If you are suffering from, or have had in the past, some rather unpleasant experiences of not being able to sleep, take heart. You are not alone, and you definitely have lots of wide-eyed company sharing this dilemma with you.
Roughly, about 35 million Americans, currently, have some precarious night owl tendencies. They find themselves up all hours of the night reading, watching late night movies, or listening to soothing music or sounds, in an attempt to go to sleep.
Many of you who have, or have had, sleep problems can attest to the fact, that the repercussions of losing a good night's sleep, or more, has far more serious consequences than just extreme tiredness, sluggish thinking, or impaired memory functioning the next day.
Frequent bouts with insomnia can lead to an increased sensitivity to aches and pains, bad moods, and an eventual over all feeling of negative mental and physical health.
Many of the symptoms of chronic insomnia can mimic the symptoms of other health conditions such as pain disorders like fibromyalgia, and mood disorders like depression, anxiety, and dementia. Unless your insomnia is not caused by an underlying medical condition, like sleep apnea, there is definitely more than one good road leading back to a better night's sleep.
Most, who have had repeated rounds of unproductive attempts to reduce sleepless nights, on their own, end up visiting their physicians hoping for a quick-fix pill solution. Antidepressants, tranquilizers, or other special sleep medications, oftentimes, offers no real long-term relief you can reliably trust.
Inherent drug side effects comes with the territory, here, as well as drug tolerance to the initial effective dose that may bring about a remission of your symptoms. Eventually, if one decides to remain on chemical substances, a raising of the dose, or a substitution of a different drug often becomes necessary. Frustration begins to set in as you discover that, without the medications, your sleep problems are, predominately, still with you.
According to 'The National Institute of Health', primary insomnia is a common condition, on its own, and is not caused by an underlying medical problem. To be considered true insomnia, though, the difficulty in getting to sleep or staying asleep must be present for at least one month.
And, according to the ASDA (American Sleep Disorders Association) insomnia is considered 'chronic' when you have experienced the inability to go to sleep or stay asleep three nights a week for at least 3 months.
Primary insomnia, the type more commonly experienced by most, is often triggered by specific circumstances, like a traumatic event or situation in one's life. The main theme that is most likely to cause insomnia is some type of precipitating event-like a divorce or other personal relationship problems, job or career changes, or a death of a friend or loved one. When the initial trauma of the precipitating event, eventually, goes away, sometimes the insomnia part does not.
Sometimes, too, the insomnia continues on because bad sleeping habits were adopted to cope with a stress-filled inability to go to sleep during the course of the triggering event. Over indulging in alcohol, chemical pills, over eating, and lack of regular physical exercise are considered to be bad sleep hygiene habits. It is a good idea to try to break these habits and avoid stimulants, both chemical and technological-like coffee, tea, television, and computers.
We can all become susceptible, to developing certain conditioned pattern responses, in trying to cope with long-term sleep deprivation problems. Certain individuals even develop what is known as 'sleep dread', in developing a persistent anxiety about not being able to fall asleep, or stay asleep, before bedtime.
As you already know, worrying about anything before you go to bed at night, or while you are trying to go to sleep, is not a great time to try and resolve problems with bills, jobs, or personal relationship issues. Try really hard not to worry about things you have no control over, even if you think you do have some control over some of these things, take a break for the night, for the sake of getting a better night's sleep.
If you have faith in a higher power, pass most of your worries on to God or another source of spiritual comfort. Never underestimate the power of developing a spiritual practice to help you sleep better, and to help you in many other areas of your life.
At one time, I considered myself to be a chronic insomniac. Sleep would evade me several nights a week, and this amounted to many nights over the course of a month. I had developed a distinct pattern that would wax and wane, due to a troubled personal relationship, over a 15 year season of my life.
By and large, in all those years I tried just about everything, from prescription drugs to over the counter sleep aides, that I could find to help ease me into a restful night's sleep. Out of desperation, I read about and tried quite a few natural herbal remedies as well. For a while, most of these substances would actually work for me.
During a long and drawn out process of 15 years I , eventually, discovered that all of these substances were just merely short-term band aides fixes. They were fine for the occasional relief of a rare sleepless night. If there is a precipitating event or situation in your life that is contributing to a lack of sleep, however, the issue will have to be uncovered and resolved. Whether it is a conscious issue or a subconscious one, meditating can help spot some light on the issue and bring it to your visual awareness.
Luckily, after approaching my sleep problems in only one way for many years, I happened to find a meditation audio created by the 'Immrama Institute', that used harmonically layered binaural beats gently interwoven inside the sounds of soft rainfall very sensitive, soothing, and relaxing.
Meditation can take years of dedicated practice, and can be quite difficult to learn and master in the traditional way. A well crafted sound audio, however, can make it almost effortless to achieve deep relaxation. I began using it regularly. It helped me to get completely quiet for about 20 minutes, or longer, a day. I managed, in a rather short amount of time, of about a month, to improve my over all sleep quality dramatically.
Regular meditation has, also, helped me gain more control over several other troubling issues in my life such as:
1.reduced overall daily anxiety levels
2.achieved prolonged states of deep relaxation
3. improved outlook on life, in general
4.found the motivation to pursue personal life goals
5.heightened sense of self-awareness, and intuition
6.increased creativity
I have been using this relaxation audio for two years, and simply love it!
The long term benefits of regularly using a sound based relaxation technique in combination with a basic rudimentary understanding of biology, physics, and in faithfully applying ancient, spiritual wisdom teachings to improve one's life are not to be underestimated, either, in their over all effectiveness. Becoming a more spiritually centered individual has its perks and long-term advantages in overcoming any physical health issue. I recently found a wealth of written information and a creative sound treatment program called, "Sound Health Sound Wealth" I found it not only to be truly helpful, but very effective too in calming and soothing any psychological fears one may have.
Strategies such as those mentioned above, can help you to want to embrace improvement. Desire can bring about some much needed, wanted, and longed for self-loving, changes within yourself. Consciously choosing to get more consistent nutritional elements in your daily diet, engaging in more physical exertion, and, yes, even improving one's spiritual awareness of sounds, colors, and light can take you as far as your intuition and intelligence will not be an inhibiting factor.
Upon embarking in such an incredible journey, I'll make a wish for all of you, who have trouble sleeping. I hope you are, soon, sleeping better, more soundly, and challenging your thinking mind, more often. Open yourself up to more exciting possibilities in the near future.
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