How to resolve persistent issues with insomnia naturally without resorting to medications with dangerous side effects.
If someone could squeeze 8 hours of sleep into a vitamin pill, that scientist would surely win a Nobel Prize!
Restful sleep arises at the intersection of a wide range of hormonal influences and effects. If your metabolism, brain, and sex hormones are functioning well in balance with each other, you will sleep well.
If you sleep well, you are more likely to enjoy a perfect balance of finely tuned metabolism, brain, and sex hormones!
There is no known dietary changes or supplements that support good health as well as a good night’s sleep, although there are a few sleep herbs that are helpful for occasional issues.
Nothing seems more elusive than a good night’s sleep to someone with insomnia.
Ultimately our sleep quality and quantity result from the balance of activities deep in the brain that stimulate wakefulness (characterized by rapid thought sequence and responsiveness to external stimuli) or allow sleep (withdrawal from the world of lights and sounds, just over a small barrier into a state characterized by sleep-stage-specific brain waves).
Good sleepers are sure that it can’t be that complicated; chronic insomniacs can’t figure out what piece of the multi-layered puzzle is missing.
I have been an intermittent insomniac during many times of my life, and have to report that there is hope, sleep can be remedied, under one condition:
If you have sleep troubles, make solving them a high priority.
Once you are sleeping well, trust me, all your other troubles and priorities will flow more smoothly when you have more of your creative mind and sturdy body to help you!
Overcoming Insomnia by Simplifying Sleep
The pharmaceutical industry has come up with several categories of medications to help insomniacs.
Unfortunately, they do not induce sleep (no characteristic brain wave patterns) but rather simple unconsciousness.
Even worse, almost every kind of sleep aid, including over-the-counter antihistamines like Benadryl, is associated with an increased risk of death among users when compared to non-users.
Luckily, there are lifestyle measures that are often helpful for anyone challenged by insomnia.
Sleep Hygiene
Sleep hygiene is more complicated than it used to be.
We know more and we do more than we did 20 years ago, so there are more details to a sleep-inducing room than we once thought.
In addition to blackout curtains, and silence (or white noise) as best you can manage, you would be wise to avoid any digital screen gazing (iPad, computers, or TV; Kindles are NOT backlit so they are not a problem) in the 2-3 hours before bed.
The emitted blue wavelength of light effectively convinces your brain that it’s morning and time to make cortisol and stop making melatonin: a good idea for the morning, not so good at bedtime.
The effects of blue light exposure last 2-3 hours.
Blue-blocking orange lens sunglasses are the second choice, but they are not as good as avoidance.
I encourage people to have minimal electric and electronic circuitry in their bedrooms, to reduce EMF surges and exposures to which some are sensitive.
A recent study found that children with televisions in their bedrooms slept less than others. Strangely, this occurs even if they don’t watch the TV in their bedroom.
Absolutely no cell phones or other wireless technology in the bedroom! Some people sleep better if they actually turn off the electric circuit to their bedroom at the breaker box. Worth a shot if you haven’t tried it!
A trickier part of sleep hygiene is timing: keep the same bedtime and, most importantly, the same rising time every day of the week.
Pick a time you can stick with (for me it’s 6:30 a.m.) and don’t vary by more than 30 minutes in each direction (up at 6 on days I go rowing, sleep ‘til 7 one morning a week just for indulgence).
Eliminate Toxins in the Bedroom
Removal of toxins in your sleep environment is an important aspect of improving bedroom hygiene.
Unbeknownst to most people, the number one source of toxins is the bed itself!
Consider nontoxic mattresses, pillows, and bedding as an important health strategy even for those in your household without any sleep issues.
When you aren’t breathing off-gassed chemicals all night long, it’s not surprising that sleep can take a huge leap forward in quality!
Balanced Blood Sugar
Insomniacs, particularly those who wake in the middle of the night after falling readily asleep, are encouraged to “balance blood sugar”.
What does that mean?
Your blood sugars are likely out of balance if you have any of the following issues:
- Your waist measures more than half your height.
- You have strong sugar cravings.
- You have a history of dieting and yo-yo weight gain and loss.
- You get frequent infections of any kind, particularly yeast infections.
Any of these issues would likely yield an elevated fasting blood sugar, fasting insulin or elevated serum triglycerides on laboratory testing, but you can infer that you might be “carbohydrate sensitive” if you have any of the above problems.
Carb-sensitive insomniacs might benefit from following a high-nutrient, low-carbohydrate eating plan that includes abundant healthy fats (butter, avocado, coconut oil, animal fats, and fish or high vitamin cod liver oil), meat and organ meat from grass-fed animals, shellfish and fish, as well as a wide variety of vegetables, with limited fruits, minimal traditionally prepared grains, and no added sugars.
A particularly useful food – almost a medicinal one for insomnia – is bone broth (or meat stock for those sensitive to glutamate) which is high in glycine. This amino acid is known to help induce and maintain restorative deep sleep.
Hormone Balancing
Achieving balanced hormones if yours are out of whack often requires the assistance of a skilled practitioner, but a few self-healing steps one can take include an honest self-assessment of whether your lifestyle supports good hormonal health.
As an example, consider cortisol, one of the hormones made by the adrenal gland.
Cortisol levels rise in any setting of perceived danger, which these days might include a near-miss at a stop sign, excessive and prolonged exercise, or a busy life balancing many duties at work and at home.
Cortisol should rise in our bloodstream from dawn to noon and subside from noon till the following dawn.
If you wake before dawn…wide awake…regularly, you might have early and inappropriate cortisol surges.
Our whole system works best if our cortisol “spikes” are infrequent and transient, not when they are repeated and sustained.
We all know that stress, like love, “is in the eye of the beholder”.
A missed flight means two different things if your forced non-travel day is added to a vacation or subtracted from a vacation!
You can serve yourself well by cultivating a relaxed response to stress, through gentle exercise, meditation, or finding ways to laugh and relax in the midst of a busy life.
Gentle Exercise
How you exercise definitely can affect sleep.
Getting outside is a crucial aspect of movement.
Fresh air enjoyed in a natural setting is nothing short of therapeutic even if it involves nothing more than a gentle walk. This alone can do a world of good for insomnia troubles.
Get outside in the morning to enhance falling asleep at bedtime; spend some time outdoors in the pre-sunset hours to help maintain sleep through the night.
No vigorous exercise in the 2-3 hours before bed, and consider no vigorous exercise at all for three months if an elevated stress response is waking you up brightly and regularly between 2-4 a.m.
Our other hormones sense and respond to our lives as well.
Thyroid hormones and sex hormones regulate the “reproductive” area of our lives.
Well-regulated hormones in women result in regular cycles and gentle aging with continued strength in menopause.
If life’s demands have short-changed this area of your life, I encourage you to think about what you might do (in addition to eating well, and general de-stressing) to restore vitality and balance.
A Few Consistent Rules
Finally, if you are addressing sleep challenges, a few consistent rules apply:
- No caffeine after 1 p.m. Consuming caffeine in the morning should be after breakfast to ensure proper melatonin production for good sleep that night.
- Limit alcohol to 1 small drink before dinner, or eliminate it completely.
- Gentle exercise daily ideally in the fresh air outdoors.
- Most people are deficient in magnesium: eat plenty of leafy greens, soaked nuts, and take supplemental magnesium if you have any deficiency symptoms (headaches, anxiety, high blood pressure, or heart palpitations).
Supplements for overcoming insomnia and promoting restful sleep can include simple vitamins and minerals to herbs (valerian, passion flower, ashwagandha, and more), homeopathic remedies, and actual hormonal treatments, such as properly timed melatonin, estrogen, progesterone, and DHEA.
In general, I would recommend working with a knowledgeable practitioner because the “minimal dose” principle should direct choice in all these areas.
Happily, many insomniacs respond well to gentle lifestyle measures.
You will be tempted to just try one or two and if you are a resilient insomniac, rather than a stubborn one, you will be sleeping again like a baby.
If that doesn’t happen, I strongly encourage you to put good sleep as a central priority in your life, and address as many of the lifestyle issues as are relevant to your situation.
How Long Until Improvement Occurs?
By making the changes mentioned above that apply to your situation, you should see a definite improvement in insomnia woes within 3 to 4 weeks.
Regular, quality sleeping habits are achievable within three months.
Beyond that time, you might be what’s called a “stubborn insomniac”.
Please consider consulting a holistic practitioner knowledgeable and gentle with sleep interventions!
The older model Kindles are a problem. My mother suffered a sudden, severe onset of insomnia when she got a Kindle, which she reported to the company. I believe they changed the design and eliminated the backlighting, but there are older models still in use and other e-reader brands that might be problematic.
Thank you for sharing this Beth!
Going low carb is bad advice for anyone with adrenal issues. And cortisol is one of the adrenal hormones that is taxed (and imbalanced/depleted) by a higher protein lower carb diet. Women are particularly sensitive to this. sleep issues will get worse if adrenal problems get worse.
My adrenals used to be in rough shape. I turned it around by eating TONS of protein. I never knew I’d been undereating protein my entire life until recently. Now I aim for two meals of 60g protein per day. If I wake up in the middle of the night, I have a fatty bedtime snack. Protein is nourishing. Carbohydrates are not.