It’s 3am and you’re staring at the ceiling. You’re tired. You know that you’ll have to wake up to start another day at 6am to go to work, and that situation only adds more stress and frustration. And you know that you will have a stressful day at work and that you’ll be feeling very tired, especially throughout the morning, until lunch time. But you’ll have to face the day, sleep or no sleep.
Insomnia can be caused by stress!
Stress can trigger insomnia in your life, if you are leading a life with lots of worries and troubles, for instance, if you’re experiencing a lot of strain in key relationships, you can start feeling depressed, and that contributes to comfort eating and thus you can start gaining weight very quickly. That in turn can cause other problems, such as compulsive eating.
If you are active and exercise a lot, that can help you to avoid gaining more unnecessary weight, but you still can gain weight even if you’re exercising (I heard somewhere that the ratio is 80% is what you eat and only 20% is when you exercise, so you have to watch what you eat more than concentrating solely on exercising)
Weight gain can make you start getting more self conscious and trigger more bad feelings about yourself, which in turn lead to more depression and eating disorders.
Insomnia is Mental Suffering!
Sleep deprivation is one of the worst forms of mental suffering. It can be caused by other factors apart from stress, such as anxiety, hormonal imbalance, business or any other factor that will keep you thinking too much about a determined subject. Hopefully nowadays the information gets delivered very quickly and we now have alternatives to try out.
A five-second way to relax
According to cup of Jo blog, there is a podcast called Sleep With Me, where a guy “bores people to sleep with his slow-paced, meandering stories”. Apparently he is making a good success, as it is in the top 50 at iTunes. But the bottom line is, people say it really works! So who knows, you might give this one a try.
There are also other alternatives, if you want to keep it natural.
Natural Insomnia Helpers
- Reduce Stress – Stress can severely damage your life and if you don’t take it over, it will take over you. I find that praying can help. Solving unresolved conflicts also can do a world of good to your mind. Or simply slowing down and letting your worries to the side can help too.
- Cut the caffeine – If you suffer from insomnia, you should not consume any caffeine. It is bad news for coffee lovers, but unfortunately coffee and sleep don’t mix. Even if you had the odd coffee in the morning to help you get through the day, you still run the risk of that caffeine in your system if you are too sensitive. Sometimes people are sensitive and don’t even realise.
- Consider taking supplements
- Good quality vitamins are excellent for your health.Vitamin A and D can help.
- Valerian capsules are good helpers too. You can get them at Holland & Barrett online if you live in the UK. This is my go-to store if I want to buy some natural supplements.
- Magnesium and potassium are good to help bring on sleep.
- Lavender oil is also a good sleep aider. You can put some drops of oil on your neck just before you go to bed.
- Create a Bedtime routine
- Have a set bedtime—If you train your brain to sleep every night on the same time, it will catch up with you eventually
- Dim lights while you are getting ready. Bright lights won’t help. And don’t take your laptop to bed either.
- Set a routine where you do the same things every night. It helps.
- Have a tea. Chamomile tea is well known for its properties in aiding sleep.
- Take a bath or a shower. It helps relax the muscles in your body. I usually don’t go to bed without taking a relaxing shower just before. I just love the smell and feeling of cleanliness when I lay down. It helps me to relax.
I hope I helped with these tips.
Sweet Dreams!!
Do you have any tip that you found useful on your fight against insomnia? Leave it on the comments below.
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