Insomnia

Insomnia comes in many different forms but in a nutshell, if you have trouble sleeping, it's insomnia.

I'm no stranger to insomnia, in fact it's been visiting me at least three times a month, sometimes twice a week, for the past three years. At first it was worrisome and I went weeks without having a restful sleep. When a person goes without deep restorative sleep, health issues arise and mentally, your alertness deteriorates. It's not a small problem.

What causes the inability to fall asleep comes from many areas. Stress, habits, physical health, emotional and mental well-being, even medication. When insomnia is persistent, it may be time to see a doctor. The problem with seeing a doctor is that 90% of the time they will push a prescription on you. Prescribed medicine can lead to misuse and dependency on the drug to help you fall asleep. Being a person who puts off medication until I physically and mentally can't handle the symptom anymore I was extremely hesitant to fill my prescription.

On my first visit to the doctor I asked for a drug-free remedy. He suggested Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Basically, take the time every day to tell your brain to shut up, and relax before hitting the sheets. Do nothing that can make your brain active and avoid late night exercising. This includes avoiding any activities in the bedroom. No tv, no computer, no doing crunches on the floor, if you're not sleeping or making whoopie, take it elsewhere. The idea behind CBT is that you will create the habit every night that tells your brain that it's time to go to sleep. If this didn't work, I had the option to fill the prescription.

A common wall that insomniacs face is that when we worry too much about falling asleep, it fuels the brain to stay awake. I concluded that the major factor in my case was that I couldn't stop my brain at night. I went through three prescriptions, all of them I was hesitant to take, I had to go back to the doctor three times before I found something I was comfortable taking and had the least risk of dependency. One worked and I only took half a pill for 3 nights and I was able to sleep on my own again thereafter.

Since then I've looked for non-pharmaceutical intervention. I tried valerian, which REEKS and I didn't find it to work. My sister's cat also gave me crazy eyes when he'd smell it. Apparently it's like catnip to felines. I tried a chinese herbalist which I should have gone to see first. Aside from the awful taste and the long process of producing a tincture, this is very effective. The tincture cleanses the organs and boosts the immune system.

A few simple solutions from my experience with insomnia is that if you can't fall asleep:

• Just get up and do something. So your brain doesn't want to sleep - reverse psychology yourself. Organize something, clean a little, I usually get sleepy after an hour of not trying to sleep.
• Drink some water. The body needs to experience a slight drop in temperature in order to fall asleep. If you are dehydrated the body can't cool itself.
• If you wake up in the middle of the night and feel hungry, eat some fruit. Your hunger signals will stop and your brain can relax.
• And finally, my personal favorite, and this works for me EVERY time, not even joking. Yoga! I don't mean bust out a full sun salutation (save it for the morning!), do an inversion. What I like to do, to minimize the increase in activity level (or out of sheer laziness) is I shuffle myself around so that my head is pointed towards the foot of the bed and my feet can prop up on the wall. The goal is to elevate your feet higher than your head. I inch up close to the wall so that my body is in a complete L shape. A couple minutes in this position or when I start to feel cold I come back to a normal sleeping position and I fall asleep in minutes. You may look weird with your feet up on the wall in the dark but I swear by it! This is not recommended if you are pregnant, have high blood pressure or have glaucoma. Aside from bringing fresh blood and oxygen to the brain and moving cold blood towards the heart, this is amazingly calming.