How To Give Up Insomnia by Elaine Currie, BA (Hons)

I am writing this on a Sunday morning following a very restless night when sleep just didn’t want to be my friend. I have suffered with insomnia for many years but, by using a combination of techniques, it is more or less under control.

Yesterday, I spent much too long working on changes to my website. I was enjoying it, so the time shot by. I ended up sending out for a big Chinese meal late in the evening. A vast quantity of spicy food was washed down with several glasses of wine. If you want to lie awake half the night, just do as I did. The remedy is simple and obvious. Time to get a grip on the lifestyle.

Self-inflicted insomnia is easily cured. What I call "real" insomnia is a beast of a much deeper hue, debilitating and much harder to defeat. Even so, it is not impossible to overcome and there is a whole range of things you can do to get the upper hand.

Here I should state that I do not pretend to have any special medical or therapeutic knowledge and I would not advise anybody to stop taking their prescribed medication. I am just sharing my experiences in the hope that they might help other people who are struggling through wakeful nights.

The following tips for getting off to sleep are pretty well known but I think they are worth repeating.

1. Keep the bedroom just for bed with no reminders of daytime activities like work or study. Decorate the room in restful colours and use soft lighting. Make sure the temperature is comfortable and the ventilation adequate. Hang curtains which are heavy enough to block out the early morning light.

3. Have a bedtime routine. This does not involve doing anything special, it is just a matter of doing the same things in the same order each night. We all have things we do regularly: empty the dishwasher, put out the cat, lock the front door, set the alarm, brush teeth etc. These routine things are our steps away from the activity of the day, towards the restful night.

4. Make a soak in a warm bath part of your nightly ritual. Adding a few drops of aromatherapy oil to the water makes it doubly relaxing, soft background music makes the experience positively decadent.

5. Don’t drink alcohol late at night. A nightcap might make you feel drowsy but it will disrupt your natural sleep rhythms and exacerbate your problem.

6. A warm milky drink is the best thing to have last thing at night. (Yes, our mothers were right when they made us drink cocoa.) There are tons of instant milky drinks available and most ranges have low fat options. If you don’t like this milky, chocolatey type of drink, try out herbal teas but avoid anything containing caffeine.

7. Exercise is important but should be performed several hours before bedtime otherwise the adrenaline will still be pumping around your system and keeping you awake.

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BIO:

This is one of a series of articles
published by the author, Elaine Currie, BA(Hons)
at http://www.huntingvenus.com
The author’s monthly newsletter is available free
from mailto:networkerhvm@ReportsNetwork.com

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