Are you spending hours tossing and turning dreading another day at work feeling tired and irritable?
If so, you’re not alone. As many as one in ten people suffers from chronic insomnia or a sleep disorder that keeps them awake into the early hours.
Stress, physical pain and anxiety are common causes. If you’re spending hours counting sheep it could also be due to a reaction to medication or injesting stimulants late at night, such as coffee, nicotine or alcohol.
Thankfully, insomnia is a medical condition that can be treated like any other. And I don’t mean reaching for the sleeping pills. Whilst medication can help in the short term, popping a pill every time you want to get to sleep can lead to an unhealthy reliance. A few late night beers also isn’t the answer. While alcohol can make you feel drowsy, it stops you from reaching the deep level of sleep you need to feel refreshed and rejuvenated the next day.
Instead, the best way to cure insomnia is to identify the root cause.
One way is to keep a sleep diary in which you record your night time habits. This could include what you had to eat or drink, what you were doing before going to bed or what you were thinking about when trying to sleep. That way you can spot patterns in your insomnia and identify what you need to change for more hours of snoozing and less hours of stressing.
It’s also a good idea to adopt good sleep hygiene habits.
Avoid watching TV in bed but instead listen to some relaxing music.
Have a long hot bath and try natural sleep remedies, like a banana or camomile tea, just before bedtime. These habits will help your mind and body to relax so you can drift off to the land of nod.
For more advice on how to get more hours of rejuvenating sleep each night and feel more energized and alert each day, visit helpmelseep.us – the home of natural sleep solutions
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