End Sleepless Nights With These Natural Insomnia Remedies

 

We’re all familiar with that silly image of the person who resorts to counting sheep when they just can’t seem to fall asleep. But when you’re the one who’s been tossing and turning all night, insomnia is no laughing matter.

As many as one in four adults report suffering from mild insomnia, found a recent Harvard survey. That inability to fall and stay asleep could stem from a short-term issue, or be the result of a lifetime of poor sleep habits. Either way, it can’t be fixed with something like sleeping pills.

Here’s why insomnia happens, why you can’t rely on prescription meds to solve the problem, and how to develop healthier sleep habits for a lifetime of quality snoozing.
Why Insomnia Happens

Insomnia can be temporary—or it can be long-term. But regardless of how long you have to deal with it for, it’s never fun.

At some point or another, most of us will experience a short, unpleasant bout of insomnia. Often, it’s the result of stress or a change in routine (like a new work schedule or having a baby), or medications that mess with sleep like antidepressants, blood pressure meds, allergy meds, and corticosteroids. The good news is that usually, once you find a way to deal with the situation, your sleep pattern will get back to normal.

But other times, insomnia can become a long-term thing. Sometimes, that can happen as the result of a more serious health condition, like depression, anxiety, or sleep apnea. Other times, insomnia can stem from crappy sleep habits, like eating too many heavy snacks before bed, sleeping in an uncomfortable environment, or staying glued to your smartphone or tablet all night long.

Either way, missing out on sleep leaves you feeling exhausted, irritable, and generally unable to function during the day. And over time, it can put you at risk for health issues like obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes.

But no matter how long your insomnia lasts for, there’s usually a way to deal with the root of the problem and start sleeping better. And fortunately, there are plenty of options to consider.

Why You Should Steer Clear of Sleep Meds

Sleeping pills and other sleep-promoting pharmaceuticals can offer a short-term solution to a temporary bout of insomnia. And plenty of people use them. But often, prescription sleep aids come with unpleasant side effects like headaches, sore muscles, constipation, dry mouth, daytime fatigue, trouble concentrating, dizziness, and more. Add them all up, and they’re about as bad—if not worse–than your garden variety sleep deprivation.
Still, even if you’re one of the lucky few who don’t experience side effects from taking sleeping pills, you likely won’t benefit for long. Most people quickly build up a tolerance to the sedative effects of sleeping meds. Which either means that you have to take higher and higher doses to get the same effect, or they stop working altogether.

Taking sleeping pills is a lot like crash dieting. Sure, both might work in the short term. But if you want to up your odds of achieving longer, more restful sleep for a lifetime, you’ve really got to build healthy, pro-sleep habits.

Either way, it doesn’t add up to a healthy sustainable solution. Taking sleeping pills is a lot like crash dieting. Sure, both might work in the short term. But if you want to up your odds of achieving longer, more restful sleep for a lifetime, you’ve really got to build healthy, pro-sleep habits.
Fortunately, doing that is easier than you might think. Below, we’ll take a look at the multitude of lifestyle changes—both big and small—that you can make to help you sleep better. We’ll also explore proven herbal remedies that can give you a relaxation boost when you really need it, minus the side effects that tend to come with prescription meds.

Making Time for Exercise

In case you missed the memo, being physically active is essential for sleeping well. Mounting evidence shows that people who exercise regularly tend to snooze better than their couch potato counterparts—especially when it comes to those with chronic insomnia.
Not convinced? Consider this. One study, published in the journal SLEEP, concluded that people who get 60 minutes of exercise five days per week have more normal REM sleep than non-exercisers. But you might not need to sweat it out for quite that long to reap the benefits. Other findings show that insomniacs who engage in thirty minute spurts of exercise just three or four times a week sleep for nearly an hour longer than sedentary folks, and wake up less frequently during the night.

And if you can swing it, working out in the morning might be even more beneficial, according to one recent study. Experts can’t say why, exactly, it could have something to do with morning exercise’s ability to help regulate the secretion hormones that help manage blood pressure, which may lead to better sleep.

Why is working out seemingly so beneficial? The mechanisms aren’t entirely known, but National Sleep Foundation experts say that it could have to do with exercise’s ability promote feelings of relaxation and reduce feelings of stress, anxiety, and depression. Staying active might also help to keep your body’s natural sleep-wake cycle in sync—particularly if you do it outside (more on that below).

Still, the explanation might be even simpler: Think about the days when you’re running around all day, or after you’ve wrapped up a really tough workout. Don’t you just feel more tired on those days compared to the ones where you just lay around all day and do nothing? Thought so.

Using Sunlight to Promote Healthy Melatonin Production

The sun might force you awake in the morning, but it’s also essential for helping you achieve restful sleep at night. That’s because your body relies on natural light to figure out what time it is, and determine whether to pump out energizing hormones or ones that leave you feeling relaxed and sleepy, like melatonin.

In other words, daylight helps your body’s natural clock—which is dictated by the 24-hour cycle of day and night—know when to feel awake and when to feel tired. When your hypothalamus—the gland responsible for regulating sleep and energy levels—senses a change in light, it tells your body to ramp up or ramp down its production of the sleep hormone melatonin. During the day, you feel energized and alert because you don’t produce much melatonin. At night, you produce more, so you feel sleepy.

One way to keep everything on schedule is by flooding your body with light as soon as you get out of bed, which sends a clear message to your body that it’s time to wake up. Try opening your blinds, exercising outside, or even going sans sunglasses on your way to work.