Question
My wife has tremendous difficulty in falling asleep. She describes the problem as "her brain just can'ts switch off and goes round and round in cricles. She has tried a range of different remedies, acupuncture, reiki therapy - which helped for a short while, but now she is back into this pattern where for prolonged periods - sometimes for 10 days or more, she only manages to fal asleep in the early hours of the morning and sleeps for about 4 hours only. She generally reads at night to try and calm her mind, but this does not help. After a prolonged period, she will take a sleeping pill, but this is only a short-term aid and does not solve the problem. Any advice would be most helpful.
Answer
Try these tips
Do the following religiously for 4-6 weeks although some have seen
changes in as little as 2 weeks.You must go to bed and awaken
the same time every night regardless of how much or little
sleep you got the night before. This starts to reset your sleep clock
3 hours before bedtime stay away from
tea, coffee, caffeine, caramel colored soda like, coke,pepsi, ginger ale,
or root beer, chocolate and exercise .All these make for restless sleep.
Make sure room is quiet and dark. When you go to bed if you start to
twist and turn or if you wake up in the middle of the night and cant
go back to sleep, twist and turn for only 20 minutes, then get up, go
into a different room and read a book or magazine only! No computer!
When you start to doze immediately go back into the bedroom.This retrains
the brain into thinking that the bedroom is for restful sleep only. Do
this as many times as you awaken thru the night, it will lesson.
30 minutes before bedtime take a hot bath and immerse hands under the
water.Latest research states that the palms of the hand when immersed
in hot water send signals to the brain to relax. 15 minutes before bedtime\
drink a glass of warm milk. Milk when heated contains tryptophan, a
natural amino acid sleep inducer. Go to sleepnet.com click on disorders
insomnia for more tips. Feel free to email again , Karel
