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6 Things to Try When You Can’t Sleep
6 Things to Try When You Can’t Sleep
Key Takeaways
- Stress, anxiety, excitement, work, school, and travel can make it harder to fall asleep at night.
- To get better sleep, experts recommend making small lifestyle changes like creating the right sleep environment and avoiding screens before bed.
- If lifestyle changes do not help, talk to a sleep specialist to figure out how to improve your sleep.
There are a lot of things that can keep you up at night—from travel and excitement to health conditions and stress. With risk factors this broad, it’s no surprise so many people have trouble sleeping.
“Everybody will have experiences of insomnia at certain points in their lives, and nearly 20% of the population already experience insomnia,”1 Eric Yeh, MD, a sleep medicine specialist at University Hospitals in Ohio and an assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, told Verywell.
In fact, data has shown that sleep problems like insomnia affect 50 to 70 million people of all ages and socioeconomic statuses in the United States.2
If you’re one of the millions of people tossing and turning in bed at night, here’s what experts recommend doing to improve your sleep.
Why You Can’t Sleep
Rafael Pelayo, MD, clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine and a sleep specialist at the Sleep Medicine Center, told Verywell that many things can affect your ability to fall asleep and get quality sleep, such as:
- Stress, anxiety, and overthinking
- Mental health conditions (such as depression)
- Physical health conditions (like heart problems or chronic pain)
- Sleep disorders
- Certain medications
- A poor sleep environment (like an uncomfortable mattress)
- Lifestyle factors (such as a change in your work schedule or drinking coffee or soda before bed)
“So many things can disturb sleep, but the important news is that the vast majority of our patients improve and get better,” said Pelayo. “No matter how poorly you’ve been sleeping, the truth is that you can get better.”
What Happens If You Don’t Get Enough Sleep?
Getting quality sleep every night is necessary for the health of your brain and body. If you don’t get enough sleep, it can negatively affect your physical and mental functioning, metabolism, and immunity, as well as increase your risk for serious health problems.
Sleep deficiency can also affect your ability to learn, focus and react. These deficits can lead to injuries, decreased productivity, and chronic health problems like heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, depression, obesity, and kidney disease.3
What to Do When You Can’t Sleep
If you find yourself lying awake in bed or having sleep disruptions throughout the night, here are some things experts recommend trying.
Exercise Daily
Jade Wu, PhD, a board-certified sleep psychologist and a Mattress Firm Sleep Advisor, told Verywell that getting regular physical activity and exercise not only promotes good health, but can also improve your sleep. It doesn’t have to be vigorous or lengthy; even 30 minutes of light exercise during the day can help.
“Simply moving your body throughout the day can even be helpful,” Wu said. “Exercising regularly improves sleep quality, and good sleep can also lead to better workouts.”
Exercising outside, in particular, gives you the chance to get some natural light. This helps to establish a proper sleep-wake cycle.4
Avoid Caffeine and Heavy Meals
For a good night’s rest, people should stop eating about two to three hours before bed time, allowing the body enough time to digest, Wu said.
“When you eat foods high in sugar, carbs, and caffeine shortly before heading to bed, your metabolism is still working hard,” she said. “This keeps your body temperature higher than ideal for sleep, and potentially tricks your brain into not feeling the sleepiness it has accumulated.”
Yeh recommends avoiding caffeinated drinks before bedtime, too.
Drinking caffeinated beverages can make you go to sleep later, disrupt your sleep cycle, and negatively affect your sleep quality throughout the night. One study suggests that having caffeine three to six hours before bed contributed to sleep disturbance and reduced a person’s total sleep time by one hour.5
Limit Distractions Before Bed
If you can’t fall asleep, Wu recommends getting rid of distractions to help you wind down at night. For example, avoid using your phone or tablet to check emails, read the news, or scroll through social media.
When you avoid phones and televisions at night, you also reduce your exposure to the blue light that screens emit. Blue light is not only harmful to your eyes, but can also prevent the production of a hormone that controls your sleep-wake cycle, melatonin.6
“If you like to wind down by using your devices or consuming media, try switching from TV and games to listening to an enjoyable podcast or audiobook,” said Wu. “This way, you get less light stimulation and it’s easier to wind down your mind.”
Do Something Relaxing
Experts also recommend doing calming activities that you enjoy before bed, like taking a warm bath, reading a book, meditating, engaging in breathing exercises, journaling/writing about your day and any thoughts you have, or listening to soothing music or audio stories.
According to Yeh, doing something that you enjoy that is also calming can help relax your mind and body.
Create the Right Sleep Environment
To improve your quality of sleep, Wu said you need to have the right sleep environment. That means having a comfortable bed, enough blankets and pillows, and a bedroom that is quiet, dark, and cool.7
Your sleep environment and temperature are unique to you, but if you’re looking for a rough guideline, the National Sleep Foundation recommends a bedroom temperature of 60–67 degrees.
“A lot of factors, including bedding, clothing, ventilation, body heat from a partner, and your own biology and age all influence your ideal sleep environment, and the ideal temperature range is different depending on these factors,” Wu said. “Protect your sleep environment and use tools like earplugs, eye masks, or consider sleeping separately from your bed partner—human or animal.”
Change Your Mind
Experts say it’s important to adjust your mentality about sleep. Going to bed shouldn’t feel like a burden or chore.
“It shouldn’t be a hassle to go to bed and it shouldn’t be a chore to go to sleep. Some people have become conditioned to staying awake because they no longer enjoy sleeping,” said Pelayo. “It’s not that you have to go to sleep—it’s that you get to go to sleep. It’s a privilege to have a place to sleep and you should enjoy that you have a safe place to sleep.”
When to Seek Help From a Professional
If you are having trouble sleeping, Yeh recommends seeking help from a sleep specialist sooner rather than later, especially because it can take weeks to months to get an appointment.
“I think the national average is about two months to see a sleep specialist, so it could be beneficial to call and put yourself on the waitlist first,” he said.
If you’re struggling to sleep, Yeh said you can try the various recommendations first—like avoiding screens, caffeine, and heavy meals before bed or engaging in calming activities such as meditation and journaling—and then see a specialist if none of the changes have helped.
If you find something that works for you and see an improvement in your sleep, you can always cancel your appointment with a specialist. Or you can keep your appointment to ask about ways to make further improvements.
“The most important thing for somebody who has trouble sleeping is to tell somebody about it,” said Pelayo. “We’re no longer in an age where there’s nothing that can be done. Most sleep disorders can be improved and all of these sleep-related problems are treatable.”
Herbs for Parasitic Infections
Herbs for Parasitic Infections
- Cinchona - Cinchona Species
Golden seal- Hydrastics Canadensis
Ipecac - Cephaelis Ipecacuanka
Elecampane - Inula Helenium
Sweet annie - ArtemisaAnnua
Cubeb - Piper Cubeba
Ginger - Zingiber Officicinale-
- Pumkin - Cutcurbia Pepo
Wormseed - Chenopodium Embrodioidos
Garlic - Allium Sativum
Papaya - Caricu Papaya-
- Pineapple -,Ananas Comosus
Turmeric - Urcuma Longa
Clove - Syzgium Aromaticum-
Reference: Green Pharmacy:Author: James A, Duke, Ph.D
Common Chinese Herbs to Expel worms and parasites
- Fructus Quisqualis - Round worms
Semen Torreyoe - Hookworms
Bai Bu-Radix stemomae - Pinworms-
- Bing Lang - Cortex Meliae Radicis ( caution when using)
- Reference:TCm: Synopsis Of The Pharmacopia: C.S Cheung M.D / U AIK KAW B.A
Reference: TCM: Materia Medica/ Dan Bensky/AndrewGamble/Ted Kaptchuk.: Reference: Sanctum Raphael Organics
45-year-old woman damages liver from drinking herbal brew - dangerous 'side effects' Story by Solen Le Net •
45-year-old woman damages liver from drinking herbal brew - dangerous 'side effects'
Herbal supplements are widely used as a natural alternative to prescribed medicines. Their heavily purported health claims make them alluring to global consumers searching for a quick fix to boost their health. Due to the categorisation of the remedies as supplements, however, they're exempt from regulation on other medicines sold in pharmaceutical settings.
Earlier this year, doctors published the case report of an unnamed 45-year-old woman with liver injury in the Cureus Journal of Medical Science.
The patient, who was receiving treatment for hypothyroidism at the time of her presentation, reported severe epigastric pain and nausea.
She denied any alcohol or drug use, recent travel and history of blood transfusions prior to her symptoms.
One note-worthy admission was that she had started drinking a herbal tea three days before experiencing symptoms, in a bid to boost her immunity.
"Further examination revealed that the patient had recently begun using a herbal tea and that symptoms had completely resolved after discontinuation," noted the authors.
According to the report, the tea contained 23 ingredients, including reishi mushroom, aloe, vera, and Siberian ginseng.
All three ingredients have been linked to cases of liver injury in past research.
Twelve case reports have been published since 2005 indicating a risk of liver injury in connection to aloe vera.
Research dating back to 2004, has identified several cases of liver injury in patients taking reishi mushroom formulations.
5 Negative Side Effects Of Anal Sex
5 Negative Side Effects Of Anal Sex
When it comes to the negative side effects of anal sex, it's hard to get a straight answer. Because the act of anal sex is still relatively taboo, it’s now easier than ever to get helpful information about all its aspects, including how to do it safely. For people who like it (and who use lots of lube), there are some benefits of anal sex, like the possibility of anal orgasms and feeling closer to your partner. But there are also dangers of anal sex that doctors want you to know about before getting into it.
Whether the thought of anal makes you swoon or cringe, people are doing it in droves. Research by the National Survey of Family Growth, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2019, found that 32.6% of women had had anal sex with an opposite-sex partner (no stats were available for same-sex anal between women). These stats, according to the CDC, are up quite a bit from the 1990s, when only 20% of women had tried it (or, revealed that they'd tried it).
But, as with everything in life, there are definitely some negatives to having anal sex. Bottoming may not be your style, or you may need to take it very slow as a beginner. For those who love anal sex, are apprehensive about it, or are just plain curious, here are five possible negative side effects to having anal sex.
1. It Can Create Tears In Your Butthole
The reason anal sex aficionados are so adamant about using lube isn’t just because it makes it feel better, but because it also helps limit anal tearing.
“Your anal canal is really absorbent, and unlike a vagina, your butt is not self-lubricating, so you absolutely need to use lube when you're having anal sex to avoid tearing, which can increase risk for STI transmission,” sex educator Emma McGowan previously wrote for Bustle. While anal tearing may not seem like that big of a deal (although uncomfortable), and all STIs are treatable, having cuts in your butthole is a recipe for all sorts of bacteria that can easily make their way into the bloodstream.
Harvard Health notes that while some tears can be superficial, others can be deeper, harder to heal, and more likely to get infected. Doctors recommend that people doing anal sex use both lube and a condom in order to minimize anal tears and protect from STIs. Double check that the lube itself is compatible with the condom, since oil-based lubes can degrade latex.
2. Anal Sex Carries The Highest Risk Of STIs
According to the CDC, anal sex is the riskiest type of sex that people can have. One of the major dangers of anal sex is how easily it can be to contract and transmit HIV when having it. Because the anus doesn't naturally produce lubrication and the skin in this area is very thin, anal tears are basically welcome mats for HIV, HPV, and other STIs. It’s one of the potential side effects of bottoming.
"It's important to remember that [STIs] can be transmitted through anal sex as well as vaginal sex," Dr. Jennifer Caudle M.D., a family physician and assistant professor at Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine, tells Bustle. A review of data from the National Survey of Family Growth in 2016 found that in women who had anal sex recently — within the past three months — rectal chlamydia and gonorrhea were almost as common as UTIs. But these illnesses were often missed because a lot of sexual health checks for women only involve the front, not the back door.
Condom use can help prevent transmission of all STIs, and therefore are a must during anal (or any non-monogamous sex you’re having). And doctors now recommending that if you have anal sex, you tell the person conducting your next sexual wellness check about it.
3. Anal Sex Is Linked To Anal Cancer
One of the STIs anal sex puts people at risk of is human papilloma virus (HPV), which is linked with oral, cervical, and anal cancers, according to the American Cancer Society. Not all kinds of HPV are linked to cancer (and you can be vaccinated against those that are), and many strains are asymptomatic, but experts advise that HPV and its associated illnesses are one of the risks of anal sex.
"Even though [HPV] usually goes away on its own, in some cases it does cause cancer," Jill McDevitt, Ph.D., CalExotics resident sexologist and sexuality educator, tells Bustle. "HPV is considered the main cause of anal cancer." The CDC estimates that every year in the U.S., around 4,700 cases of HPV-associated anal cancers are diagnosed in women and 2,300 in men. A 2020 study published in Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that anal cancers have been rising in the past 15 years, in part because of higher HPV rates.
While McDevitt points out that pap smears — cervical screening for the presence of possible pre-cancerous and cancerous cells — aren't just well-known but routine, the case is not the same for anal pap smears. "Anal paps also exist," McDevitt says. "But there are currently no national guidelines for routine screenings, to my knowledge." You can still request an anal pap from your health care provider if you're concerned about contracting a cancer-linked strain of HPV.
4. Infections, Generally, Are More Prevalent With Anal Sex
Let’s not beat around the bush: The anus is a direct path to the bowels. Bowels are, of course, home to poop. Poop is a waste product that's bursting at the seams with bacteria and other not so fun stuff.
Once you subtract the STI part of the equation, it's time to think of the infections that come with E. coli — the bacteria that live in the bowels. Spreading E.coli to mouths or other orifices carries risks; for one, E.coli is one of the main causes of a urinary tract infection in women after anal sex,according to a 2015 study in African Journal of Reproductive Health.
This also means that going from anal sex to vaginal sex, without properly washing in between, may increase the risk of a partner with a vagina getting a UTI, as well as other possible unpleasant infections.
"A condom is the safest thing in terms of not sharing good old fashioned bacterial infections [during anal]," Laura Deitsch, a licensed clinical counselor and sexologist, told Bustle in a previous article. "If rimming is going to be part of your play (mouth to anus) be sure to clean really well around the area ahead of time."
5. There's The Potential For A Sh*tty Situation
Newton’s third law of motion states, “What comes up, must come down.” This applies to both gravity and poop coming out of your butt after anal. Puns aside, this sh*tty situation extends far past the possibility of anal sex with a side of poop. A 2016 study published in Journal of Gastroenterology found that anal sex may lead to fecal incontinence. While the research found that both men and women can experience fecal incontinence because of anal sex, it’s men who deal with it more.
For people who have any sort of gastrointestinal (GI) problems, then the dangers of anal sex become even more complicated. "Something else to note as far as the negative side of anal sex is for folks who have GI issues, like Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) or Crohn's Disease," McDevitt says. "It can already be a painful area of the body, and anecdotally, many people who have GI problems struggle with anal sex."
While anal sex may have some negative side effects, some that may even be considered dangerous, experts say bottoming can have its benefits, and it’s good to be knowledgable about the dangers and how to manage them. "There is a downside to most things, including sex," McDevitt says. "It's about being informed and weighing risks, and ultimately doing what's best for you."
Reference: By Amanda Chatel and JR Thorpe: Updated: Originally Published:
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