When it comes to ways of helping you get to sleep, there are three broad categories of sleep aid:
Please give the information here a thorough examination and seek the sleep aid method which will most likely provide you the greatest help with the least significant adverse effects.
It's estimated that 58% of all Americans - 1.75 Billion people - suffer from insomnia or other sleep disorders. Helping these folks find the kind of rest they deserve involves selling them aromatherapy, high-end mattresses, high-tech pillows, sleep masks, sleeping pills, white-noise machines, and more.
Americans spent $2.7 Billion last year in purchases of the three leading prescription anti-insomnia drugs, Ambien CR, Lunesta, and Rozerem. Sleep labs, aimed at diagnosing assorted sleep disorders, will take in $4.4 Billion this year. Americans will spend about $2.4 Billion on CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machines this year. They'll spend another $14 Billion on mattresses and pillows. There's a current quip that "Sleep is the new sex - we need more of it and cannot get enough."
A lot of people tend to be skeptical about natural sleep aids. They have visions of hippie communes experimenting with illegal herbs, witch doctors, con men peddling "tonic waters," and infomercials hawking gadgets, devices, and pills with "miraculous" properties. Too many vendors want to offer claims by the ton and proof by the ounce, leading people to be rightly suspicious of such products.
All of the hoopla and hype can obscure the fact that there are some natural, alternative ways to help you manage your sleep. These may be less expensive than drug-based solutions, and may take less of a toll on your body. Be aware, though, that not all alternative remedies are equally effective for all individuals. Some of them may actually be more expensive than prescription remedies, and there may be unwanted side effects for some people. Additionally, if your sleep disorder is so severe that it causes dangerous daytime weariness or falling asleep at your tasks, you should consult a doctor to determine whether there is an underlying, physical disorder.
Sleep disorders are only a small part of the many afflictions that are increasingly being treated by this ancient method. The underlying premise is that all diseases - including sleep problems - are caused by imbalances of energy streams moving through the body along 14 pathways, called meridians. An acupuncturist uses very fine needles inserted at points along the meridians to change the energy flow. While many Westerners are skeptical of acupuncture, the National Institutes of Health things highly enough of it to proclaim that it can be helpful in controling nausea and some types of pain. If part of your sleep difficulty arises from chronic pain, acupuncture may well be a worthwhile addition to your arsenal of treatment options. As acupuncture becomes more widely used in the United States, evidence of its efficacy in areas other than pain management seems likely to increase.
Many folks appear to be reluctant to give acupuncture a try, perhaps because they don't want strangers sticking things into their bodies. But those who've experienced it testify that there is little or no discomfort, the benefits are tangible, and the side effects are minimal when acupuncture is performed by a qualified professional. You should seek out a practitioner licensed by your state, if your state licenses acupuncturists, or one certified by the National Commission for the Certification of Acupuncturists.
Closely aligned with acupuncture, acupressure manipulates the same meridian points to control the body's energy flow, but does so using finger pressure rather than needles.
Aromatherapy, increasingly popular among consumers, uses "essential oils" to comfort and heal. An essential oil is one which conveys the distinctive scent, or "essence," of a plant. They are sometimes called voilitile oils or ethereal oils, or "oil of [the plant]," as in "oil of rose." These oils are not taken internally, but are used either topically or aromatically.
You may want to experiment with individual essential oils or combinations of them. Although lavender is frequently recommended as an essential oil used to encourage your body to sleep, other oils have been used effectively. An excellent resource for learning more about - and experimenting with - essential oils is The Power of Aromatherapy by Rachael Adams.
There are several ways in which essential oils can dispensed for your benefit. These include the following:
You can assist your body in falling asleep through the power of aromatic herbs. Combine the following herbs, sew them into a small pillow, and place it inside your normal pillowcase so that the healing scents are ever-present for your benefit:
4 parts dried lavender leaves
2 parts dried hops
2 parts dried rose petals
1 part dried chamomile
1 part dried lemon balm
Create a new aromatic pillow every six months or so, as the herbs gradually lose their scent - and thus lose their effectiveness.
Biofeedback is not, strictly speaking, a means of directly addressing sleep disorders. You wouldn't connect yourself to a biofeedback machine at bedtime in an effort to go to sleep more rapidly.
But by training your body in biofeedback techniques, you can learn how to recognize stress and how your body is reacting to stress - particularly the nighttime thoughts of stressful situations which tend to keep you awake. The next step from there is to re-train your body to respond to stressful thoughts with relaxing responses and thoughts of calming, peaceful matters while you drift off to sleep.
To get started using biofeedback techniques, you'll most likely need to visit a biofeedback clinic where you can be taught the techniques by a professional certified by the Biofeedback Certification Institute of America. In addition to teaching you by using the clinic's biofeedback machines, the therapist may recommend one or more inexpensive biofeedback machines you can purchase for training at home.
Hypnosis, despite what you may have seen in various "entertainment" venues, is not about losing control of your mind or body. It's not about obeying commands and doing things in public that you wouldn't even consider doing in private. Hypnosis, away from the stage fakes and hucksters, is about being fully aware of your surroundings, your body, and your responses to stimuli. Properly hypnotized, you're in a state of deep relaxation, in full control of yourself, and choosing to ignore distractions that would add stress to your being. Although teaching the techniques of self-hypnosis is beyond the scope of this site, I can recommend that you investigate the Ultimate Self-Hypnsosis Course. Whether or not you purchase the product, Adam Murray's sales page provides a great overview of the possibilities of self-hypnosis as a means of correcting sleep disorders and much more.
You're probably familiar with the use of massage to relieve sore, aching muscles, and to release the overall tenseness that the body is susceptible to in the course of a day's normal activities. In addition to these widely-known applications, massage can also be undertaken at bedtime to induce a relaxed, ready-to-sleep attitude. You can ask a bed partner or family member to administer a rubdown. You can even provide yourself with a self-administered massage to those body parts within reach of your hands - scalp, forehead, face, neck, shoulders, lower back, arms, legs, and feet. Vibrating massage machines may also assist you or your family members in providing a relaxing massage. You might want to acquire a copy of Learn Massage Therapy Like A Professional which will, for less than the cost of one trip to a professional masseur or masseuse, teach you how to "do it yourself" at home.
There are plenty of massage oils available for you to purchase, but you might want to consider, as mentioned in the Aromatherapy section, making your own massage oil. Combine essential oil(s) with almond oil or grape-seed oil to make your own, aromatic massage oil. Then you can have the benefits of aromatherapy and massage together.
For too many people, sleep disorders are a result of stressful thoughts about the travails of life. After all, how can you calmly and peacefully drift off to sleep if you mind if full of thoughts of bills to pay, arguments with your boss or spouse, or how to deal with the antics of your children. Stressful thoughts lead to physical stress in your body, and that leads to assorted forms of sleep disorders.
Meditation is a means of deliberately helping your mind to ignore the stresses of life. Done at bedtime, it can result in a swifter, calmer, more peaceful transition to sleep. You can, of course, enjoy the benefits of meditation whenever you like during the course of a day. But at night it is likely to help alieve your sleeping problems. Meditation classes in your community may swiftly bring to you the relief from sleep disorders that you've been seeking.
Yoga has, during the last couple of decades, enjoyed increased popularity within the United States. Not all who embrace yoga do so because of its association with Eastern religious practices. Rather, many study yoga for the physical benefits it tends to convey - better circulation, flexibility, relaxation and sleep.
The underlying principal of yoga is that the body, mind, and spirit work together in unison. When one of these three elements is dysfunctional, the other two are also affected. Many yoga poses use breathing exercises and stretching routines to assist in integrating body, mind, and spirit. Despite what you may have seen on TV or in the movies, it won't be necessary for you to contort your body into arcane shapes, nor to hang by your knees from the chandelier.
Nonetheless, you will need to give concentration to any yoga exercise, even those designed to relax your body to sleep. You'll be using yoga techniques aimed at slowing down your thoughts and focusing you on the present moment. If you'd like to explore yoga as a natural sleep aid - not to mention the other benefits it brings into your life - you might want to acquire a copy of Yoga for the New You and begin achieving the naturally-enduced sleep of your dreams.
The SleepTracks Sleep Optimization Program utilizes the principal of Brainwave Entraiment to "teach" your brain how to relax and fall asleep naturally and quickly.
The Get Rid of Tiredness Program deals less with the specific issue of insomnia. It addresses, instead, how to sleep "properly and efficiently," so that you awake refreshed, energized, and ready to take on the tasks of the day with vigor.
The Natural Sleep Secrets Program focuses on ways to fall asleep fast, wake up refreshed, and make drowsiness one of those problems you used to have before you mastered good sleep techniques.
The Baby Sleep Solution Audio Program is a 35-minute recording (and transcript for those who would rather read the material) that will swiftly provide you with 23 techniques to get your baby to sleep through the night. Not only will the extra sleep benefit you and your spouse, it'll benefit the baby, too.
The Download Audios - Beat Insomnia & Sleep Tonight Program provides either downloadable audio files or CDs mailed to your home. These mind-training sound tracks encourage your body to relax and your mind to drift off to sleep swiftly. You bounce out of bed ready to conquor the world -- or at least your particular corner of it.
The The Power of Aromatherapy teaches you the many benefits of using aromas to improve your sleep and many other parts of your life.
The Learn to Massage Like A Professional covers the means and methods of using massage to encourage your body to relax and accept the joys of peaceful sleep.
The The Ultimate Self-Hypnosis Course shows you how to teach yourself, among other things, how to sleep naturally and arise rested and eager to leap into your day.
The Yoga for the New You introduces you to the basics of yoga, and walks you through the ways you can utilize yoga techniques to improve your sleep time and other aspects of your daily living.
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