Days and weeks can be tough enough what with work obligation, family obligations, and home obligations; it’s enough to make anyone exhausted. Add to this a string of sleepless nights and you have brain fog, headaches, and a general sour mood too. What causes insomnia can be a host of things, both medical and those involving disorders. For today’s blog, we’ll discuss the insomnia affected by medical factors. Examples of these are:
- Allergies
- Acid Reflux
- Hyperthyroidism
- Arthritis
- Asthma
- Neurological Conditions such as Parkinson’s
- Chronic Pain
- Low back pain
According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, thirty percent of Americans struggle from some form of insomnia. There are some ways in which you can treat your insomnia without the need of medication. Here is a list of what we suggest you do for a good night’s sleep.
Change Your Food
There are certain foods and eating patterns that could disrupt your sleep. Staying away from heavy meals, especially spicy foods in the evening will help keep your body relaxed and comfortable. Avoid Caffeine, Nicotine and Alcohol before bed as well as the first two are stimulants and Alcohol can put you to sleep, but disrupts your sleep later in the night.
Change Your Lifestyle
So, this may be a bit more difficult to do. Especially if your lifestyle is directly connected to your line of work. Non-traditional hours mess with your body’s circadian rhythm making it that much more difficult to adopt a healthy sleeping pattern. If you can change or alter this though, do your best to avoid naps, and sleeping in late. This will alter your body’s clock and confuse it, making it more difficult to fall asleep at night.
Change How You Process Stress
This may also be a difficult one to do, but it’s not unattainable. You may not be able to change the things that are stressing you out, but you can control how you process them. When your body is relaxed, or consumes stress in a healthy way, it gives your body an outlet to relax and keep calm. Consider yoga, or meditation or a once a month massage regimen to help you release some of your pent-up stress.
Massage relaxes the nervous system, and calms the neurotransmitters in the brain that perceive pain. If you can’t sleep because of stress, pain, or anxiety, you owe it to your body to care for it in a holistic way.
Going to bed at the same time and waking up at the same time every night also helps greatly. This sets your body’s natural rhythm and teaches it when it needs to shut down. We are creatures of habit-sleep is just another habit.
Give us a call and ask us about our favorite bedtime and relaxing blends. We want you to be relaxed, but we also want you to be well rested. Follow our tips to get you on the right path!
