One in four people suffer from some form of sleep disorder that affects their work and personal life. But you don’t necessarily need to take medication, here are some natural remedies to ensure a restful night’s sleep!
With increased workloads and prolonged stress, it’s no wonder that many people are full of tension and unable to fall asleep. Yet the lack of restful, restorative sleep can take its toll on our health, skin and appearance. The Conscious Shopper gives you some tips on how to make your nights more restful.
We talk about sleep disturbance when the balance between sleep needs and sleep capacity is disrupted. There are two types: one is when daytime problems make it difficult to fall asleep and, over time, you become so tired that you feel anxious about the night ahead. In the other type, we wake up during sleep and have difficulty or no difficulty falling asleep again. This type of sleep disturbance usually takes the form of disturbing dreams caused by unprocessed experiences. According to GPs, one in four people suffer from a sleep disorder that can affect their lives in many ways.
Many people use moisturisers and face creams to cover up the wrinkles that appear on their faces as a result of sleeplessness. Tightened facial muscles leave grooves in the skin that our bodies repair during sleep. One study found that the rate of cell division in the skin and blood increases by 200-300 per cent during sleep, peaking at 1am. People who get a good night’s sleep regularly and at the right time look much younger than those who live their lives at night. During our sleep time, we also produce a growth hormone called somatotropin, which plays an important role in the regeneration of skin and muscles, among other things. If we don’t get enough sleep or the right quality of sleep, the production of this hormone is disrupted, which in turn affects our skin.
There are a number of sleeping pills on the market to ensure the right length of sleep, but they interfere with natural night-time processes. This can make people who use sleeping pills feel tired, even if they have had enough sleep in terms of hours. In many cases, we can help sleep problems just by rethinking and reorganising the causes of everyday frustrations, by choosing the essential and urgent tasks from the overwhelming ones and focusing on them. It can also help to bring some order to your life, by going to bed earlier, airing out the room and listening to relaxing music. For some people, bookish evening exercises – such as yoga – can also help them relax. Avoid eating heavy food in the evening.
Phytotherapy has been shown to have a positive effect on our sleep cycle. A wide range of sleep-inducing herbal preparations, herbal teas and herbal tea blends are available in pharmacies, health food shops and health food shops, and have been shown to be effective in a number of clinical trials. They have many advantages over synthetic sleeping pills, such as not being addictive, not altering the sleep cycle or causing dulling symptoms the next day. They can also be taken by pregnant women, nursing mothers and children in the right dosage.
Lemon balm and chamomile flowers are excellent as a tea for calming, while sedative cat’s-root is particularly good for stress relief and can help to alleviate sleep problems in older people. St. John’s wort tea also relieves nervous system problems and can be used to combat stress, but it is best consumed as a cure, as its effects only become apparent after several weeks. Not only do these plants have a positive effect when consumed as a tea, but their essential oils can also be dripped into a vaporizer or bath water.