It’s 10 or 11pm at night and while the world is restfully sleeping, you’re laying there wide awake. Anxiety about not being able to fall asleep creeps into your mind as the tornado of your ever growing “To-Do” list swirls into the mixture of your thoughts. How are you going to get through your day tomorrow? Wouldn’t it be nice to simply go to bed, turn out the lights, and pleasantly fall into a wonderful night’s sleep? Think about how much more refreshed and energized you will feel. The health benefits to a night of rest are endless because that’s when our body is doing the most healing. I love hearing when my patients say that they are finally sleeping. Here are a few things they did that you can do to improve your chances of sweet dreams:
Turn off your gadgets
The light from your TV or phone hits the back of your eye. The light waves trigger a chemical reaction that tells the brain to produce more cortisol because the body thinks it’s daylight. Without that light, the chemical reaction isn’t triggered and the brain will then produce more Melatonin.
Drink a cup of chamomile tea
Chamomile is a gentle herb safe for both kids and adults. It has many actions and indication but one of those is to calm a person down.
Herb Pharm’s Sleeping Relaxing Tonic or Trilight Health, Snooze EZ
These are what we call “tinctures” and are full of herbs called “nervines”. Chamomile is a nervine as well but it's super gentle. Stronger nervines are things like Valerian Root. Both of these tinctures contain Valerian Root. Herb Pharm’s Sleep Relaxing Tonic has Valerian as the leading herb while the Snooze Ez does not. That means Snooze Ez as a little gentler than Relaxing Sleep tonic.
500 mg of Magnesium
There are different forms of magnesium that you can try. Magnesium Citrate which is readily available can work for many people but does have a natural laxative affect. For this reason, it’s great for people who tend towards constipation but not so great for those who have other problems. Try Magnesium Bisglycinate instead as it’s easier on the gut and still has a calming effect.
Identifying food sensitivities and removing them
Believe it or not but when my patients have a clean diet and remove foods that cause them inflammation, they report sleeping better. This is because when certain food causes gut inflammation, there’s a chemical response to the brain to say, “hey, we’re inflamed down here and need some help.” The brain then sends a message back to the gut to calm everything down but while this is happening, it disrupts your sleep. Make sense?
As with anything, insomnia can have many causes. The tips above are simple but may not work for you. Below is a link to a quick video that talks about a few scenarios with over the counter sleep aides. If what you’ve tried isn’t working, definitely check out our website and set up a free 30 minute discovery session with Dr. Lain to see about digging deeper into what’s causing the insomnia.