Insomnia or sleeplessness, A common problem !

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Many of you have a common complaints of insomnia or having difficulty in sleep. It is easier to prescribe an alprazolam or diazepam tablet. Frequently you have problems of sleep and you seek such prescription from your doctor. Many of you get it from the chemist shop directly where drug control system is not very effective.

Let us analyze the problem.

You go to bed!, close your eyes! and try to sleep! ,but you can’t .Why?….. You try to sleep but you can’t sleep. Your eyes are closed but your mind is working, your thoughts jumping from one topic to another topic, you are changing postures on the bed. You look at the time in your mobile phone kept near your head and you see ,oh! my god it is 12.45.Again you remember you have to do a lot of work tomorrow. Again your thoughts filled your mind,you get up for toilet and take a glass of water and back to sleep. And its very late around 3A.M. when you could get your sleep and next morning you have to get up early and you are mentally tired. No freshness in mind to work properly. The story can differ person to person. Now the question is what should you do?

I am writing some points below which would help you out in the majority of such situations:

1.Avoid taking tea, coffee or chocolates in evening. There is a system in our brain which keeps us alert. You don’t need to remember the name of this system. Ascending Reticular Activating System. Its work gets activated by the chemicals found in tea,coffee, chocolates and tobacco. Apart from this, use of tea and coffee in evening would cause more urine to form in your body and you would have to disturb your sleeping process to empty your bladder at night.

2.Your mind takes some energy to initiate sleep. For this you need to have glucose level adequate at the time of sleep. So never skip your dinner otherwise you would be unable to sleep or you feel difficulty in sleeping.

3.Nature of food affects your sleeping process. Proteins keep your mind alert and interferes with initiation of sleep. If you take many boiled eggs or protein rich substance in your dinner, you may have difficulty in sleeping. Carbohydrates helps in sleeping process, if you eat more carbohydrate you can get sleep easily. Mind it, I am talking about your dinner, those protein rich food are good for your breakfast to keep you alert whole day.

4. If you still feel difficulty after the above point correctly addressed ,you have to check for negative energies in your room. Avoid red color curtains or bedsheets in your bed room .Red color increases your blood pressure and blue color decreases it. High blood pressure keeps you alert so hinders your sleep. You keep pillows to raise your head from your body level during sleep, do you know? why you do so!. Because your head should get less blood pressure in comparison to body. Avoid multicolor printed bedsheets, pillow covers and curtains. Your cot height should be low because every thing at higher energy level tends to be unstable. When your cot height is more, It is more difficult for you to get sleep. Higher cot level keeps you at higher potential energy. You should not keep television in your bedroom. If you have no other choice, cover your television with black cotton cloth. Your bedroom should have proper ventilation for fresh air from outside. Your bedroom should be dark properly to initiate sleep. Your dress should be comfortable and your bed too.

5.If you are alcoholic you should go to bed earliest possible. If you have taken alcohol in evening and its effect removed before going to sleep ,it would be next to impossible to initiate sleep and you may have headache. In such condition you can try soft drinks or sugar water solution with lime juice.

6.If you are concerned about any problem which you cannot share with anyone, you can write your all negative feelings in your diaries or notebooks. Believe me! you would get a nice sleep.

7.You are worried about tomorrow regarding some urgent work, chalk out your plan and sequence of your actions on a paper, then go to sleep. Don’t keep any worry of your mind mentally unaddressed before going to sleep. You can find the best solution of your problem just before sleep and you would get a nice sleep.

8.A real story as an eye opener for health care provider…

When I was in my health center a man Mr. X. approximately 35 years old came to me at 11 P.M. said, “sir!  I am unable to sleep, please give me some sleeping pills!” It was easier for me to prescribe him some sleeping pills. But I created little problem for myself and tried to probe him about his mental condition and thoughts. I took time to listen his problem. His problem was following:

Mr.X.is a married man with his three kids living together in town. His younger brother around thirty years old, lives in his native village with his wife and kids. His younger brother had taken some money one year back and refused Mr .X. to return that money. That money, which Mr. X. could not get back from his brother, generated tension in his mind .Mr. X. was only concerned for his own wife and kids. He was thinking that he had lost his money by helping his younger brother and there is no hope of getting back. His younger brother told him straight that he didn’t owe any money. So Mr. X could not sleep by thinking about his monetary losses.

I asked Mr. X to recall twenty five year back, of childhood days. “recollect the scene when you were young and were living together with your younger brother! both of you running, playing and enjoying together in your childhood days! Imagine! how pleasant was that! suppose, you had few pennies and your brother asked you to give some money to buy some lozenges! what you would have done!”

Mr. X replied ,”sir! I would have given the whole lot of pennies to him with great pleasure “.l said, “Then why are you bothered for the money which he is not returning back! Do a phone call to him and say that you don’t want your money back and add,  in future also if he needs more, you would give him with great pleasure. “

Now Mr. X was changed totally. His paradigm shifted. Now he is looking his situation with a new angle. He got satisfied and did exactly as I had advised him. Now he is sleeping well without any difficulty. he doesn’t require sleeping pills.

This happens in thousands of cases of sleeplessness where tactful listening to the person with problem can provide drug free solution to sleeplessness. But we take a couple of minutes only in prescribing sleeping pills.

If you have taken into account of all the previous concepts of sleeplessness. Some more things can be considered.

1.Your bedroom should be free of noise and unwanted lights or illuminations.

2.Your bed should be arranged such that your head is directed south while you sleep. Here one thing is important to note that, you remain at higher energy level by your thoughts and you find difficult to sleep. The south direction decreases your energy level and makes it easier for you to sleep. Further I would like to add, those people who have low self esteem or feeling lack of energy, should sleep facing east direction.

3.Your bed should be placed in your bedroom such that, it is nearer to the southern or western wall of the room.

4.It is a nice idea to go through your textbook or magazine if you are not feeling sleepy on the bed. This will focus your thoughts to the contents of the book and the time when you feel sleepy, just put aside your book and sleep.

5.If you are a spiritual person, repeatedly chant a mantra while you are on bed and your eyes closed, mentally without using your lips, you would get the sleep.

6.If you don’t have any mantra to chant, just do reverse counting from 1000 to 1 mentally, you would fall asleep.

7.If you have insomnia, take cold bath in winter and take warm bath in the summer season.

8.If you believe in yoga, get a CD of yoga nidra and play it in your bedroom and follow the instructions while lying on bed.

9.Listen to your favorite music at low volume to concentrate your mind.