INSOMNIA: 10 TIPS TO BEAT IT INSTANTLY

Insomnia is a common sleep disorder that can make it hard to fall asleep, hard to stay asleep, or cause you to wake up too early and not be able to get back to sleep. You may still feel tired when you wake up. Insomnia can sap not only your energy level and mood but also your health, work performance and quality of life.

Insomnia symptoms may include:

1. Difficulty falling asleep at night
2. Waking up during the night
3. Waking up too early
4. Not feeling well-rested after a night’s sleep
5. Daytime tiredness or sleepiness
6. Irritability, depression or anxiety
7. Difficulty paying attention, focusing on tasks.

Causes

Insomnia usually is caused due to stress, trauma or anxiety.
Few short-term causes could be due to disruptions in circadian rhythm- biological clock of sleep-wake cycle of the human body, which could be because of:

1. Working in shifts – If there is irregular change in work timings
2. Environmental noise
3. Jet lag – travelling to different time zones might disturb our sleep pattern for one or two days
4. Moving and sleeping at high altitudes
5. Psychological issues which cause insomnia includes Depression, bipolar disorder, psychotic disorders and anxiety disorders.
6. Medical conditions involving chronic pain
7. Hormone shifts during menstruation or menopause

READ ASLO: 5 SLEEPING DISORDERS: CAUSES AND TREATMENTS

10 Tips to Beat Insomnia

1. Wake up at the same time each day. It is tempting to sleep late on weekends, especially if you have had poor sleep during the week. However, if you suffer from insomnia you should get up at the same time every day in order to train your body to wake at a consistent time.
2. Eliminate alcohol and stimulants like nicotine and caffeine. The effects of caffeine can last for several hours, perhaps up to 24 hours, so the chances of it affecting sleep are significant. Caffeine may not only cause difficulty initiating sleep but may also cause frequent awakenings.
   Alcohol may have a sedative effect for the first few hours following consumption, but it can then lead to frequent arousals and a non-restful night’s sleep. If you are on medications that act as stimulants, such as decongestants or asthma inhalers, ask your doctor when they should best be taken to help minimize any effect on sleep.
3. Limit naps. While napping seems like a proper way to catch up on missed sleep, it is not always so. It is important to establish and maintain a regular sleep pattern and train oneself to associate sleep with cues like darkness and a consistent bedtime. Napping can affect the quality of nighttime sleep.
4. Limit activities in bed. The bed is for sleeping and having sex and that’s it. If you suffer from insomnia, do not balance the checkbook, study, or make phone calls, for example, while in bed or even in the bedroom, and avoid watching television or listening to the radio. All these activities can increase alertness and make it difficult to fall asleep.
5. Exercise regularly. Regular exercise can improve sleep quality and duration. However, exercising immediately before bedtime can have a stimulant effect on the body and should be avoided. Try to finish exercising at least three hours before you plan to retire for the night.
6. Do not eat or drink right before going to bed. Eating a late dinner or snacking before going to bed can activate the digestive system and keep you up. If you suffer from gastroesophageal reflux (GERD) or heartburn, it is even more important to avoid eating and drinking right before bed since this can make your symptoms worse. In addition, drinking a lot of fluids prior to bed can overwhelm the bladder, requiring frequent visits to the bathroom that disturb your sleep.
7. Make your sleeping environment comfortable. Temperature, lighting, and noise should be controlled to make the bedroom conducive to falling (and staying) asleep. Your bed should feel comfortable and if you have a pet that sleeps in the room with you, consider having the pet sleep somewhere else if it tends to make noise in the night.
8. Get all your worrying over with before you go to bed. If you find you lay in bed thinking about tomorrow, consider setting aside a period of time — perhaps after dinner — to review the day and to make plans for the next day. The goal is to avoid doing these things while trying to fall asleep. It is also useful to make a list of, say, work-related tasks for the next day before leaving work. That, at least, eliminates one set of concerns.
9. Reduce stress. There are a number of relaxation therapies and stress reduction methods you may want to try to relax the mind and the body before going to bed. Examples include progressive muscle relaxation (perhaps with audio tapes), deep breathing techniques, imagery, meditation, and biofeedback.
10. Consider participating in cognitive therapy. Cognitive therapy helps some people with insomnia identify and correct inappropriate thoughts and beliefs that may contribute to insomnia. In addition, cognitive therapy can give you the proper information about sleep norms, age-related sleep changes, and help set reasonable sleep goals, among other things.

It’s important to avoid alcohol, caffeine or spicy foods before bed, but there are some foods that help fight insomnia.

Foods to eat:

1. Dairy products such as milk, low-fat yogurt, and cheese.
2. Poultry products such as turkey, chicken
3. Seafood which includes shrimp, salmon, halibut, tuna, sardines, cod
4. Variety of nuts and seeds such as flax, sesame, pumpkin, sunflower, cashews, peanuts, almonds, walnuts
5. Legumes such as kidney beans, lima beans, black beans split peas, chickpeas
6. Fruits such as apples, bananas, peaches and avocados
7. Vegetables such as spinach, broccoli, turnip greens, asparagus, onions, seaweed
8. Grains such as wheat, rice, barley, corn, oats

Up to 35% of people occasionally experience insomnia-like symptoms, such as trouble falling or staying asleep. These bouts of sleeplessness do not necessarily mean that a person has insomnia, which is a formally defined sleep disorder.

Sleep difficulties are only categorized as insomnia when they cause a person distress and begin to negatively affect aspects of their life, like work or relationships. To be classified as chronic insomnia, the symptoms must persist for at least three months.

Talk with your doctor if you are having difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep. You should also talk with a doctor if you have significant sleepiness or other daytime impairments.