Sleeping Tips When All Else Fails

Sleeping Tips When All Else Fails

Vijai P. Sharma, Ph.D

Fifty-eight percent of adults in America suffer from insomnia several nights a week. They experience trouble falling asleep until the wee hours in the morning, waking up intermittently during the night, waking far too early, only getting a fraction of sleep in the morning hours or not feeling rested when they wake up.

A sound and healthy sleep helps you build bones, repair, tone up and build muscle mass, improve mood, consolidate memory, rest and relax the mind and impart an overall sense of wellness. Above all, sleep helps to regulate all the "body clocks." Disturbed sleep disrupts the body's repair and restoration process.

To deal with insomnia, we try whatever means we can think of including, quitting coffee, sheep counting, tossing and turning, floor pacing and over-the-counter pill popping. When all else fails, we approach our doctor who prescribes a sleeping pill.

Ideally, sleeping pills should not be used for more than a couple weeks. According to the sleep literature, if you still need to use sleeping pills, you should take a clean break from them and then you may take them again for a brief period. That is the recommended procedure followed in the ideal scheme of things.

In the real world, insomnia turns out to be far more persistent. According to a survey by Daniel Kripke, published in "Sleep Medicine Reviews 2000 (cited from source U.S. News & World Report, 5/17/2004) two thirds of sleeping prescriptions go to chronic users who have taken the drugs for five years or more.

In my clinical experience, a long-term chronic user may be someone who has a chronic medical or mental disorder. Physical inactivity and restlessness caused by ongoing major medical illness such as lung or heart disease or severe chronic pain problems resulting from physical and psychological conditions are some of the conditions that cause insomnia.

In this article, I will provide two tips. Here is my tip #1: "Look for the cause of your insomnia. Don't just take a pill for it and ignore the cause."

It is rare to have "primary insomnia" which means that your insomnia cannot be accounted for by some cause such as a medical disorder, mental disorder, medications, chemical abuse etc. Therefore, it is very important that you carefully analyze the possible cause or causes of your insomnia.

Since people who have more than one medical disorder take multiple medications, chances of medication-induced insomnia increase in those cases. There are hundreds of medications, which list insomnia as a side effect. Your doctor may or may not have an option, but it's worthwhile to ask your doctor what your options are.

Anxiety, depression, a chronic tendency for worrying, or unresolved and unsolvable personal issues are known enemies of sleep. It is better to seek counseling for the cause of insomnia rather than merely treating insomnia.

Perhaps, you are a conscious and alert patient who has read everything there is to read about good sleeping habits but sleep still eludes you. You keep your room dark and cool at night, don't take any stimulants in the evening, keep the TV, radio, books and other distractions out of your room and don't use your bedroom for anything else, keep yourself as active as your physical condition allows, receive counseling for psychological issues, take sleep medication from your doctor and still find yourself asking, "What now? What else can I do?"

So, here is my tip #2: "Create a "restorative" state without fussing and fretting over sleep or trying to chase the sleep."

By going into deep relaxation, you can restore and replenish your body much like good, restful sleep does. The restorative state can benefit you if you don't get too impatient and agitated about your insomnia, but commit to fully and patiently work to access the restorative state. I will now describe the "How to" of the restorative state

After 20 to 30 minutes of sleeplessness, you need to make the following three calls. 1) Call attention to your attention. Take charge of your attention. 2) Pay close attention to your body; keep moving your focus from one part of the body to another, systematically from head to toe. Keep repeating the process. 3) after a few "rounds of the body," take special note of your breathing. Move your attention from one part of the body to another, imagining that your breath is moving in and out from there. Keep repeating the process over and over. When you can attend to the whole body all at one time, fix your attention there.

You will face many challenges in doing this. Pain, restlessness, coughing, fatigue, worries and other physical or emotional distractions will try to disrupt your exercise. Ride out those challenges. Don't quit. For sleepless in Seattle, this might be the only game in town!

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Copyright 2004, Mind Publications 
Posted August 2004


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