Turkey sandwich or any other food which contains tryptophan. Tryptophan is an amino acid that helps your brain to get relaxed just like serotonin and melatonin. You can get tryptophan and serotonin from carbohydrates, mostly100 percent from corn, whole grain, oats, brown rice, and quinoa.
- Caffeine should be dodged at night, so, it’s better to cut out the intake of caffeine during early evening hours and at late night. If you are addicted to caffeine, trust me, even a cup of coffee can disrupt your sleep for many uncounted hours. Though caffeine affects everyone differently, but if you are too sensitive to it, it might be worth trying to cut it down from your daily routine—or you can limit your caffeine intake to the morning or early afternoon. This can mean more than just cutting out a cup of coffee mainly late at night or early evening.
- Don’t take alcohol at night; keep it aside from you, if you want to get a sound sleep. Although alcohol is a sedative too and it can make you sleep after a couple of drinks but intake of alcohol at night interrupts the melatonin production, this can interrupt your sleep cycle. Melatonin is a sleep hormone which is produced in the pineal gland of the brain and is responsible for regulating sleep cycles in us.
- Stop smoking – If you smoke at night! While smoking you consume a lot of toxic chemicals and nicotine which are destructive for your health. Nicotine is quickly absorbed into your blood and it is the substance that makes you addictive to cigarette or smoking and as nicotine is a strong stimulant, cigarette smokers can easily suffer from insomnia if they smoke often and during bedtime. Smoking regularly can inflict disorder on the body’s natural sleep routine, and remember some of the defacement cannot be undone.
Sleep is a wonderful bliss for us. If you feel you’re not getting enough of quality sleep, try the above given do’s and don’ts which can help you to get a restful night. Having good sleep routine is crucial, you can get it by avoiding stimulants like too much of coffee, cigarettes, wine, and don’t forget to leave the electronics outside of the bedroom — both for healthier sleep and to avoid nomophobia.
