How To Get A Good Night's Sleep

Medications aren't always the best solution for insomnia. Some simple lifestyle strategies may help:

1) Stay on schedule. Go to bed and get up around the same time every day. The body's natural sleep-wake patterns, called circadian rhythms, can be disrupted by abrupt schedule swings. Maintaining a regular bedtime schedule helps train the body to sleep at the desired time.

2) Make your bed a resting place, not a media center. Go to bed when you're tired, but if you find you can't sleep, get out of bed. Go into another room and watch television or read a book. When you're truly sleepy, go back to bed.
3) Say "No" to Naps. If you nap during the day, you will require less sleep at night. This can cause insomnia, and your sleep times may become too brief to include high quality deep sleep.

4) Choose the right soundtrack. Use a fan or a white-noise generator in the bedroom to create a soothing sound and help mask other noises.

5) Cut back on caffeine and alcohol. Don't drink anything caffeinated after lunchtime. Avoid alcohol late in the evening, or give it up entirely for a while. Even though alcohol acts as a sedative, it disrupts normal sleep patterns and causes awakenings later during the night.

6) See the light. Properly timed light exposure can shift the body's sleep-wake cycle. People who wake up earlier than they'd like should minimize morning light with heavy curtains or comfortable eyeshades and maximize their exposure to bright light in the evening before bedtime. People who have trouble falling asleep at bedtime and then tend to oversleep in the morning can shift their rhythms earlier with the reverse strategy.

7) Try warm milk at bedtime.This old advice does seem to help some people. The effect may be strictly psychological — but so what, if it works? There also may be a physiological explanation: The warm beverage may temporarily increase the core body temperature, and the subsequent temperature drop may hasten sleep.

8) Check your medications. Many medications can cause insomnia, so ask your doctor or pharmacist about all the drugs you take. For example, the decongestants that many people take at bedtime can have a stimulating effect.

9) Don't self-medicate. There's little evidence that supplements and other over-the-counter "sleep aids" are effective. In some cases, there are safety concerns. Antihistamine sleep aids, in particular, have a long duration of action and can cause daytime drowsiness.

You are now at the site of Insomnia-How you could finally get your sleep!

6 Reasons for Good Sleep

1. Learning and memory
Sleep helps your brain commit new information to memory. People who get a good night's sleep before taking tests or performing a new task usually do better than people who are tested immediately after learning something new. Other studies seem to show that people are more insightful or creative in their problem solving after getting a full night’s sleep.

2. Weight
A constant lack of sleep may cause weight gain by altering the way the body processes and stores carbohydrates, and by stimulating the release of cortisol, a stress hormone. Excess cortisol has been linked to an increase in abdominal fat. Loss of sleep also reduces levels of leptin, a hormone that suppresses appetite, and increases ghrelin (GRELL-in), an appetite-stimulating hormone — a combination that can encourage eating.

3. Safety
There’s no evidence that we ever adapt to chronic sleep loss. This sleep "debt" contributes to daytime sleepiness, including “microsleeps,” seconds-long daytime dips into sleep. These lapses may cause falls, injury and road accidents. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that each year, drowsiness causes 100,000 vehicle crashes, resulting in 76,000 injuries and 1,500 deaths.

4. Quality of life
Long- and short-term sleep loss causes irritability, impatience, inability to concentrate and moodiness. Too little sleep can leave you so tired that you don’t want to spend time with family and friends or have sex. Poor sleep affects the ability to work. Sleep disorders such as insomnia and sleep apnea are associated with depression.

5. Heart and lung health
We don’t know much about how chronic sleep loss affects heart health and our lungs. But serious sleep disorders such as insomnia and sleep apnea have been linked to high blood pressure and irregular heart beat. Lack of sleep increases stress hormone levels and inflammation, two factors associated with heart attacks.

6. Immunity
Although not all the facts are clear, scientists have found that sleep deprivation alters the body's immune system, which fights off illness. For example, sleep loss around the time of a flu shot has been shown to reduce the production of flu-fighting antibodies.

You are now at the site of Insomnia-How you could finally get your sleep!