Natural Cures For Insomnia & Sleep Disorders

All sleep disorders are caused, or negatively influenced, by one or more of the following factors, most of which are typically ignored by conventional physicians.

• Diet: Poor diet and/or poor eating habits, such as eating late in the evening, only a few hours before retiring, can often cause or exacerbate sleeping problems. This is especially true of the standard American diet, which lacks organic fresh fruits and vegetables, while being high in salt, sugars, simple and refined carbohydrates, unhealthy oils, and convenience, processed foods. Excessive alcohol and caffeine intake can also cause sleep problems. Alcohol can disrupt your body’s circadian rhythms and interfere with healthy REM sleep; while caffeine is a known stimulant that can leave you feeling on edge and unable to properly relax, thus preventing and interfering with sleep. Caffeine, in particular, has been linked by researchers to insomnia, periodic limb movement in sleep, and restless legs syndrome.
• Drugs: Drugs, both legal and illegal, can be powerful disruptors of healthy sleep patterns. Illicit drugs create a toxic burden in the body that can interfere with the ability to get a good night’s rest. Many illegal drugs, such as amphetamines and cocaine, also act as stimulants, making sleep difficult and significantly altering the body’s natural circadian rhythms. Legal medications, both prescription and over-the-counter, can similarly affect your ability to get a good night’s sleep. These include beta-blockers, cold and cough medicines (they contain caffeine and synthetic stimulants such as ephedrine), oral contraceptives, synthetic hormones, and thyroid medicines. In addition, all drugs, whether legal or illegal, create a toxic burden on the liver and can impair other organ systems as well, making sleep more difficult.
• Food Allergies and Sensitivities: Food allergies and sensitivities can interfere with your ability to sleep peacefully and restfully and are a frequent cause of sleep disorders.  Among the ways that food allergies and sensitivities can cause or worsen sleeping problems are the resulting hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), as well as increased histamine production. Sugar and carbohydrate foods are frequent triggers of food allergies that cause spikes in blood sugar levels. When this happens, the body compensates by producing sudden amounts of insulin. This creates an adrenal stress reaction that puts the body in a state of stimulation characterized by jittery feelings and tension.  During allergic food reactions, the body can also produce elevated levels of histamine in the brain, disrupting brain chemistry. This, in turn, can greatly affect your ability to get a good night’s sleep, and can often result in insomnia. The most common foods that produce allergies and sensitivities are caffeine, chocolate, corn, dairy products, eggs, wheat, and wheat products, as well as sugars and refined carbohydrates. Any food can potentially trigger such reactions, however.

Note: If you suffer from sleeping problems that are accompanied by fatigue during the day (especially upon awakening and throughout the morning) and/or frequent feelings of irritability, most likely your condition is being caused or exacerbated by food allergies or sensitivities.

• Geopathic Stress: Geopathic stress refers to energy fields within the earth that are imbalanced and capable of disrupting the bio-electrical fields, and therefore the health, of those who dwell near such areas, which are usually geological fault lines and certain large mineral deposits and streams. Manmade devices, such as computers, electric blankets and clocks, and electrically heated waterbeds, and well as common electrical currents of 60 cycle frequencies, can also cause geopathic stress, as can power lines and power generators. Research has shown that natural geopathic stress zones beneath or near sleeping areas, as well as geopathic stress caused by manmade devices in the bedroom, can significantly affect a person’s sleeping patterns, and can also cause or contribute to a wide range of other health problems, including cancer, depression, headaches, and migraines.
• Hormone Imbalances: Hormone imbalances, such as excessive adrenaline and/or cortisone production, can keep your body in a state of stimulation, making sleep difficult. Lack of melatonin and serotonin, both of which are linked to healthy sleep, can also cause sleep disorders, as can the hormonal shifts that occur in both men and women as they transition into middle age and experience declines in their body’s supply of sex hormones such as estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone.
• Lack of Exercise: Lack of regular exercise typically results in chronic muscle tension and the buildup of stress in the body, which can make relaxing and falling asleep more difficult.
• Other Disease Conditions: People afflicted with other disease conditions can often experience sleep disorders. However, when these other conditions are resolved, typically sleeping problems are resolved as well.

• Psychological Factors: Various psychological factors, including unresolved anxiety, depression, despair, fear, and grief, as well as positive emotions such as excitement and euphoria, can interfere with your ability to get a good night’s sleep. Such psychological factors can cause imbalances in your biochemistry and, if prolonged, can also create various other disturbances, such as indigestion and other gastrointestinal problems that can keep you awake at night. In addition, such factors can also interfere with the brain’s ability to properly produce nerve signals and the hormones such as melatonin and serotonin needed for restful sleep. Chronic stress can also cause depletion of the adrenal glands, further aggravating sleep disorders.
• Smoking: Smoking, as well as second-hand exposure to cigarette smoke can interfere with healthy sleep because of the chemicals and nicotine cigarettes contain. Nicotine acts as a stimulant and can cause insomnia and other sleep disorders, while many of the other chemicals contained in cigarettes can create a toxic burden on the liver to further disturb healthy sleep patterns.
• Structural Imbalances: Structural imbalances in your body, such as muscle tension and/or a misaligned spine, can contribute to sleep disorders due to how such imbalances interfere with the flow of nerve signals to and from the brain. They can also keep you awake at night due to the pain they cause in the muscles and joints.
• Toxicity: The buildup of toxins, especially in the colon and liver, can be another significant cause of, or contributing factor to sleep disorders. When the functioning of the colon and liver becomes impaired as a result of internal toxicity, a variety of health related problems, such as allergies, candidiasis, gastrointestinal problems, and heartburn, can soon follow, all of which can interfere with healthy sleep. In addition, certain heavy metals, such as mercury, which is commonly found in people with dental amalgam fillings, or those who regularly consume seafoods such as shark and tuna, and people who have received vaccinations, can also experience sleeping problems. Overall, toxins of any kind can also potentially deplete your body’s supply of the nutrients and hormones necessary for regulating healthy sleep patterns.
• Unhealthy Sleep Environment: The environment of your bedroom can have a major influence on the quality of your sleep. Bedrooms that are excessively cold, hot, or humid, or which have poor indoor air quality and ventilation, can make healthy sleep difficult, as can sleeping in rooms that let in light from windows or other rooms, as well as sleeping on mattresses that are too hard, soft, or otherwise uncomfortable.