A nightmare is a very stressful dream which usually forces at least partial awakening. Nightmares are often a creation of our fears. You will tend not to have nightmares if you rid yourself of fears. So find out what your fears are, and try to conquer them. Nightmares, however, can also be an early symptom that a disease is developing or that an attack is about to occur.

What Causes Nightmares?

There are many possibilities. Some nightmares can be caused by drugs or medications or by rapid withdrawal from them, or by physical conditions such as illness and fever. The nightmares of early childhood likely reflect the struggle to learn to deal with normal childhood fears and problems. Many people experience nightmares after they have suffered a traumatic event, such as surgery, the loss of a loved one, an assault or a severe accident. The nightmares of combat veterans fall into this category. The content of these nightmares is typically directly related to the traumatic event and the nightmares often occur over and over. Other people experience nightmares when they are undergoing stress in their waking lives, such as difficulty or change on the job or with a loved one, moving, pregnancy, financial concerns, etc. Finally, some people experience frequent nightmares that seem unrelated to their waking lives. These people tend to be more creative, sensitive, trusting and emotional than average. Whenever you have a nightmare you should try to visualize a different ending on the dream. By doing this you may experience that it is a dream and we all know that dreams aren’t dangerous. Read The Full Story…

How hypnosis promotes sleep?
Hypnosis removes the obstacles to sleep while at the same time inducing brain wave patterns that promote and are conducive to sleep.

• Hypnotherapy can help with getting to sleep by:

- Re-educating your mind to expect to enjoy a good night’s sleep
- Teaching new relaxation techniques to help your mind and body to slow down at the end of the day. Sleeping becomes much easier in this state.
- Helping you to learn techniques to remove some of the noise from a racing mind. -Insomnia and most sleep problems are a very modern phenomenon and representative of the pace of modern life
- Helping you to understand some of the causes of insomnia and sleeping problems.

• Generally, hypnotherapy clients’ sleep problems fall into two categories. The first is simply not being able to fall asleep at night. The second involves waking up at an inconveniently early hour and not being able to fall asleep again. Learning effective self-hypnosis skills can help you to significantly improve your sleep patterns and can help with indirect effects of insomnia and sleep problems such as daytime anxiety and bruxism (teeth grinding during the night). Read The Full Story…

Your “sleep hygiene” describes your sleep habits. By boosting your sleep habits, you can increase your possibility of falling asleep fast, staying asleep and sleeping between seven to nine hours each night. A good night’s sleep has many health benefits. Most importantly, you will feel great.

• 1. Keep a regular bed and wake time schedule including weekends.Our sleep-wake cycle is regulated by a “circadian clock” in our brain and the body’s need to balance both sleep time and wake time. A regular waking time in the morning strengthens the circadian function and can help with sleep onset at night. That is also why it is important to keep a regular bedtime and wake-time, even on the weekends when there is the temptation to sleep-in.

• 2. Create a Bedtime Ritual. Create a nightly ritual to signal that it is time to sleep. Start the ritual about 30 minutes before you lie down to help release stressful thoughts and be ready to sleep when you lie down. A little quiet reading (not in bed) or a warm bath can be great. Avoid watching TV, since it stimulates your brain.

• 3. Do not use alcohol or tobacco products close to bedtime. Use of these products may calm you at the time of use, but they can have disrupting effects on your sleep during the night.

• 4. Do exercises daily. Daily exercise will improve your chances of falling asleep quickly and sleeping deeply. Try to exercise early in the day and never within three hours of bedtime. Exercising too late in the day can make it difficult for you to fall asleep. A daily exercise habit will not only improve your sleep hygiene, but it will also improve your overall health.

• 5. Only Sleep and Have Sex in the Bedroom – No TV. The bedroom should be used only for sleep and sex. That means no reading in bed and no TV in bed. Doing these things (or anything else) confuses your body, making it difficult to fall asleep. Give yourself about 15 minutes to fall asleep. If you haven’t fallen asleep by then, get out of bed until you are sleepy. You can do some quiet reading (pick something boring), but avoid TVs and computer screens. Remember, your goal is to train yourself to fall asleep quickly. Reading a stimulating book, watching TV or doing anything else undermines that. Read The Full Story…

Sleep and weight loss have a power connection. They are invert relation: sleep loss, weight gain and sleep more, weight loss. Sleep loss appears to do two worst things that affect our weight: boost the appetite that makes you take in more calories and reduce the metabolism which helps to burn calories.

Study:
Researchers at Laval University in Quebec looked at 276 people for six years who were part of a larger Canadian study.

Sleep duration was determined from a questionnaire and the participants were classified into three groups: short sleepers slept five to six hours a night, the average got seven to eight hours, and the long sleepers put in nine to 10 hours of sleep every night.

Some of the findings:
Over six years, short sleepers were 35% more likely to gain 11 pounds than average-duration sleepers.
Over the same time period, long sleepers were 25% more likely to gain 11 pounds than average-duration sleepers.
Short sleepers gained 58% more around their waists and 124% more body fat than the average sleeper.

Sleep Apnea and Weight
Weight loss to treat sleep apnea can create an interesting dilemma. While losing weight reduces the symptoms of sleep apnea, losing weight when you have sleep apnea can prove to be a difficult undertaking. The reason for this is simple: when you can’t get enough sleep, you are too tired to exercise for weight loss. Read The Full Story…

Aromatherapy treats mind and body together. The scent of the essential oils used can have a powerful effect on the emotions while the oils’ chemistry affects the body. There are many essential oils that can be used to help you relax or make it easier to get to sleep there are a few that are particularly good in fulfilling those needs.

Here is a description of each scent that make you sleep better:

1. Lavender – helps sooth and calm nerves, reduces tension, insomnia, headaches, and depression. Effects of lavender: Calming, Therapeutic

2. Bergamot comes from citrus fruit rind. It does its job by relieving stress and enabling the subject to relax. It has a lovely citrus scent that will make you feel refreshed and give you that sense of well-being. Interestingly bergamot is the main ingredient in earl grey tea.

3. Sweet Marjoram – helps treat anxiety, headaches, and insomnia. Effects of Sweet Marjoram : Soothing, Warming

4. Roman Chamomile – help relaxation, reduces excessive anxiety, and treats insomnia

Effects: Soothing, Relaxing

5. Sandalwood – promotes relaxation, beneficial for depression, stress, nervous tension, and insomnia Effects of Sandalwood: Warming, Relaxing

6. Mandarin - has two different types of oil, one green and the other red. It has several advantages one of which is that it is gentle enough that you can use it with children as well as adults. Interesting the scent is closer to that of a bergamot oil and less like the tangerine it’s expected to smell like. Mandarin oil is a very successful treatment for sleep difficulties almost rivaling lavender. Read The Full Story…

There are many factors, both internal and external, that can influence the quantity and quality of your sleep. Food can be a common source of creating a chemical origin for insomnia. You may not be able to control or eliminate all of the factors that interfere with your sleep, but you can create an environment and adopt habits that encourage a more restful night.

Here are a ten “Not-to-do” lists that may improve your quality of sleep:

1.Eat right, sleep tight. Try not to go to bed hungry, but avoid heavy meals before bedtime. An over-full belly can keep you up. Some foods can help, though. Milk contains tryptophan, which is a sleep-promoting substance. Other foods that may help promote sleep include tuna, halibut, pumpkin, artichokes, avocados, almonds, eggs, bok choy, peaches, walnuts, apricots, oats, asparagus, potatoes, buckwheat, and bananas.

2. Avoid napping. Napping can only make matters worse if you usually have problems falling asleep. If you do nap, keep it short. A brief 15-20-minute snooze about eight hours after you get up in the morning can actually be rejuvenating.

3. Avoid watching TV, eating, and discussing emotional issues in bed. The bed should be used for sleep and sex only. If not, you can end up associating the bed with distracting activities that could make it difficult for you to fall asleep.

4. Avoid smoking. Cigarettes contain nicotine, which has been linked to difficulty falling asleep and problems awakening. Also, when smokers fall asleep, they experience nicotine withdrawal, which may cause them to awaken. Read The Full Story…

This revolutionary sleeps technique enables you to sleep better by stopping the nightly struggle. In most cases, sleep devices are safer and less intrusive than medications to treat sleep problems. It also helps you increase energy levels during the day with unique power naps or performance breaks.

Here are some of the main types of sleep devices:

1. Dreamate uses accupressure techniques to gently massage the “sleeping golden triangle” on your left wrist. Used 30 minutes before bedtime, you can retune and reset your biological clock and train your body to relax and sleep. See results in as little as a week’s worth of use, with best results after eight weeks. These precise pressure points, when gently massaged, calm the body, lower stress levels, and induce sleep. Unlike addictive sleeping pills that knock you senseless, but offer little improvement in your sleep quality.

2. CPAP device. One way to treat people who have sleep apnea is a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) device. A CPAP device includes a mask, tubes and a fan. It uses air pressure to push your tongue forward and open your throat. This allows air to pass through your throat. It reduces snoring and prevents apnea disturbances.You should put your CPAP device on whenever you sleep, even for naps. A CPAP device does not cure sleep apnea. But, when you use the device correctly, your sleep problems should get much better.

3. Anti snoring pillow. Anti snoring pillows are available to help stop snoring and to provide comfort while on your sleep. These are designed in such a way that the central pillow area is thinner than the portions around the edges. With anti snoring pillows, the user’s head is aligned with the spinal column regardless of the sleeping position. This provides for no obstruction on the breathing airway.Anti snoring pillows come in standard sizes and are usually white in color. The fillings may vary, and mainly covered with anti-allergy material.

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Does the full moon affect our sleep? How about the cycles of the moon? Many disorders seem to follow the phases of the moon. When the moon is full, some people may suffer from insomnia, nightmares, strange dreams, and some people even sleepwalk. There is one more interesting fact that some people sleep better when the moon is full, even if its shine falls into their faces.

… But: Austrian scientists have shown that sleep patterns are not affected by the phases of the moon.

• Numerous studies have tried to find lunar effects. Reuters reports that researchers with the Austrian Society for Sleep Medicine & Sleep Research examined the sleep patterns of 391 people in several European countries. About half the subjects had sleeping disorders, but no one knew the researchers were interested in the effect of the moon. “When I deal with patients with sleep problems, so many say that the full moon stopped them (from) sleeping, that even I was expecting some small difference to show up in the study,” Gerhardt Kloesch, the Vienna University psychologist who led the current research, told Reuters.

• In fact, just 8 percent of those surveyed had problems sleeping while there was a full moon, compared to 25 percent who said they had a particularly good night’s sleep on the night of a full moon. Read The Full Story…

Insomnia is a very important problem because one-third of the population has symptoms of insomnia. There are three different types of insomnia. These are transient, acute, or chronic insomnia. Transient insomnia lasts only a few nights to a few weeks. This is often the result of jet lag, medication side effects, caffeine, transient stress. Acute insomnia lasts over a period no longer than six months, no shorter than 3 weeks. Chronic insomnia occurs nearly every night for a period of a month or longer.

You can heal insomnia naturally without resorting to sleeping pills by developing these simple habits:

Basic Sleep Hygiene:

- Exercise at night. Insomnia is often caused by too much stress. Doing exercise at night makes blood to flow in our brain and body. This in turn makes us calm and stress free.

- Temperature reduction and optimisation. A slight lowering of body temperature which occurs at night plays a very important role in modulating the chemical signals which induce sleep. While trying to fall asleep in bed always take steps to achieve a comfortable temperature as being too hot or too cold can inhibit sleep. If you are bothered by cold feet in the night, or wake up in the night feeling cold, wear socks to bed. The average optimum temperature for quality sleep is 19 degrees, although this may vary from person to person.

- Read books not TV watches. Read books, magazines or anything that interests an insomniac instead of watching television. Television enhances attention, which makes a person awake. Reading on the other hand while in bed causes the eye to get tired and creates a sleepy feeling.

- Use organic cotton bedding. Permanent press bedding can give off low-grade chemical fumes while you sleep. Your body can deplete nutrients such as zinc and magnesium trying to detoxify these types of chemicals.

- Take a Warm Bath. It is a great way to relax your body. Do not overdo it, however. You merely want to relax your body, not exhaust it. Too long in hot water and your body is drained of vitality. Use bath salts, or throw in Epsom salts and baking soda—one cup of each. These will relax you and help remove toxins from your body. Read The Full Story…