Many people suffer from a sleep disorder known as insomnia. Insomnia is caused by many different factors including stress and an irregular sleep cycle. Most people opt for the chemical method of dealing with it because it doesn’t take any effort or thought. Take a pill, go to sleep. What they don’t consider is the side effects that come from these types of pills, not the least of which is addiction.
Natural remedies exist for dealing with insomnia, including research to find out the root of the insomnia. Relaxation is important to sleep quality. You need to learn to really relax your body in order to allow it to fall asleep naturally. Progressive muscle relaxation helps the body to systematically release tension, this means start at one point of your body and make it relax. Extremities like toes are a good place to start, or start from your center and radiate the relaxation outward picturing the stress releasing from your body through your fingers and toes, which ever works for you best. You may want to exercise before you begin the relaxation technique as exercise will strengthen, tire out, and help to relax the muscles, giving you a head start.
Follow the same routine every night so your body gets into a habit and is conditioned for a sleep response.
Obviously, one of the first things you need to do is avoid people that appear to have the flu. Avoiding people with the flu isn’t as easy as it may seem, many people have it and don’t show symptoms till too late. When you are handling things other people have handled, make sure to wash your hands, disinfect the item or both. The more you disinfect things the better off you will be. Don’t rub your face or your eyes with your hands. Hands are wonderful carriers of germs and it appears that most germs we end up fighting have come from our hands. Wash your hands frequently and if you can, carry wipes or disinfectant for hands. Use a tissue to cover your nose and mouth when you sneeze or cough, then wash your hands, this will keep viruses from staying on them.
The gap between the amount of sleep we get and the amount of sleep we need seems to be widening. When we are infants, we somehow managed to get the 16 hours of sleep our bodies required for development, and as we got older, first as restive teenagers and young adults with more important things to do after the sun goes down than to spend it dreaming, even though our bodies ask for 9 hours, and then later on in life where getting sleep is now viewed as a challenge, even though we have a slower social life and require slightly more sleep than when we were younger to feel rested. Over half of all older adults report frequent and even chronic inability to sleep. Insomnia and sleep apnea are much more pronounced in older populations, and the devastating effects of both are felt more by this group and their ability to recover from sleep debt much slower and less complete.
Are you struggling with getting out of bed everyday? Maybe you feel like you are always tired. Perhaps you think that this is just a phase. Hopefully, it will pass. However, what if it doesn’t? Lack of energy and the inability to get up and going with your day is a serious problem that you should consider talking with your doctor about. It could be that you have depression. 