Insomnia Treatment: Natural Treatment

My insomnia improved when I changed my diet and eating patterns, took up yoga and made some other holistic health changes. I believe that in my case a main cause was deficiency in nutrition and tight muscles that kept me from relaxing enough and even disturbed my sleep.

Here are some of the tips that helped me to get a good night's sleep.

Tips for Good night sleep

Diet

Insomnia in women seems to be linked at least partly to lower level estrogens hormones, which I think is the reason women develop or tend to develop insomnia at menopause. Estrogen helps with the uptake of magnesium into the soft tissues, and magnesium is the main nutrient needed to relax muscles and turn off the "flight or fright" response. Low estrogens levels in the body causes magnesium deficiencies and conditions like insomnia, heart palpitations, anxiety and fibromyalgia may become more problematic.

I had trouble with insomnia when I was exercising a lot, underweight and on a low fat, high fiber, semi-vegetarian diet. In hindsight, I suspect this type of diet probably reduced my estrogen levels heavily. A low fat, high fiber diet can be healthy for some people, especially women who are overweight and at risk for breast cancer, but in my case with my body type at that time, it was probably not the healthiest choice for me.

My insomnia improved as I added more fat to my diet, more magnesium rich vegetables, more red meat and less high fiber whole grains. I've found that I sleep best when I eat a moderately low carb diet with lots of homemade vegetable and meat soup with lots of leafy green vegetables.

I know few other people, either friends or persons who have emailed me and who reported developing insomnia from eating whole wheat bread and were able to sleep better when they removed the whole wheat from their diets. The other night one of my children and I both had trouble getting to sleep, so I went over all of the ingredients in the foods we had for dinner. Sure enough, a "healthy" pizza I had bought had whole wheat in the crust. Interestingly, two other family members had the same pizza and noticed no ill effects. So I think for some people who are on the borderline of nutritional deficiencies, high fiber can be problematic.

Avoid caffeine

If I even have one cup of coffee in the morning, I don't sleep as well at night. I'm realizing now that this is because my liver isn't functioning really well and can't breakdown the chemicals in the coffee. Lately I've been experimenting with no grain and liver support diets and it is working out well. For the first time that I can remember I can actually have a cup of coffee in the morning and sleep at night, too. I know quite a few people who drink several cups of coffee in the morning and then wonder why they have trouble sleeping at night. Yet, I've noticed that I sleep a little bit less with even a half a cup of coffee, even if I drink it early in the morning.

Exercise - but very carefully

I think I was over exercising in the past, which tightens my muscles too much, which in turn made it hard to relax and fall asleep. When my insomnia was at its worst phase, I was exercising for a couple of hours a day. This was based on recommendations from a physical therapist for my TMJ and fibromyalgia, but I was only getting stiff and sore from all of this exercise and not sleeping well at all. In hindsight, that physical therapist had me doing way too much strengthening and repetitive weight bearing exercises, which just caused repetitive stress injuries and extremely tight muscles.

My muscles relaxed and my insomnia improved when I found a better physical therapist who focused more on stretches, posture correction, massage and yoga. For exercise these days I try to focus on activities that don't tighten my muscles too much -- like walking outside, indoor walking with Leslie Sansone videos, tai chi and yoga. I try to only walk or do gentle yoga in the evenings so I don't get too wound up right before bedtime.

Trigger Point Therapy

I've found that I fall asleep easier when I do my trigger point therapy right before bedtime. Trigger point therapy releases my muscles and helps me to relax. This is a kind of self-massage that loosens trigger points, small muscle contractions, all over your body.

Yoga

Yoga can help me fall asleep, but I have to pick and choose which postures to do. Some yoga postures can be quite strenuous, and I've noticed that if I do some of the standing poses too hard during the day my leg muscles will get overly tight and I'll have more trouble falling asleep at night. The yoga postures I find most relaxing are the ones you can do lying down like the knee squeeze and spinal twist. If I have trouble sleeping and wake up during the night, usually I'll do yoga floor postures till I get sleepy again and fall asleep.

Listen to soft music

Lullabies really do work to make me sleepy. There are lullabies and songs made especially to fall asleep available. I made a CD from some lullabies on Itunes and I play it at night for one of my son who has problems getting to sleep.

Get sunshine

Try to get out and get some midday sun each day. This will set your body clock appropriately.

Do you really need 8 hours of sleep?

I personally think it is a myth that everyone needs 7 - 8 hours of sleep a night. I think how much sleep you need depends in large part on how tired you are due to daytime activities. I think people who have physically taxing jobs like construction workers or farmers would need more sleep than someone who is a receptionist. I know on days when I don't have time to exercise I simply don't need as much sleep at night.

Reconsider the "warm glass of milk" remedy

Milk is very high in calcium which is a magnesium antagonist. As mentioned above, magnesium is required to relax muscles. Use organic cotton bedding

Permanent press bedding can give off low grade chemical fumes while you sleep. Your body can deplete nutrients such as zinc and magnesium trying to detoxify chemicals like these.

Live in a good ventilated room to let the fresh air in

Sealed up houses can be major sources of indoor air pollution. Fresh air puts less stress on your body by decreasing the amount if irritants and airborne particles your body has to detoxify.

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