6 ways to cope with insomnia without medication

general practitioner, pulmonologist, somnologist

You can get rid of insomnia without medications. And here’s how.

Insomnia is a disease, and it is important to identify the root cause. With problems with falling asleep and frequent awakenings during a night’s rest, different methods of treatment are used. Self-treatment may not give the proper effect and may even aggravate the situation, for example, in the case of apnea (sleep apnea).

Such awakenings are the body’s defense reaction, when a person wakes up to start breathing again. Attempts to cope with this on their own can lead to serious negative consequences up to stroke and myocardial infarction.

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Why sleep problems occur

Violation of sleep hygiene

Many physiological processes in our body, including sleep, are cyclical: biochemical, temperature and hormonal indicators fluctuate depending on the time of day and determine our desire to sleep or awake.

For example, the hormone melatonin, which helps us fall asleep, reaches its maximum concentration during the dark hours of the day.

At the link collected scientific evidence that sleep heals and helps to keep yourself in shape.

Therefore, if the room where a person sleeps is not dark enough and the light hits the retina even in a small amount, there are difficulties with falling asleep.

Failure of biological rhythms

Sleep disturbance caused by a failure of biological rhythms is often observed in people with a night work schedule or after long airplane flights with a change of time zones. It is a situationally determined insomnia that goes away when a routine is established.

Psychophysiologic insomnia

This is a reaction to stress, in which hormones also play no small role, in particular cortisol, known as the “stress hormone”. Normally, its level falls in the evening and helps to fall asleep, while in the morning, on the contrary, it rises and promotes awakening. In stressful situations, a consistently high level of cortisol in the blood and causes insomnia.

There are genetic diseases caused by a violation of the metabolism of one or more hormones responsible for sleep or wakefulness.

Such patients have sensitive interrupted sleep since childhood, just like their parents. Insomnia that is called idiopathic insomnia is usually treated with medication.

Paradoxical insomnia

The patient complains of not sleeping through the night, but on examination it is found that his sleep profile is almost normal. In this case, the therapeutic effect is the very fact of the study and the exclusion of pathology. That is, the person simply needs words of support.

If sleep problems occur regularly for three months – this is a reason to consult a specialist. It is worth paying attention to the following signs:

sleep, after which a person does not feel rested;
snoring;
nightmares and related awakenings;
arrhythmia in sleep;
morning headache;
impaired potency;
bronchial asthma;
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and heart failure;
high blood pressure;
overweight.

How to make your sleep strong

To make your night’s rest become healthy, it is enough to follow simple rules:

Observe sleep hygiene, that is, get up and lie down at the same time, on weekdays and weekends.
Refuse a heavy dinner and alcohol before bedtime.
Do not abuse coffee and tea in the afternoon.
Ventilate the room well before resting at night.
Do not use gadgets in bed.
Do not forget about moderate exercise (but at least three hours before bedtime).

What prevents us from sleeping at night and how to fix it, told at the link.

Sport helps to reset stress hormones and accumulate pleasure hormones, improve blood circulation, work up muscle fatigue.

Evening walks in the fresh air, a glass of warm milk with honey or infusion of herbs (lavender, currant, valerian, motherwort), meditation, comfortable sleeping place – all these simple rules almost always help to solve sleep problems.

You can also improve the quality of sleep by reading, watching TV, listening to the radio, listening to pleasant relaxing music. It is important to do this regularly. And do not forget that the sleeping room should be dark, quiet and cool.

In the end we would like to dispel a few myths about sleep:

sleep quality is not improved by sleeping on your right side;
alcohol does not improve the quality of sleep, but worsens it;
snoring is a sign of illness, not a sign of good health;
choosing sleeping pills not on the advice of a doctor will only cause harm;
a couple of sleepless nights does not indicate the diagnosis of “insomnia” – it is normal for anyone.

Today in medicine, insomnia is not considered something frivolous, there is a whole field dealing with problems of sleep disorders – somnology. If problems with nighttime rest have lingered and are interfering with life and function, a somnologist has all the diagnostic and treatment capabilities to help most patients.