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.
Four types of freshwater fish 'globally' associated with rhabdomyolysis - study warning
Four types of freshwater fish 'globally' associated with rhabdomyolysis - study warning
According to the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine, the first case of rhabdomyolysis after ingesting certain types of fish was reported in 1924 in Europe. The journal states that Haff disease is defined as an illness in a person with "unexplained rhabdomyolysis who had eaten fish within 24 hours before symptoms onset". Several case studies have since shed light on which types of fish may contribute to the dissolution of muscle fibres.
Doctor Chun Tang, Medical Director and GP at Pall Mall Medical, explained: "Rhabdomyolysis is a condition which is usually caused by direct and indirect muscle injury.
"It occurs when your muscle fibres are damaged and their contents are released into the bloodstream, which can be quite serious.
"Rhabdomyolysis can also lead to complications such as kidney failure as the kidneys become unable to remove waste and concentrated urine."
The most common causes for the condition are excessive physical exertion and dehydration, but certain types of fish have also been linked to the disease.
The China CDC Weekly reported in 2020: "A common food that has been associated globally with rhabdomyolysis syndrome is freshwater fish including freshwater cod, barracuda, buffalo fish and pomfret.
"However, cases caused by freshwater fish have been relatively rare in China."
In 2016, an investigation was conducted in a small Chinese village after six people fell ill after consuming a hotpot containing carp, vegetables, and dumplings together.
The carp had been caught from a pond earlier and prepared while retaining the testes, eggs and swim bladder.
The only person from the group who didn't consume the vegetable and dumplings did not fall ill.
In order to verify the incidence and find the cause of the disease, a team of health professionals arrived at the scene for investigation on November 10.
The suspected cases all experienced the onset of muscle pain, fatigue, brown urine and other symptoms related to rhabdomyolysis.
The report explained the five other individuals experienced "an onset of symptoms indicative of rhabdomyolysis syndrome including vomiting, backache, lumbago and creatine kinase levels exceeding five times the normal range after dinner [...]".
Although the shared dinner is believed to be the culprit for the cluster event, the mechanisms of food-borne rhabdomyolysis remain poorly understood.
In fact, dietary sources are rarely linked to rhabdomyolysis.
Some case studies have suggested a link between dietary stimulants like caffeine and rhabdomyolysis.
"Excessive caffeine intake may increase the risk of this rhabdomyolysis," explained Doctor Tang.
"Over time, excessive caffeine can damage the sarcoplasm (muscle fibre) which may, in turn, harms the muscle cells - resulting in rhabdomyolysis."
What are the symptoms of rhabdomyolysis?
Doctor Tang explains: "There are different variations of symptoms of rhabdomyolysis - as depending on the cause, it can affect one concentrated area or even the whole body.
"Classic symptoms are muscle pain in the shoulders and thighs, lower back pain, brown or dark red urine, decreased urination and weakness in morning arms and legs.
"Other symptoms can include nausea, fever, rapid heart rates dehydration and confusion."
Reference: Daily Express: Story by Solen Le Net •
Who's On Line?
We have 45 guests and no members online
Articles - Most Read
- LIVER DIS-EASE AND GALL BLADDER DIS-EASE
- African Wholistics - Medicines, Machines and Ignorance
- African Wholistics -The Overlooked Revolution
- African Holistics - Seduced by Ignorance and Research
- Want to slash the risk of dementia by a third? Sort out your hearing!
- Steroids are life-saving for critically ill COVID-19 patients, WHO says
- Mark Hoppus has stage 4 lymphoma
- 45-year-old woman damages liver from drinking herbal brew - dangerous 'side effects' Story by Solen Le Net •
- Women's Sex Organ Related Dis-eases ( Herpes, V.D., Etc.)
- The health problem plaguing female Olympians as 'pee flies through air' during competition
- Four types of freshwater fish 'globally' associated with rhabdomyolysis - study warning
- Do Yams Have Carbohydrates?
Articles - Latest
- 6 Things to Try When You Can’t Sleep
- The Male G Spot Is Real—and It's the Secret to an Unbelievable Orgasm
- Herbs for Parasitic Infections
- Vaginal Care - From Pubes to Lubes: 8 Ways to Keep Your Vagina Happy
- Do Yams Have Carbohydrates?
- 45-year-old woman damages liver from drinking herbal brew - dangerous 'side effects' Story by Solen Le Net •
- Four types of freshwater fish 'globally' associated with rhabdomyolysis - study warning
- The health problem plaguing female Olympians as 'pee flies through air' during competition
- Women's Sex Organ Related Dis-eases ( Herpes, V.D., Etc.)