Care For Your Sleep

Posts Tagged ‘insomnia’

Statistics says that about 30% of current world’s population is very well familiar with insomnia. It may seem that there’s nothing much new to discover about such a common sleep disorder. It has been a subject of scientific interest for many decades, and there’s really a lot known about causes and side effects of insomnia. However, according to a study published by the Mental Health Foundation, insomnia could have more negative effects on our life than we actually expect. Apart of bringing us various cardiovascular problems, depression, immune deficiency, inability to lead an active lifestyle and perform good at work, insomnia is likely to be linked to poor interpersonal relationships. And the scientists at the Mental Health Foundation claim that insomnia should be actually treated as a very serious and dangerous disease which can affect our life quality to a great extent.

About 6,800 participants were invited to take part in this online research which became the biggest of this kind of study in the United Kingdom. It turned out that those who regularly suffer from insomnia and a regular lack of sleep are 4 times more likely to be affected by various personal and family relationship problems, three times more likely to feel depressed and mentally exhausted, as well as very often suffer from such things as a lack of concentration, low energy levels and inability to focus at work.

According to Dr. Dan Robotham of the Mental Health Foundation, one of the study leaders, the most dangerous thing is the circle which all people who suffer from regular insomnia have to enter. He underlines that insomnia and a lack of sufficient amounts of sleep escalate and cause a lot of mental problems, which in turn bring to even worse lack of sleep at night. “It is crucial that people are aware of the effective ways of breaking that spiral by improving the quality of their sleep. Employers, schools and public health bodies also need to know how they can identify and support people suffering from sleep disorders,” he underlines. Read more about the results of these extensive study in the Great British Sleep Report which was recently published online.

Many of us suffer from chronic or occasional insomnia, sleep disturbances, restlessness or other types of sleep disorders and sleep deprivation. In many situations, known and effective solutions like sleeping pills or developing good sleeping habits do not improve the situation. We know that our sleep patterns depend a lot on our daily diet and what we usually eat, therefore we try to keep away from caffeine and alcohol, but this does not seem to help as well.

For those, who are looking for more solutions to improve own sleep quality, there are recommendations from the world’s leading nutritionists. Check out the list of the foods which, if consumed before the bedtime, can interfere with out sleep routine and cause sleep disturbances.

1. Any spicy food. Spicy foods have clear stimulating effects, they can cause heartburn, heaviness and unpleasant feelings in the stomach. If you like hot wings or other spicy snacks, be sure that you eat those early enough not to bother your sleep.

2. Smoked meat. According to the recent studies, processed and smoked meat has a high content of tyramine, a monoamine compound which stimulates the production of hormones that make us feel awake and alert. Therefore, it is recommended to refrain from eating smoked or processed meat before going to bed.

3. Aged cheese. The same can be said about any sort of hard cheese, which contain tyramine in great amounts.

4. Milk chocolate. Milk chocolate is known for its high content of tyrosine, which in turn gets easily converted into dopamine, a hormone responsible for activities and alertness.

5. Ginseng root tea. In contrast to other herbal teas, ginseng root tea have very strong stimulative effects, though some ginseng tea lovers may not feel those effects. Specialists say that after drinking a cup of ginseng root tea, approximately every second person feels pumped blood pressure and insomnia.

The most updated statistics says that every one of three people suffer from occasional or chronic insomnia, and there’s hardly an adult person in the world, who is not familiar with any of sleep disturbances. Sleep difficulties and insomnia are much less common in men than in women, and if modern young people more tend to have problems with falling asleep when it’s the bedtime, the elderly are most likely to suffer from frequent waking ups at night and having problems with falling asleep again. The scientists are concerned and go on looking for effective natural sleep aid for all age groups.

Recently, the results of an interesting and very promising study were published in the Journal of Medicinal Food. The specialists at the University of Rochester, the University of Pennsylvania and VA Center of Canandaigua united their forces for studying possible effects on sleep duration of such common natural product as tart cherry juice. This delicious berries are famous for their high content of melatonin, a type of antioxidant responsible for sleep cycle duration. This substance can induce sleep and improve wakefulness in the morning.

A group of 15 volunteers was invited to participate the studies. Adult people who suffered from chronic insomnia were offered to drink a glass of fresh unsweetened tart cherry juice twice a day: in the morning and before the bedtime. At that, some participants were given a similar type of fresh juice mix with no tart cherry juice. The trials lasted for 14 days, and as a result, those who were regularly receiving tart cherry juice treat on a daily basis reported about certain improvements in their sleep quality. Also, their sleep cycle increased for 17 minutes in average.

These results made millions of insomnia victims hopeful about receiving a new effective natural remedy for this terrible problem in the nearest future. An American specialist Dr Russel Reiter, of the University of Texas, says that this study could help to find out the ways to stimulate body’s supply of melatonin, necessary to boost sleep. “Cherries may help regulate the sleep cycle and increase sleep efficiency, including decreasing the time it takes to fall asleep,” he commented on the importance of the findings of the study to American mass media.

Many of us are very well-familiar with a wide range of negative effects of insomnia. Those include a terrible feeling of fatigue and restlessness, body aches, headaches, drastically reduced energy levels, slowed down mental functions, lack of attention and inability to focus, resulting in decreased performance and lack of success in daily life, mood swings, irritability, depression and other emotional problems, as well as many many more, depending on personal factors and personality type of every one of us. This reactions we all experience after sleepless nights can affect our entire life to a great extent.

To make the situation worse, nowadays, the specialists could add one more negative effect of a lack of sleep, which is paranoid thoughts. Nice isn’t it? Just like we were lacking problems and bad reactions of our body on chronic insomnia. This week, Dr Daniel Freeman from the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London presented the findings of his new research at the Cheltenham Science Festival. He told that insomnia is linked to developing a stable feeling that other people are trying to cause harm or control us. In other words, chronic insomnia is linked to paranoid thoughts and unjustified  fears of being harmed by other people.

According to a research, carried out by a group of British specialists leaded by Dr. Freeman,  which involved 8,580 adults, those who experience constant lack of sleep reported that within only a month or two their mental condition has worsened, and they have fears that people around tend to harm them. Such paranoid thoughts were registered in about 21% of the participants who suffered constant insomnia, and 9% or them reported that they’d believed in the existing control over their thoughts by outside forces. In addition, 1,5% of chronic insomniacs said that their feelings of anticipating a potential serious harm from other people were sometimes really disturbing.

If you want to have a regular good sleep, instead of using sleeping pills and counting sheep till the morning you should try to find your soul mate. Recently, the scientists came up with the idea that married women or the women with a stable life-partner usually have better sleep than divorced or single women. A long-term research leaded by Wendy Troxel, PhD, Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, brought the scientists to the conclusion that women in stable relationships sleep better than women who are divorced and lonely. The results of the study were recently presented at the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.

During 8 years the researchers worked with about 360 American women, recorded their relationship status, as well as the specifics of their sleep activities. The scientists noticed that single and lonely women displayed the results indicating having the lowest quality of sleep. In this context, the specialists are certain that the absence of a stable life-partner is one of the leading reasons for modern women to suffer from insomnia and have regular restless sleep. Married women, instead, can not only enjoy the benefits of regular good sleep, but they are also under much lower risks of having their sleep affected by such common negative factors as stresses and depression.

Some experts criticized the results of this study, pointing on the fact that many more other important factors usually play a role in how good we sleep. Besides, they say that many married women who are unhappy in their marriages have to face regular serious sleep problems and disturbances. In contrast to them, a lot of newly divorced women who hated their marriage and chose to get divorced, feel a psychological relief and start sleeping better though they sleep alone. In my opinion, there is some subjectivity in all these speculations. No need in scientific evidence of the fact that happy people always seep better than unhappy ones, regardless of their marital status. And, certainly, having a loved one next to you, who can share your ideas and protect you against many troubles, makes you happier – and a better sleeper!