Insomnia Cures- 5 Solutions to Help You Get to Sleep and Stay Asleep

By: Guest Author

Published: September 13, 2018

Contributed by Mitravinda- Guest Contributor

Across every continent, you’ll find insomniacs galore. It is estimated that about 30-40 percent of the world’s population world suffers from sleep disorders. Insomnia manifests primarily as difficulty in falling asleep and inability in staying asleep. If you too are afflicted with insomnia you might be trying hard, employing every wile you could, in restive hours of the night to woo sleep. But, much to your despair, the latter woefully chooses to stay aloof.

Causes

Insomnia is usually may be caused by mental health issues like anxiety, depression or maniac disorders, or, physiological ailments like, arthritis, peptic ulcers, breathing difficulty or other diseases.

5 Ways to Beat insomnia & Get better sleep:

By no means is insomnia a monster impossible to combat and defeat. Experts studying insomnia and other sleep disorders have come up with a range of effective solutions to help out insomniacs.

1. Keep Your Bedroom Environment Soothing

Your bedroom should be free of noise while you go to sleep. To prevent any outside light from coming in dark window shades could be used. A sound advice is to keep your bed only for sleeping. So, if you are into the ritual of reading or listening to music before sleeping, do it away from the bed. Beware of your phone and laptop. The blue wavelength light emitted from them suppresses melatonin, a natural hormone controlling your sleep cycle.

2. CBT-I Therapy

In the Cognitive behavior therapy for insomnia (CBT-I Therapy), the therapist encourages the patient to maintain a fixed time for going to sleep and waking up. In case you find it hard to sleep or wake up in between, it is advised that you get out of the bed to engage in some light activity. The therapy aims to alter your cognition for perceiving the time in bed as only for sleeping.

As per studies, 70 % to 80 % of patients experience benefits from the treatment.  Several insomniacs report sleep betterment within a short period.

3. Abstain from Stimulants

Nicotine and caffeine prevent you from falling asleep and impair your ability to reach deep sleep. Smoking impacts your sleep adversely as well, making it shallow and fragmented. Alcohol’s consumption late at night will thin your sleep as the body needs to metabolize it.

4. Magnesium Supplements & Medication

Magnesium works like magic for the insomniacs. It decreases the levels of cortisol, a stress hormone and relaxes the muscles. This, in turn, helps you sleep better.

If you are a chronic insomniac, your physician may recommend you medicines that inhibit chemicals in the brain that keep you awake. Commonly  prescribed drugs include triazolem, estazolem, zaleplon and temazepam . These should be taken with caution because they cause side-effects like drowsiness, and can be addictive.

5. Exercise

Regular exercise not only keeps you healthy but also improves your sleep. Medical experts recommend a minimum of about two hours of aerobic exercises, such as jogging or swimming.

However, don’t indulge in these vigorous exercises too close to the bed-time. The heart-beat and adrenaline levels take about three hours to stabilize.

Chase Away Insomnia, Sleep in Bliss

Insomnia is like a dreadful moth that night after night keeps stinging your sleep, keeping you restlessly awake. However, with a diligent practice of the above-mentioned measures, sooner or later, you can chase it away, to enjoy regular, deep and uninterrupted sleep.Authors Bio -Mitravinda is a Nutritionist at DietChart with a doctoral degree in Food Science and Nutrition. She is a teacher, researcher and an author. Her passion for the subject prompted her to start writing blogs on various nutrition-related topics such as high protein vegetarian foods, diet chart for weight loss, and diet chart for weight loss in 7 days, etc. Through her blogs, she wishes to help people gain a deeper understanding about the relationship between food, nutrition, lifestyle and health. 

The views expressed herein this article, written by a guest contributor, do not necessarily represent those of the Red Hot Mamas organization. The content is for informational purposes and should not substitute the advice of your doctor.