Olidhealth.com – People commonly have one or two sleepless nights a month because of work or doing something with their partner. However, if it happens almost every day and makes your day ruined, It may be a sign of insomnia. This disorder will cause many problems if don’t be fixed. How to deal with insomnia? Well, there are various ways to get rid of this pesky disorder with change your routine or consuming some sleep-inducing food. Keep reading this article to archive your way to fight insomnia and get sleep naturally.
What Is Insomnia?
Insomnia is a condition that makes people hard to get sleep during the nighttime and may affect their productivity. Generally, this condition occurs in every person who has sleep deprivation, mental problem, or impairment of sleep management. Besides that, it occurs in adults and elder people more often than younger ones because of unhealthy lifestyles, overwork stress, and some medical condition. If it is left untreated, it could lead to complications diseases like mental disorders, heart and cardiovascular illness, and many more. Early awareness is needed to treat insomnia before worsens [1].
How To Deal with Insomnia
Insomnia occurs in every person for different reasons and sometimes it could be healed naturally. However, how to get good sleep depends on some conditions. Moreover, sleep condition is peculiar for each person. For example, some people can sleep with the light on and others can’t do that. Below this section, there is some way that helps you to deal with your insomnia. Try some of it may lighten your insomnia symptom and promote good sleep.
Control Your Napping Time
The first one to get rid of insomnia is to manage your nap. People tend to have more napping if they have sleep deprivation and it is bad that could disturb their body’s clock. Moreover, napping is not helpful at all to fulfill your sleep deficiency. Limit your nap and go your activity normally. The patient is the key to doing this, so fight your drowsiness across the day until sleep time comes.
Too Much Thought Affect Your Sleep Life
Hardworking people usually have sleep deprivation because of their overload work. Their mind is constantly working although they are at home or even at sleep time. Sometimes, their though are carried away into their dream and make them hard to have good sleep. As a result of bad sleep, they may feel tired after waking up in the morning. That is also a sign of insomnia.
To deal with it, you should clear your mind before sleep. Erasing your worry, positive thought, trying to calm down, and relaxing is some way to help your insomnia. If you are used to having deep thought, transfer it by writing on paper and forget it before sleep, so you don’t have to worry about later days and do your activity with a fresh mind.
Reduce Alcohol And Caffeine Consumption
Hyperarousal condition makes some people have insomnia and force them to stay awake. This condition also could be triggered by drink consumption such as alcohol and caffeinated drink. If you want to get rid of your sleepless night, try to reduce these drink intakes. Alcohol and caffeine commonly have stimulant effects to induce arousal over the night until its dawn. Take this consideration positively to help your insomnia problem and improve your healthy lifestyle.
Take Non-caffeine Tea To Relaxation Your Mind
Help your insomnia with some herbal tea may be good to induce sleep. Moreover, there is also numerous herbal tea that doesn’t have any caffeine such as chamomile tea, lavender tea, or peppermint tea. Some special substances within these teas also help to decrease anxiety, depression and promote a better sleep experience. Consume this herbal tea 2 hours before sleep and relaxation your mind to stimulate sleepiness naturally.
Manage Stress Could Reduce Insomnia Symptom
Insomnia is also usually caused by stress and mental disorder, so what you gonna do is try to reduce it with meditation or do your hobby. Managing stress is important to keep your productivity for the following day and clear up bad thoughts before sleeping. For instance, mindfulness meditation is good to improve sleep and relieving insomnia, based on research in 2019 [2]. Moreover, doing your hobby could forget your working thoughts for a moment and induce happy hormones to take over your mind. Keeping positive though could help to deal with insomnia and better sleep quality.
Aromatherapy For Insomnia
Relaxation scent may help you to deal with insomnia. Moreover, a pleasant scent could activate the ‘happy’ hormone to reduce stress and create a good mood. Some type of aromatherapy is a good choice to make you fall asleep naturally. Essential oil like lavender oil will do the trick to fix your mood and give you a pleasant mind. Apply it on your skin before sleep to improve sleepiness. Another aromatherapy product you should try is aromatic incense. Ignite it and let its smoke fill up your room and increase your sleep quality.
If you have a night bath habit, use some aromatherapy candles as fresheners. It also has the same relaxation effect on your thought after finishing your deadline and brings comfort sensation to relieve insomnia. Don’t ignite candles during sleep time since it may be bad if left uncontrollable.
Take Massage Therapy
Try to help your body with a relaxation massage with your partner. You can use an essential oil like lavender oil that could stimulate pleasant sensations and promote sleep time. Massage gently on the back with little pressure to relieve stiffness muscle. It helps you if your bad posture at work causes your insomnia.
Moreover, you can call professional massage therapy if it’s necessary. Some professional massage techniques like shujing message also reportedly improve sleep quality and other sleep problems [3].
Lavender Product Could Relieve Insomnia
Lavender is an herb that is commonly used in oil form as a diffuser or aromatherapy to give a pleasant scent. Besides its effect as perfume, it’s also a good medication to treat insomnia. A study in 2013 found that lavender is the best herb to improve sleep quality and reduce insomnia [4]. Moreover, it also could treat neurological disorders and mental illnesses such as anxiety, depression, Alzheimer’s, and pain-related disorder. You can use Lavender by ingesting or applying it to relieve insomnia. However, check its dosage recommendation since it also has side effects such as nausea and dizziness.
Stay Away From Electronic Before Sleeping
Yes, digitalize electronic era make it hard to get proper sleep since it is interesting to get up-to-date news. Moreover, blue light is bad for the eye and also distracts your sleep time. It stimulates your mind to keep awake. We recommend turning off notifications and put far away before sleeping. Some people also say that electronics give radiation effects to harm your body unconsciously. Keeping away your electronic item may help you to deal with your insomnia and get proper sleep time.
Set Time For Sleep And Wake Up At The Same Time Regularly
Insomnia also can happen if you don’t have proper sleep time. Set your sleep and wake up time precisely at the same time. For example, you set your sleep time at 10 PM and wake up at 6 AM (8 hours sleep) to prevent sleep deprivation. Keep this schedule for the week (including weekends) to have its benefit for getting sleep time naturally.
Doing a Physical Routine Is Good To Balance Your Sleep Time
Workout and exercise could promote good sleep since it improves the metabolism system and balance the body’s function. A simple physical routine like walking and running is also good to keep your body stay healthy. If you don’t like outdoor exercise, home aerobic exercise such as yoga is also a good option to reduce your insomnia. Do this regularly to get soundly sleep at night and increase your productivity. Moreover, you should have this physical routine before you hit 30 because it’s important to get a healthy body at later times.
Consuming Mixed Banana, Honey, And Milk
These mixed foods are good to induce sleepiness. Why? Banana, milk, and honey are high in sugar and carb. The stomach gut needs extra power to ingest it. As a result, energy would be focused on your stomach and make you sleepy. The mixture of milk and honey to promote sleep has been performed and it has a positive effect to increase sleep quality [5]. Moreover, Potassium in bananas is good to improve good sleep [6].
However, this consumption is not suitable for people with digestion disorders and diabetic people. Moreover, eat this food 3-4 hours before you get to sleep because it takes some time to have its effect.
Cognitive Therapy May Help Your Problem
Sometimes you need professionals to help your insomnia. Consider having cognitive therapy to relieve your sleepless night since there may help your thought and mind. Furthermore, Insomnia also can be caused by stress. Relieving it could promote your sleep time. In cognitive therapy, they may give you some advice, a sleep schedule, or some medication to get rid of your insomnia. So, trust in their treatment could help your problem quickly.
Avoid late-night Snack
Some nutritionists are not recommended to have snacks at a late time because it will disturb the metabolism system. Snacking also could aggravate acid reflux and make uncomfortable sleep that leads to insomnia. If you are hungry and want to eat so badly, choose the perfect time to do it. Eat food at least 3 hours before sleep to give some time for the stomach to ingest it. Consuming food before bedtime could make uncomfortable feelings during sleeping and tend to awaken more often [7]. Changing your late-night snack habit could relieve your insomnia.
Adjust Your Comfort Zone In Your Bedroom
The key to having good sleep is to have a good environment to get rest in relax. For instance, you can use a blindfold to reduce light, earmuffs to block noise, blanked to make it warm, and if necessary use air conditioning to balance your body temperature during sleep time. Moreover, Some people say that classical music or reading some book before sleeping could induce sleepiness. The decision is yours to make your room as comfortable as possible for you to have proper sleep.
Deep Breath And Clear Your Mind Before Sleeping
Taking a deep breath before sleep may help you to find a calm zone and take you into a deep sleep. This attempt is also a good alternative option to get proper sleep and prevent insomnia. Moreover, you should do it while clearing up your mind to a ready state for getting sleep. It looks like meditation in the supine position, but it works for some people to want fast sleep at early night. You should try this to help find calmness and promote your sleep quality.
Conclusion
Insomnia commonly occurs in every people across the world. If left untreated, it may cause some problems at a later time. How to deal with it is to change habits, and eat some nutritious food to reduce insomnia and promote sleep quality. For example, manage proper sleep time by 8 hours sleep a day, use lavender oil as a sleep inducer, and consume mixed foods to make you sleepy. Some people may have their own way to deal with it and these articles help you to find a solution for your insomnia problem.
As of last advice, you shouldn’t use medication to treat this disorder since it would make addiction for your body to take more of it. Call your doctor if your insomnia gets worse and occurring another symptom like nausea, vomiting, and dizziness.
Reference
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1978319/ – General information of Insomnia syndrome.
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6557693/ – Mindfulness meditation improve sleep quality.
[3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26571900/ – Shujing massage could treat insomnia.
[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3612440/ – Lavender benefit to reduce insomnia, and other mental disorders.
[5] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30390870/ – Promote better sleep with the milk-honey mixture
[6] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4440346/ – Good food to improve sleep quality
[7] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34511160/ – Sleep efficiency that related to a late-night snack consumption