HOW I OVERCAME INSOMNIA

From the age of 11, I have known myself as someone who finds it difficult to have good night sleep. Now I am 53; and it wasn’t until last three years that I was able to go through various practices and methods that finally gave me an edge over insomnia.

You are considered to have chronic insomnia if you have not slept for at least 3 nights a week for 3 months period. At a time my situation was so bad that I did not sleep every night for up till a whole one month; yet I was not also sleeping in the afternoon to make up.

Interestingly, while I remained fully awake in the night, on turning from one of my sides, I would notice I had dreamt. But how could I have dreamt without sleep? I was later to discover that even under severe insomnia; our system “knocks off” the brain for a brief moment so we could have a very brief REM (a sleep cycle characterised by Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, without which one could literarily go insane.

Apart from the frustrating nights of turning around and around on the bed till morning, poor sleep has several health repercussions, including increased blood pressure, increase in belly fat, palpitations, premature ageing, poor concentration, memory problems, reduced physical energy, muscle fatigue, irritability, anxiety and more. If you have been suffering from insomnia, I am sure you must have experienced one or more of these symptoms.

At a time I had reached the conclusion that my insomnia was entirely genetic, since I have had it from childhood. I saw the same trait in one of my kids, but I also saw certain behavioural patterns he has that correlate with mine, which I suspect interfere with our good night sleep. At this time it became clear to me that genetics might be a factor, but the main culprits are behavioural patterns that interfere with sleep.

A Mind That Would Not Shut Down

I and my son happens to be very creative individuals, whose minds are engaged almost always with one thing or the other: working on the computer, playing computer games, reading one thing or the other, conceiving ideas, researching an issue, putting together some electronic devices, engaging in a conversation, watching TV, etc. The major problem here is that we hardly ever give ourselves the luxury of allowing our mind to wander without paying attention to make sense of our thoughts. Essentially the conscious and subconscious minds are overactive, and continue like that even in the night, interfering with our sleep time.

One of the simple things I did was to make my son stop everything he was doing immediately it was seven o’clock in the night. TV, computers, social media, everything had to be left. I also took similar step. Though it was difficult initially but soon we both experienced the benefit. By the time it was 9PM we were already asleep, and slept better.

I Took Further Steps

Having taken the steps to reduce my evening activities to the barest minimum, I had not gotten rid of long formed addiction, which was intense brainwork. Though I had learned how to get rid of TVs, Smartphone, studying, etc, as night approached, my mind was still finding it difficult to wind down and stay put.

But another interesting discovery helped me. I discovered that whenever I had a very distressing issue, like the time I had severe eye infection, when I lost my car, I slept very well in the night. That was ironical, though. What I realised was that my mind was only brooding on the singular problem, and could not wander; so my brain got fed up at a time and slept. Therefore, the problem is all about the mental alertness that comes with moving from one “important” subject to another. That is, if those subjects are really important.

At this point I introduced a method that would put my mind on only one thing. The step I took corroborates with mindfulness meditation. I would close my eyes, while lying on the bed, and keep repeating a word or a phrase in my mind. Sometimes I kept repeating the word “peace”, while emotionally and mentally contemplating “peace”. Sometimes I repeated the phrase, “I feel peace”, or “God is love”. As I said any of these mental “mantra” I wouldn’t know when I drift to sleep.

I Stopped Trying To Sleep

The phrase “falling asleep” explains it all. We don’t have power over sleep. When the brain needs to sleep, and it has conducive mental and physical environment, it will surely fall asleep.

In all those long 4 weeks that I couldn’t sleep at night, I really was trying-or should I say struggling- to sleep. I believed that sleep was “hard” to come by. An appropriate medical explanation I got that helped was that my brain had forgotten how to sleep, because I was interfering with its automatic process.

As soon as I gave up trying, things turned for the better. How did I stop trying to sleep? I did not care again if I slept or not. I did not care again what might terribly go wrong if I wasn’t sleeping. All I had to do at night was turn off the light, put off every other thing I was doing, and repeat my mental mantra. Sometimes I read stories or histories. And sleep would just naturally whisk me off.

Physical Activity Helps Sleep

Our body is designed for physical activity. With sufficient physical activity, the brain realises that the body has to shut down at night so that recuperation would happen. My work keeps me mostly in one place with my computer, without much physical activity. But at some point I got a contract job that required outing to meet up with producers and vendors, with lots of driving and walking around.

Interestingly at that period my night sleep quality and duration improved. According to a research, without sufficient physical activity, the brain concludes that you do not need more sleep. These days lots of people are sedentary due to their work. Little wonder insomnia has also been on the rise.

I Had To Cut Down On Stress

Generally I sleep better during holidays. The best explanation is that stress from work and its concern is less. When we are stressed, cortisol, our body’s stress hormone, goes up. Raised cortisol turns up our body’s “fight or flight” mechanism, which keeps us alert, causing insomnia when you should be sleeping. That is why exercising also helps with sleep, as it reduces the blood cortisol levels. When someone is in perpetual state of stress, which might be occasioned by work or other aspects of living, the person is bound to have sleep issues, like I did. If you cannot readily remove stressors in your life due to your occupation or otherwise, be sure to give yourself a holiday periodically.

At a time I adopted every Wednesday as a work free day. And my sleep quality improved. It is also very important you build in recreational activities into your schedules, as these help in reducing stress.

Check What You Eat or Drink

I also discovered that eating heavy meals close to bedtimes affects my sleep. Same goes for alcohol. After drinking alcohol at night, I would readily fall asleep, only to sleep for a short time and wake up, and remain awake for the rest of the night. This is again cortisol at work, since alcohol raises the cortisol levels too. Drinks that contain caffeine, like cola soft drinks affects my sleep as well. This is also the case with food and drinks that are high in processed sugar.

Sleeping Environmental Issues

Where your bed is and how your bed is can all affect sleep. I have had troubles remaining asleep when the room is noisy, very cold or very hot. If the situation around you can disturb the body, it most likely will interfere with sleep. If you live in the tropical regions where there are mosquitoes, your sleep quality will be compromised except you get rid of mosquito at night-time.

My Experience With Sleep Remedies

I had taken prescription drugs like diazepam for better sleep. Of course I would sleep, but the quality of the sleep does not feel natural. And as time went on I had to need higher doses, which was addiction. So I had to stop. I also tried a supplement that contains valerian root, an herbal ingredient alleged to reduce stress, anxiety and cause good sleep. This supplement actually provided great benefit, though I had to discontinue it when my sleeping pattern normalised; after I have also applied some of the methods explained above.

I also tried melatonin supplement. Melatonin is our body’s chief sleep hormone. However, my experience with melatonin wasn’t quite nice, and I had to discontinue it quickly. Whenever I took it in the night, I would readily fall asleep and sleep longer duration, but I would wake up with foggy brain, and fatigue. But some persons might experience good results with melatonin.

I finally changed My Sleeping Position

For several years of my life, I had always slept on my back. Hardly did I know that this position was not particularly good for me. A friend told me about sleep apnea, which results from muscles of the air pipe around the throat relaxing at night while we are sleeping, causing obstruction of air and snoring in the affected persons. Often we take it that the person who is snoring is sleeping fine, but this is not often the case, according to a body of medical research.

Snoring actually indicates that one is not getting enough air, and whenever the brain feels the shortage of oxygen, it wakes the person up. So through the night, anyone with this obstruction, which could be due to sleep apnea, will have hard time having quality sleep. In many cases the person would have insomnia. And the situation might be caused or aggravated by sleeping on the back. When I worked on my sleeping position, and started sleeping on my side, the duration and quality of my sleep became even much better. And I wake up in the morning feeling stronger.

Getting Enough Sunlight

Any day I spend reasonable timeout in the sun, I get better night sleep. There is a connection between vitamin D, which our body makes with sunlight, and metabolism of various aspects of our body. In fact, a recent research demonstrates that vitamin D has implications to our sleep quality too. Due to modernisation, we spend most of our times indoor, either working, at home or socialising. Even when we do come outside, we spend the time inside buses or cars. As a result we get very little of the sunlight our body needs to function properly. And the sun helps to make the circadian rhythm- our wakefulness and sleep clock- function well. A total of 30 minutes to one hour midday sun, several times a week, will be very good on your body.

My Final Words

Insomnia is a very tricky phenomenon. What works for one might not necessarily work for another. For instance, taking coffee near bedtime gives me a sleeplessness night; but my wife takes coffee to sleep. But my experience and methods might help you, so you might as well try them out. However, they do not serve as medical advice. Therefore you might have to get medical opinion if you are having very burdensome sleep issues, since insomnia could also indicate serious medical problems.

You can also checkout this Natural Insomnia Program, for more helpful information.