Bo-Tau. Ten Tips for a Good Night s Sleep. Dr David Lewis. Insomnia can be related to a wide range of psychological problems.

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1 Bo-Tau Ten Tips for a Good Night s Sleep By Dr David Lewis Insomnia can be related to a wide range of psychological problems. These include, worries, excessive stress and depression that can cause a particularly nasty kind of insomnia characterised by early waking. It can also be due to drinking caffeine in tea, coffee, cola drinks, or too much alcohol within a couple of hours of getting into bed. Other causes of poor sleep include over eating before going to bed; smoking (nicotine is a powerful stimulant); a stuffy nose; a scratchy throat; a room which is too warm and/or too dry; strenuous physical or mental activity immediately before trying to sleep. Your own body rhythms can be the culprit as well. Like everything in the natural world, human beings are controlled by internal "clocks" which regulate the formation of hormones, determine when we are hungry, and make us feel sleepy. If you keep track of your energy levels for a week or so you'll probably identify several sleepy periods during the average day. These are your prime times for sleep. If you can't sleep during this period it may be several hours before your energy cycle comes around again to a drowsy period, making it difficult for you to fall asleep until then. Holidays provide an excellent opportunity to monitor natural energy cycles. During this time do what comes naturally. 1

2 Eat when you are hungry and sleep when tired. After a couple of days you'll notice that your appetite and need for rest are greatest about the same time every day. These represent your natural rhythms for eating and sleeping. If you are one of the many millions who suffer with insomnia, here are ten practical ways of helping yourself to enjoy a good night's rest. 1] Try and stick to a regular sleep schedule. Our body thrives on regularity and develop habits very quickly. Sleeping is no exception. Decide how many hours sleep you need and then work backwards from the time you have to get up. Start following a schedule of going to bed at the same time each night - even if you don't always feel sleepy - and waking again when your allotted sleep time of around eight hours is completed. While you may have to almost literally drag yourself out of bed for the first few days, within a couple of weeks your body will have adjusted to the new schedule. But you must stick to this routine even at weekends. Doctors have found that disciplined scheduling can cure even severe sleep problems. 2] If you have not fallen asleep within 15 minutes of going to bed, get out again and do some non-stimulating activity such as listening to relaxing music in your armchair, or even washing the dishes! The purpose of getting out of bed is to prevent a subconscious association being formed between lying in bed and feeling wideawake. Once this happens the mere act of getting into bed can actually make you less likely to fall asleep, even if only moments earlier you have been contentedly dozing in your favourite armchair! I should add that while this getting out of bed suggestion is supported by many sleep researchers there are others who believe that, as long as you are resting comfortably, even when awake, it's better to remain in bed. In my opinion this very much depends on whether or not you are able to prevent negative thoughts racing through your mind. 2

3 I'm sure you are all too familiar with this pattern in which one worry follows another at an ever-faster pace. Equally damaging is becoming so irritated about not being able to sleep that you make the problem worse! If either of these should occur, then my advice is to get out of bed and distract yourself with some relaxing activity until you feel drowsy again. 3] Promote physical tiredness by taking some kind of exercise during the day. This is especially important if your job involves mostly sitting still and using your head. But avoid exercising immediately before going to bed since the immediate effect is to make you more alert. 4] Avoid caffeine and chocolate for six hours before going to bed since caffeine is a powerful mind altering drug that will make you far more wakeful. 5] Mind and body need to wind down, a process that can take up to two hours, so develop a bedtime ritual. This can be as simple as reading a book in bed or listening to music, taking a bath or shower, or working on a hobby. Anything, in fact, that is enjoyable but neither physically or mentally strenuous. Never work on mentally demanding activities right up to the moment you undress for bed. Always place a buffer of at least 30 minutes before stopping intellectually taxing tasks and going to bed. 6] Some people find a snack makes them drowsy, especially if it consists of milk, milk products, or poultry. This works because these foods contain a substance called tryptophan that acts as a mild tranquillizer. 7] Ensure your bed temperature is neither too cold nor too warm. Eighty degrees feels the same to your body whether caused by summer heat or too many blankets. 8] An excessively dry room can keep you awake by dehydrating your throat and nose. One method of increase the relative humidity is to purchase a humidifier but for little or no cost you can achieve the same effect simply by placing a bowl of water in the bedroom. 3

4 9] Be prepared to experiment. Not every treatment works equally well everybody. You may need to try several different approaches and combinations of approaches before finding the sleep promoting routine that work best for you. 10] If at all possible avoid depending on sleeping pills. While these can be helpful in the short term, to tide you over a difficult or traumatic period of your life, for example, medical opinion now holds that these are not an effective cure for insomnia. Over the counter medication designed to promote sleep usually contains antihistamines (normally used to alleviate symptoms of allergies) or scopolamine (taken for motion sickness). While, as a side effect, these to cause some people to feel drowsy on others they have no effect at all. A dependency on prescription sleeping medications can be harmful for another reason. At night we cycle through several stages of sleep. The first stage is a light sleep, from which we can awaken very easily. The others are much deeper. And it is during these that we dream and our bodies repair and replace cell tissues in preparation for another day. Prescribed sleeping medications prevent us from reaching those deeper levels of sleep. Which is why you can feel groggy the morning after. Dreams are crucial to mental health; they allow you to sort through and process all the information picked up during the day. And you especially need time for repairing and building cells and tissue. This is not to say prescription sleeping pills are worthless. For some and when taken for short periods under medical supervision they can offer a chemically induced "oblivion" that may be sorely needed. Finally, bear in mind that everyone suffers occasional bouts of so a few wakeful nights here and there are nothing to be concerned about. If, however, your insomnia lasts more than a week or its consequences are seriously disrupting your lifestyle or causing other problems, then seek the advice of your doctor. 4

5 It is possible, for example, that your insomnia may be linked to depression and this could require professional help in order to help you resolve the underlying causes and consequences of that depression. - End - 5