Symptoms of insomnia, how to deal with it and what you need for healthy sleep

Sleep is a phys­i­o­log­i­cal process that ensures the full func­tion­ing of the brain and all body sys­tems. It is nec­es­sary to main­tain the bal­ance of the emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal state.

Insom­nia is a sleep dis­or­der asso­ci­at­ed with its short dura­tion or low qual­i­ty, which neg­a­tive­ly affects well-being dur­ing wake­ful­ness. Insom­nia is man­i­fest­ed not only in the dif­fi­cul­ty of going to sleep, but also in fre­quent abrupt awak­en­ings, a long inabil­i­ty to fall asleep after them, and wak­ing up too ear­ly. One way or anoth­er, sleep time is reduced, irri­tabil­i­ty appears, a feel­ing of con­stant fatigue, the body does not rest ful­ly.

Today we will talk about how to help your­self fall asleep, sleep long and sound­ly. About the pos­si­bil­i­ty of elim­i­nat­ing the fac­tors that influ­enced the appear­ance of insom­nia, and about how to get enough sleep. If your insom­nia is not asso­ci­at­ed with a seri­ous ill­ness, we will help you solve it, if on the con­trary, we will sug­gest how you can reduce its man­i­fes­ta­tion.

Sleep dura­tion and time

It is impos­si­ble to deter­mine exact­ly to the minute how much sleep each per­son needs. This indi­ca­tor depends on the indi­vid­ual char­ac­ter­is­tics of the per­son and many fac­tors that change from day to day. Basi­cal­ly, accord­ing to experts, the dura­tion of sleep should vary from 7 to 10 hours. The most valu­able sleep for health lasts from 20–22 hours to 5–6 in the morn­ing. And the brain rests best before mid­night, that is, these few hours are the most valu­able.

Caus­es of sleep dis­tur­bance

• The pres­ence of com­plex dis­eases such as can­cer, dia­betes, bronchial asth­ma.
• Neu­ro­sis, stress, depres­sion, anx­i­ety.
• Tak­ing psy­chotrop­ic drugs or alco­hol.
• Hor­mon­al dis­eases.
• Unfa­vor­able exter­nal con­di­tions.
• Sleep hygiene dis­or­der.
• Breath­ing dis­or­ders dur­ing sleep, snor­ing.
• Painful sen­sa­tions.
• Preg­nan­cy.
• Night shift work, sleep fail­ure.
• Sleep dys­reg­u­la­tion in old age.

Tips for nor­mal­iz­ing sleep

• Move more dur­ing the day, be phys­i­cal­ly active. In order to want to rest, you need to be well tired.
• Fol­low a cer­tain rou­tine of the day.
• Don’t overeat before bed, don’t go to bed too hun­gry.
• Alco­hol, caf­feine, and cig­a­rettes are stim­u­lants that inter­fere with sleep. Their recep­tion before going to bed is con­traindi­cat­ed.
• Spend 15 min­utes before going to bed to relax. Warm bath, pleas­ant, calm music, med­i­ta­tion.
• Seek med­ical atten­tion prompt­ly for any med­ical con­di­tions. This will help improve both phys­i­cal health and relieve obses­sive neg­a­tive thoughts.
• Go to bed as soon as you feel sleepy. If you can’t fall asleep, do some monot­o­nous work for about half an hour, with­out bright lights and loud noise, and try to fall asleep again.
• Cre­ate com­fort­able con­di­tions before going to bed: tem­per­a­ture, humid­i­ty in the bed­room, absence of extra­ne­ous noise.
• Do not take sleep­ing pills on your own. Such treat­ment is car­ried out only under the super­vi­sion of a doc­tor, as addic­tion may occur and the prob­lem will only wors­en.
• Under­stand the caus­es of insom­nia, try to elim­i­nate them.

What is bet­ter not to do before bed?

• Elim­i­nate day­time sleep, espe­cial­ly in the late after­noon.
• Avoid foods con­tain­ing caf­feine: cof­fee, choco­late, tea, cola. The last use of such prod­ucts should be at least 6 hours before going to bed.
• Do not smoke before bed and do not drink alco­hol, as this stim­u­lates the activ­i­ty of the ner­vous sys­tem.
• Skip heavy work­outs before bed. To keep your­self in shape, replace them with out­door walks, and train no lat­er than 5 hours before bed­time.
• Do not give in to stress, learn to abstract.
• Post­pone the show­down until morn­ing. Try not to swear while lying in bed. Do not defile the room with neg­a­tive emo­tions, the sleep­ing place should be asso­ci­at­ed with sleep, relax­ation and rest.
• If prob­lems arise, stop watch­ing TV before bed, espe­cial­ly in a bright­ly lit room. Bright light tells the body to stay awake.

Dan­ger of insom­nia, symp­toms

Pro­longed insom­nia robs a per­son of the time intend­ed for rest and restora­tion of the ner­vous sys­tem. This is fraught with the appear­ance of absent-mind­ed­ness, the inabil­i­ty to con­cen­trate, and a decrease in work­ing capac­i­ty.

If the sleep is defec­tive, a grad­ual deple­tion of the ner­vous sys­tem is pos­si­ble. Long-term sleep prob­lems are often the cause of many men­tal ill­ness­es.

Due to sys­tem­at­ic pro­longed insom­nia, symp­toms such as hal­lu­ci­na­tions, loss of con­scious­ness may occur. In this case, you should imme­di­ate­ly con­tact a spe­cial­ist. But this is an extreme degree, it is bet­ter not to bring it to this and nor­mal­ize the sleep process in a nat­ur­al way, by nor­mal­iz­ing the psy­cho­log­i­cal and phys­i­cal state.

Treat­ment for insom­nia

Sleep dis­or­ders are usu­al­ly treat­ed with med­ica­tion, with a course of anti­de­pres­sants pre­scribed by a doc­tor, or folk reme­dies.

For exam­ple, a decoc­tion of pump­kin.

To pre­pare such a decoc­tion, you need 300 g of peeled and grat­ed pump­kin pulp. Put it in a saucepan, pour 1.25 liters of cold water, bring to a boil, remove from heat and let it brew for 1 hour. Take ½ cup 1 hour before bed­time. Chil­dren from three years old take no more than 50 g.

Or herbal tea.

To pre­pare, take 50 g of hops, 40 g of valer­ian root, 25 g of mint, a table­spoon of hon­ey, 25 g of chico­ry root. Put every­thing except hon­ey in a ther­mos, pour 1 liter of boil­ing water, let it brew for 12 hours. Drink before going to bed for 1–2 hours, pre­heat­ing and adding hon­ey. Keep in mind that using herbs on their own can be haz­ardous to health. Before use, con­sult a doc­tor to iden­ti­fy pos­si­ble con­traindi­ca­tions for you