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Sleep is one of your
greatest healers, regenerating your brain along with every other part of
your body. Research has shown that people who chronically experience a lack
of sleep have reduced immunity, impaired work performance, and decreased
memory; they don’t handle stress well, and they are more irritable and less
happy than people who get enough sleep.
The statistics are
alarming: one in four Americans takes some kind of sleep medication.
According to the National Sleep Foundation, before Thomas Edison developed
the light bulb people slept an average of ten hours a night. Now about 70
million Americans are affected by sleep problems. The National Institutes of
Health has declared chronic insomnia a major public health problem, yet
despite the huge amount of money being spent on sleep drugs—around 2.5
million dollars annually—prescription medications don’t address the
underlying causes of insomnia. What’s worse is that these drugs produce
serious side effects, including physical and psychological addiction, memory
loss, headaches, behavioral and cognitive changes, and sickening hangovers.
One of the most common
sleep medications, Ambien, is a central nervous system depressant that slows
down normal brain function; to get off of Ambien, I recommend that you
slowly decrease the drug over a period of two to three weeks and then
discontinue taking it completely. Ambien is addictive; sudden
discontinuation could cause rebound effects that include an increase in
brain activity resulting in symptoms of nervousness and anxiety.
People often end up on
sleep medications because of a few bad nights of sleep; unfortunately, in
many cases no one bothered to ask the all-important question of why they
were having trouble sleeping in the first place. The good news is that
natural medicine not only has solutions to help you get off of sleep
medications such as Ambien, and to sleep well—it can also address the
underlying conditions if you have chronic insomnia. These include unmanaged
stress, hormonal changes (especially in women), and from a Chinese medicine
perspective, imbalances in Qi. In my new book, Natural Choices for
Women’s Health, I discuss in detail how you can treat sleep problems
naturally; if you experience chronic insomnia, here are a few examples of my
recommendations for how you can deal with the underlying causes:
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To get regular sleep,
make a plan for it. Go to bed and get up at the same time every day.
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Avoid exercising at
least five hours before bedtime.
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Turn off the television
at least 30 minutes before bedtime.
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Create a relaxing
bedtime ritual, like taking a hot bath with aromatherapy oils such as
lavender, melissa, and clary sage.
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Get off of caffeine.
Believe it or not, caffeine is a drug. It blocks the action of the brain
chemical adenosine, which tells your brain to go to sleep.
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Use coffea, a
homeopathic medicine derived from coffee. It can help induce sleep by
calming down the nervous system when the senses seem over-stimulated. The
recommended dose of coffea is three pills, with a strength of 30c, taken
under the tongue.
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Take 5HTP, a compound
derived from the amino acid L-tryptophan. This helps many people with
insomnia by acting as a precursor to serotonin. The recommended dose is
100 milligrams one hour before bedtime.
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Take valerian root as
an herbal supplement. It relaxes and restores your nervous system,
especially if your mind is racing. The herb has compounds that bind to
GABA receptors in the brain, exerting a calming effect. The recommended
dose is 300 to 500 milligrams taken one hour before bedtime. (I don’t
recommend valerian root if you are already taking 5HTP.)
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If you are a woman,
have your progesterone and estrogen levels checked. When women are
experiencing fluctuations in their hormones—for example, when they go
through perimenopause—insomnia can be a sign of low progesterone,
estrogen, or both. Supplemental bio-identical natural hormones can help
those who suffer from insomnia due to lowered hormone levels; herbal
medicines that have phytoestrogenic effects, such as black cohosh, and
phytoprogesteronic effects, such as chaste tree berry, can also help.
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Get your adrenals
tested. If you are under significant stress for prolonged periods of time,
your circadian rhythms can be thrown off. Testing your adrenals with an
Adrenal Stress Index, a saliva test, can help determine what your stress
hormone (cortisol) level is at different times. If your cortisol level is
high at night, you won’t be able to fall asleep very well. Supplements
that help regulate your sleep cycle through their actions on your adrenal
glands include phosphatidylserine, a soy-based supplement that decreases
cortisol at night, and Siberian ginseng, which increases your cortisol
level in the morning when it should be high.
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See a practitioner of
Chinese medicine to assess why you may have insomnia from an Eastern point
of view. If you are frequently frustrated, your insomnia may be due to
what is called “liver Qi stagnation” in Chinese medicine. This means that
your Qi, or vital force, isn’t flowing smoothly, which can lead to
feelings of tension in your body. If you feel anxious and have heart
palpitations associated with insomnia, you may have what is known as
“deficient heart yin,” which means that your yin energy, the feminine
aspect of your Qi, is depleted; this can cause too much “fire” (a term
used in Chinese medicine for yang energy, or the masculine aspect of your
Qi) to flare up, resulting in agitation, especially at night. Chinese
herbal medicines and acupuncture can have profound effects in the
treatment of intractable insomnia.
Sleep helps you to heal
and restore your body and mind. To give yourself all the benefits of sound
sleep, remember to create a plan for sleep every night, decrease your stress
levels, and use natural medicines if you experience insomnia. If you’ve
suffered from chronic insomnia, identify and treat the underlying causes so
that you can bring your body back into balance and fully experience the
wonderful gift of healthy sleep.
Dr. Laurie Steelsmith is a
naturopathic physician and licensed acupuncturist in Honolulu, as well as
author of the Hawaii bestselling book Natural Choices for Women’s
Health; How the Secrets of Natural and Chinese Medicine Can Create a
Lifetime of Wellness (Three Rivers Press, 2005). You can reach her
at
www.drsteelsmith.com.
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