Don’t go to bed as advised by
Mark Twain, insomniac and humorist, because so many people die there. But the
truth is that if you did not you would soon find yourself yearning for cool
sheets and a soft pillow. As you know, that sleep is essential to all living
things, which have their own cycles of waking and sleeping, activity and rest stop
and go.
It is the balance between them
that generates energy and interest. During sleep, the body gathers its
resources, regenerates its energies rebalances its metabolism and orders its
psyche. Just how much it refreshes the brain and the body becomes apparent as
soon as you are deprived of it. Lack of sleep quickly diminishes the quality of
life when awake.
Fortunately this does not happen
very often. Sleep is so natural and vital that the body tends to take just as
much, or as little, as it needs 14 hours or more as a baby, 6 hours or less as
an octogenarian. But it is not just age that determines your sleep
requirements. The amount of sleep needed varies considerably from person to
person and with the state of the mind and emotions. The eight hours rule stands
corrected experiments in sleep laboratories have consistently shown that some
people need as few as five hours sleep before walking refreshed and alert while
others may need as many as 11. Body and brain seem to restore themselves at
different rates in different individuals.
If you are worried and stressed
out that you’re not getting enough sleep considers first that you may in fact
be getting all the sleep that you need and that you are only suffering from
unreal expectations. Use your diary to record how much sleep you got, over a
two week period and how you felt the following day. If you are habitually wake
up feeling un-refreshed and carry on feeling excessively tired throughout the
day. Then you may not be getting your full quota.
You should bear in mind that if
you are going through a particularly demanding phase in your life and are
getting very little sleep, you do not have to make it all up. Studies on
students kept up for three nights in a row at the University of Florida, USA
showed that they only needed three to four hours extra sleep to make up for the
24 they actually lost.
Keep in mind that sleep cannot be
forced. It is easy and effortless and seeks you out. It does not come with
trying still less with anxiety. As worrying about not getting off to sleep is
almost certain to keep you awake, relax using and of the methods detailed on
the previous pages and let sleep surprise you. It almost certainly will. Even
so, there will be times in most people live when sleep is elusive. You may take
hours to go off to sleep and then find that your time asleep is disturbed by
periods of wakefulness or you may wake up at dawn, overcome with tiredness and
yet find it impossible to drop off again.
You may get up in the morning and
somehow struggle irritably through the day, only to go to bed at night to find
that exactly the same thing occurs. Sleeplessness has become a pattern. While
it is a pattern that usually resolves itself spontaneously, prolonged periods
of insomnia can lead to considerable strain and should be discussed with a
doctor in order to rule out any medical cause.
Moreover, if you are suffering
from sleeplessness, then do not automatically reach out for the sleeping
tablets. These should be a last not a first, resort and should be prescribed
only for a short period of time in order to help you ride through a
particularly difficult period. Despite their evident drawbacks, however sleeping
pills are still widely prescribed. In fact it has been estimated that every
tenth night’s sleep in the UK is hypnotically induced. While the newer
generation of sleeping tablets may be safer than the previous ones the
barbiturates and the highly addictive mandrax, they still work in large general
areas of the brain, often depressing the central nervous system in amounts
above that simply required to produce sleep. They may linger in the system long
enough to give feelings or handover on awakening together with impaired
concentration and alertness the following day. In addition, these sleeping
tablets which are almost identical in chemical composition to tranquillizers,
can lead to dependency. With long term use, it becomes increasingly difficult
to get to sleep without them so treat them with respect.
Tips for Sound Sleep
1. Go
to sleep when you are tired, not when it is time for bed. If you feel wide
awake, stay up. Capitalize on having a little extra time. The best idea is to
read a book or take short walk. Fresh air and gentle exercise are two of the
best sleep inducers, particularly if taken an hour or so before going to bed.
2. The
most effective ways of counter acting difficulties in getting off to sleep at
night is to get up an hour early morning. It takes a certain amount of
discipline, but persevere and you will soon find that you start feeling sleepy
at bedtime if not before.
3. Another
tip is to avoid over loading the stomach just before going to bed. Meals are
best eaten early in the evening and proteins, despite their unearned reputation
for causing bad dreams make much better bedtime foods than carbohydrates.
Cheese milk and yogurt are ala good, late night foods. Milk is especially
suitable because it contains high levels of an amino acid that seems to play a
significant part in mobilizing the sleep inducing chemicals in the brain.
4. Make
sure that your system is not running on overdrive by the time you go to the
bed, our intake of all stimulants including alcohol, sugar, salt, coffee, tea
and cola drinks. The caffeine present in the last three speeds up the
metabolism and its buzz may last for up to seven hours. If you go to bed at mid
night, coffee or tea drunk at six o’clock in the evening could well be keeping
you awake. While caffeine tends to interfere with sleep in the early part of
the night, large amounts of alcohol, though sleep inducing will cause you to
wake early. Because the alcohol is still in the process of being metabolized,
it can react upon the digestive and nervous system, causing restlessness and
gastritis not to mention handover.
5. Take
a warm bath before going to bed, use an aromatic essence to soothe and relax
you. Some of the pure, essential oils, such as chamomile, Melissa and orange
blossom, are deliciously relaxing. As you soak, try going through a simplified
progressive relaxation procedure, r simply lie there and enjoy it. Letting your
mind drift, do not drift off altogether though.
6. Make
yourself a sleep pillow, to place a pot pourri of herbs dried hops, lime
blossom, rosemary, lavender, jasmine and chamomile in a flat linen envelope and
tuck it inside your ordinary pillow. Hops and lime blossom, in particular have
very strong sleep inducing properties.
7. Check
that is you comfortable in bed. This may sound obvious, but it is crucial.
There are no hard and fast rules about what meals one bed and bedroom
preferable to another it is your own comfort that counts. If you find you tend
to sleep better in other beds, your mattress may be too soft or too hard, or
your bedroom too cold or too hot.
8. Is
your sleep disturbed by background noise, some people find sound, whether the
indistinct rumble of traffic or the louder ticking of an alarm clock, conducive
to sleep. Others find it infuriating. In addition there is the possibility that
your sleep is being disturbed by noises of which you are unaware. If you do
find it difficult to get off to sleep, keep waking up during the night or feel
excessively tired the following day, embark on an anti sound strategy. Move to
another bed room away from street noise, have double glazing fitted to bedroom
windows or buy a pair of earplugs.
If sleep still eludes you try building up the
amount of carbon dioxide in your body. It is easy to fall asleep in a crowded
room when the windows are tightly shut, because the amount of oxygen available
is gradually being displaced by carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide acts as a
natural tranquillizer in excess as a poison too, of course, numbs the brain,
slows the body responses and produces a range of symptoms identical to stage
one sleep. This breathing technique will temporarily raise your carob dioxide
levels, without dangerously depriving you of oxygen. Take three deep breaths
and at the end of third, hold on to the outward breath for a count of six, so
that the lungs are completely emptied of air. Repeat this twice, and then do it
once again but this having exhaled as deeply as possible breathe minimally not
gulping for air but breathing from the top of your chest in short, shallow
breaths. This will increase the amount of carbon dioxide in your system and can
be repeated every ten minutes or so if you are still awake.
