Are you one of those people who have trouble sleeping or simply can’t sleep? What can be done about it other than taking toxic drugs to make you sleep, and then take other stimulants to wake you up in the morning? Don’t keep yourself up at night worrying about it! (Sorry I couldn’t resist.) You have lots of options.
There are some basic things that can keep you awake. The first is… how toxic are you? Poor food choices can make you toxic by putting hormones, steroids, antibiotics, artificial flavors, colors, preservatives, or rancid fats within our bodies. Having any of these harmful substances inside of you, or worse yet, having all of them inside of you is like sleeping next to a stinky garbage can. In addition, if you are constipated, it prevents your body from flushing all these toxic substances out. If you are not exercising and allowing your lymph system to flush naturally, or if you are using antiperspirants, which tell our lymph system not to flush, these harmful things can stay inside you and can make you sick, and prevent you from getting a restful sleep.
I know, I hear it all the time – “but my diet is good!” What is your definition of good? When was the last time you actually read a label to see what you are actually eating? How often do you eat out? If you aren’t really paying attention to what you are eating then you really don’t know what you are eating. I challenge you to change your diet and pay attention to what you eat. Eat more vegetables than anything else and you will see a difference in your sleep patterns, along with everything else.
I truly believe that our bodies are always talking to us. What is your body telling you? Maybe it is keeping you awake to tell you something. Maybe it wants you to get up and exercise or stretch? When was the last time you exercised? I know for me, and many of my customers tell me this also, if we don’t do some form of exercise each week, we can’t sleep. Usually, if you can just go for a nice walk 3-4 times a week it can make a huge difference in your sleep patterns. Personally I got tired of making excuses for myself and put my treadmill right in front of a TV in my spare room, and when I watch a movie I get on my treadmill for at least 1 hour of the movie – it goes by very fast. I can walk as fast or as slow as I want and it has helped me with my sleep as well as many other health benefits.
Other things that can help in addition to diet and exercise are your bowels. If your bowels aren’t moving properly this can also impact sleep. Of course eating better and exercising will obviously help get your bowels moving, cleanses can often help get this “moving” along faster. Think of your colon as an oven: lots of cooking means lots of cleaning, and the same goes for your body. If you are eating 100% organic food and 75% fruits/veggies in your diet, then you probably don’t need to clean ‘your oven’ very often. But if you use ‘your oven’ a lot and are putting toxic things in it, then you probably need to clean it every 3-6 months. If you are toxic initially, then doing a cleanse or two can bring you some initial benefits, then change your diet, and do cleansing every 6 months or once a year, depending on what you are putting back in your body. Once you start to get cleaned out you will feel much better. Many of my customers know when you start to get toxic, you can often feel the difference and can tell when another cleanse is due.
Drinking water and taking ginger baths are both excellent methods of flushing toxins out of the body. Many people are just dehydrated and don’t drink enough water to help hydrate the cells. Try drinking more water throughout the day. If you travel a lot, before retiring for the night treat yourself to a nice hot ginger bath, this will help detox and give you a better sleep.
Beds! They come in all sizes and options: soft, firm, sponge, and airbeds. I recommend doing lots of research, and ask a lot of questions, since you will be spending so much time on it and it is important the bed is working for you not against you. The next bed I purchase will be an airbed, or often they are called the sleep number bed. These are nice as they are less toxic (they typically aren’t sprayed), last a long time, and are adjustable as your body changes.
Supporting your nervous system is another important factor when working on sleep issues. Things that help repair the nervous systems are stress reducing techniques like meditation, herbs such as passion flower, skullcap, hops, kava or valerian root (in order by strength). Calcium and magnesium are also very good for relaxing and calming the nervous systems and the muscles, allowing you to get a better nights sleep. One easy and inexpensive way to get magnesium is in Epsom Salt Baths. Add 1-2 cups of Epsom salts into a nice warm bath. A visit to a good chiropractor that can work on the nervous system may also assist your sleep. Are you exhausted during the day and wide awake at night? This might mean that your polarity is off. Chiropractors and acupuncturists are good at restoring and balancing polarity or energy centers in our body. Along with the nervous system, the adrenals can also affect sleep patterns.
Melatonin is another product that is often used by many people to help with sleep. Personally I don’t recommend melatonin for anyone under 60 years old. The only reason is our pineal gland makes melatonin. If you are providing a source to your body, your pineal gland most likely will not make more, or worse, stop making any at all, which doesn’t really solve the problem. I would rather see people take nutrients or herbs to help support the pineal gland in making its own melatonin. The only exception for this is when traveling overseas (which helps reset the pineal gland with time zone changes) or for specific illnesses. Often essential oils can help many sleep problems (see sidebar recipe).
The other thing I want to briefly touch on is sleep in and of itself. If you talk to Dean Karnazes, who is considered the Ultra marathon Man and others at the “top of their game” so to speak, sleep is considered “over rated” and “over done”. We read all the time that people don’t get enough sleep and that we should have a good 8 hours every night. But I think the quality of sleep is even more important. If you are getting good quality sleep then you may not need as much. The problem is that people are so toxic, stressed and uncomfortable that they never get the good quality sleep, so they keep trying to sleep more, when what they really need is good quality sleep, not more “unquality” sleep. As Dean stated in one article that he sleeps only 4 hours a night. And Faye Fitzgerald, a highly sensitive and intuitive healer who started Training in Power (www.traininginpower.org) also discusses this in her classes as well. I think the basic concept is that if you want to sleep well – look at the rest of your life and see what is going on. If you are living the life you want, and working to support your body optimally with quality nutrition, positive energy sources and beneficial support systems, sleep may just be needed to help rebuild the basic systems in your life. And, if you are requiring more sleep you may have issues in your life you might want to address instead of just covering them up with more sleep, or letting them keep you awake.
Sidebar
Essential Oil Recipe for Insomnia
2 drops Roman chamomile
6 drops geranium
3 drops lemon
4 drops sandalwood
Mix together and add 6 drops in bath at bedtime or 5 drops with 2 tsp.
massage oil for massage after bath. Or just use EO's w/o massage oil and apply to feet before bed, then cup hands to face and breathe deeply. You could also add lavender to this for added benefit.
Recipe from Beverly Claussen