Does the full moon phase affect your sleep? What 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. A most interesting fact that some people sleep better when the moon is full, but its brightness falls on their faces.

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

What is melatonin?

Melatonin is a hormone made by the pineal gland of human body what is a small gland in the brain. Melatonin helps more control your sleep and wake cycles. Very small amounts of it are found in foods such as meats, grains, fruits, and vegetables. You can also buy it as a supplement.

What does natural melatonin in the body?

Your body has its own internal clock that controls the natural cycle of sleep and your waking hours. For the part you see your body controls the amount of melatonin in the body is doing. Normally, melatonin levels begin to rise in the mid to late evening, remain high for most of the night, and then went in the early morning hours.

Light influences how much melatonin the body produces. During the shorter days in winter, your body produce melatonin, sooner or later in the day than usual. This change may cause symptoms of seasonal affective disorder (SAD) or winter lead depression.1

Normally, melatonin levels decline gradually with age. Some older adults make small amounts or none at all. Read The Full Story…

Anti-insomnia drugs are medicines that help people fall asleep or stay asleep. Before starting any natural remedies, consult your doctor. Chronic insomnia can itself be a symptom of another condition, such as depression, heart disease, sleep apnea, lung disease, hot flashes, or diabetes, so it’s important to see a doctor if you are having trouble sleeping.

Here a few natural remedies that are used to treat insomnia:

- Melatonin

Melatonin is a popular remedy to help people fall asleep when the sleep/wake cycle has been disturbed; such as in shift workers or people who with jet lag.

Melatonin is a hormone found naturally in the body. The pineal gland in the brain makes serotonin which is then converted into melatonin at night when exposure to light decreases.

Melatonin is typically taken about 30 minutes before the desired bedtime. Some experts caution that melatonin should not be used by people with depression, schizophrenia, autoimmune diseases, and other serious illness. Pregnant and nursing women should not use melatonin.

- Valerian

Valerian is an herbal extract. It is one of the leading natural supplements for managing anxiety and insomnia. Some limited findings show that valerian may reduce the time needed to fall asleep and may improve sleep quality. Unlike the benzodiazepines, most people feel no morning grogginess after taking valerian. Other findings were not as promising. They showed that when compared to a placebo, valerian didn’t relieve anxiety or insomnia any better than the placebo. Read The Full Story…

Twenty five percent of adults and 50% of senior citizens have insomnia problems. Insomnia is also a problem that is prevalent among people with HIV/AIDS.

People who suffer from sleepless nights know that curing insomnia isn’t easy - but it is possible, with these natural, non-invasive sleep aids and insomnia cures.

Here are a 10 quick insomnia tips that could help you sleep much better each night:

1. Avoiding caffeine, MSG, alcohol, and other drugs and chemicals that can interfere with sleep cycles. Need a cup of java to get the day started? Even a cup of coffee first thing in the morning has the potential to interfere with nighttime sleep. Some people react to caffeine, alcohol, and chemicals like MSG (in food) much more than others.
2. Acupressure and acupuncture may help to cure insomnia. Acupressure would involve applying pressure to the back of head at the base of the skull while prolonged acupuncture (4-5 weeks) increases the amount of melatonin produced in the evening. PMR or progressive muscle relaxation is a great natural remedy for insomnia.
3. Drink Chamomile Tea an hour before bedtime and take Valerian root with it. If you open up your first bottle of Valerian root and it smells like rotten socks, don’t throw it away, it’s supposed to smell like that!
4. Eat Honey. Honey is also said to promote sleep and is a good wholesome natural cure for insomnia. 2 teaspoons in a large cup of water should do the trick. In fact a cup of Chamomile tea with honey is even better. Bedtime tea consisting of valerian root, kava kava, chamomile and catnip in the right proportion is a very calming concoction. Another cure for insomnia, which is supposed to work wonders, is to take a pinch of cinnamon, roast it until it turns black. Boil this in water (a glassful) and take it just half an hour before you want to retire. It is professed to work. Read The Full Story…
   

Several physical, medical, psychiatric or external factors cause trouble in sleep. Sleeping disorders are a common problem among people all over the world. There can be different types of sleeping disorders, symptoms causes may vary according to the types. Sleeping disorder typically occur due to stress, anxiety, grief, dependencies like alcoholism and various external environmental factors. A lot of people can experience sleeping disorders due to food sensitivity, which causes disruption while sleeping.

There are many sleep disorders types, which are generally classified into one of three categories:

- lack of sleep (e.g., insomnia),

- disturbed sleep (e.g., obstructive sleep apnea), and

- excessive sleep (e.g., narcolepsy).

Insomnia – a short term or chronic inability to get high quality sleep – is a common sleep problem and can be caused by a variety of things including stress, a change in time zones, an altered sleep schedule or poor bedtime habits. Whether your problem is an occasional sleepless night or a series of them, plenty of solutions exist to help you get better sleep.

Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome . The most common kind of sleep apnea is called Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome. Sleep apnea means “cessation of breath.” It is characterized by repetitive episodes of upper airway obstruction that occur during sleep, usually associated with a reduction in blood oxygen saturation. In other words, the airway becomes obstructed at several possible sites. The upper airway can be obstructed by excess tissue in the airway, large tonsils, a large tongue and usually includes the airway muscles relaxing and collapsing when asleep. Another site of obstruction can be the nasal passages. Sometimes the structure of the jaw and airway can be a factor in sleep apnea. Read The Full Story…

The widely used club drug ecstasy appears to increase the risk of sleep apnea, say U.S. researchers.

“People who use ecstasy need to know that this drug damages the brain and can cause immediate and dangerous problems such as sleep apnea,” study author Dr. Una McCann, of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, said in a news release.

McCann and colleagues conducted sleep tests on 71 people who’d used ecstasy (MDMA) and 62 people who’d never used the illegal drug. Ecstasy users had a more than eight-fold increased risk of sleep apnea compared to non-users. Mild sleep apnea rates were similar in both groups (21% of ecstasy users and 27% of non-users), but only ecstasy users had moderate (13%) or severe (1%) sleep apnea.

The longer a person used ecstasy, the more sleep apnea episodes they experienced, said the researchers. They also found that ecstasy use was a greater risk factor for sleep apnea than obesity.

The study is published in the Dec. 2 online issue of the journal Neurology.

Source: http://www.medicinenet.com

Over the years of putting our own children to sleep and keeping them asleep, and counseling thousands of other moms and dads on various styles of nighttime parenting, here are some time-tested, proven attitudes and techniques. Most of these are applicable to infants and toddlers of all ages.

Here are a few simple tips you may want to try to get a bit more uninterrupted sleep:

1. Keep to a routine. If your baby wakes up late in the morning to help make up for some of his late nights, begin waking him at an earlier time each day to help encourage him to get the sleep he needs at night — when the rest of the household sleeps.
2. Put baby in bed while awake. Yes, they can go to sleep by them selves if not hungry! This you should do both at night and every time your baby takes a nap at day time. During his first weeks your baby will probably fall asleep at your breast every time he nurses (or with the bottle). Don’t worry about it.
3. Increase daytime feeds. Feeding your baby more often during the day will allow him to meet his nutritional needs at a time more convenient to you.
4. Sleepy Sounds. The calming, repetitive sounds of traditional lullabies recall the ‘womb music’ your baby heard before birth (your heartbeat, and fluids whooshing through the placenta). Baby music that incorporates elements such as the rhythm of the maternal heartbeat or ‘white noise’ has remarkable soothing effects, especially if played continuously through the night.
5. A light cotton cloth over the eyes. I know many babies that fall asleep almost instantly if their face is cover by a very thin cotton cloth. I suppose it helps them shutting out distracting visual impressions.
6. Choose a well-lit area for your baby’s naps. This will help encourage shorter naps, which in turn may help your little one sleep better at night.
7. Stuffed animal or blanket that smells MOM. Mom and milk is usually what babies want when the most waking up. With a stuffed animal with your smell on it, he might not feel as lonely when waking up in the middle of the night. Put the animal close to your body for a few day and nights and then give it to your baby every time he goes to sleep.
8. A Magic Touch. Silent nights could be at your fingertips: Research from Miami University showed that infants and toddlers who were massaged daily for one month, for 15 minutes prior to bedtime, fell asleep more easily by the end of the study.
9. Avoid using Aids to Help your Baby Sleep. Many exhausted parents resort to external aids to get their babies sleeping (for example, constantly using a pacifier, driving your baby around, and rocking or nursing your baby to sleep). Though your baby might initially fall asleep sleep quicker with these external aids, you are ultimately making your job much more difficult. The problem is that it helps you avoid teaching your baby how to fall asleep alone. Instead, take the time to get your baby falling asleep without any help, and he will fall asleep faster and sleep

10. Waking up Throughout the Night. Most, if not all, babies wake up several times throughout the night. Even a baby who is already sleeping through the night wakes up numerous times during the night. The key is that if your baby knows know how to fall back to sleep on his own, he won’t need you to put him back to sleep. So, don’t rush in as soon as your baby wakes up in the middle of the night. Instead, give it some time and you might be pleasantly surprised to find that your baby falls back to sleep on his own.

Did you know that 78 percent of women have insomnia and other sleep problems during pregnancy? There are numerous reasons you may have trouble drifting off to dreamland during pregnancy. Some of the more common troubles include frequent urination, an unquiet mind, stress, leg cramps or the incapacity to get into a comfortable position.

Here are 10 tips for reducing insomnia during pregnancy:

1. Go to bed drowsy. Sometimes the issue is that you are going to bed wound up and not able to sleep because you are not physically or mentally ready to sleep. By entering your bed, only when truly ready to sleep, you increase the likelihood of actually succeeding. To help with this avoid caffeine after early afternoon, don’t exercise vigorously past late afternoon, and don’t have heavy discussion before bed or in bed. Doing relaxation alone or with your partner can be helpful.
2. Skip the daytime naps. Oh, how tempting they can be. When my daughters are entertained, or my husband is home, I’m tempted to take some good pregnancy advice and sneak in a nap. Unfortunately, taking a nap means I have a more difficult time sleeping at night. While it might be hard to make it all day long without catching some zzz’s, naps might be contributing to your pregnancy insomnia. Try cutting them out, and see if you are able to sleep more soundly at night.
3. Try a glass of warm milk with some honey and a light, carbohydrate filled snack that will keep your tummy full so you don’t wake up in the middle of the night hungry. The milk will help you drift off to sleep.
4. Pillows. Use them where ever you need them: between your knees for aching hips, under your belly for support, behind your back, and under your head.
5. Warm water bath. A bath or shower can not only relax you and soothe soreness that accompanies pregnancy, but it can also help you prepare for sleep. This works before bedtime as well as in the middle of the night.
6. Change eating habits: Many cases of pregnancy insomnia are caused by improper eating habits. When food intake is causing heartburn or acid reflux, eating less at night can help a whole lot. Also, if you haven’t already, cut out caffeine and other similar products. These can add to pregnancy insomnia a whole lot and they are not good for the baby. Read The Full Story…
   

If you’re having trouble getting shuteye, natural sleep aids may be able to rescue you from sleepless nights. Here, the most popular options that can help you rest.

Before starting any natural remedies, consult your doctor. Chronic insomnia can itself be a symptom of another condition, such as depression, heart disease, sleep apnea, lung disease, hot flashes, or diabetes, so it’s important to see a doctor if you are having trouble sleeping.

Here are simple, natural foods to help insomniacs sleep better:

- Chamomile. A cup of chamomile tea before bed could set you up for a successful night of sleep. The drink should help you feel calmer, relaxed and ready for bed. It can also be taken as a tincture or extract.

- Valerian. Valerian is a root that has long been used as an herbal sleep aid. It has a characteristic smell, like old socks, which comes from isovaleric acid. Valerian can be used to help occasional sleeplessness, but is also particularly helpful taken long-term. Many studies have shown valerian root to be an extremely safe and effective way to promote sleep. Patients who take valerian report that they feel less anxious and nervous, and have better rest at night.

- Kava. Kava is an anti-anxiety herb that may be helpful for anxiety-related insomnia. However, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued an advisory to consumers about the potential risk of severe liver injury resulting from the use of dietary supplements containing kava.

- Melatonin. Melatonin is a hormone that the body produces at night. It is sometimes called the “sleep hormone” because it is so important to healthy sleep. People who are blind, who suffer from jet lag, or who live in places with extended sunlight hours may have trouble sleeping because their bodies do not produce enough melatonin.

- Vitamins. Take a combo of magnesium and calcium before bed. Each has been proven to assist sleep effort independently, but they are even more effective when taken together.

Relaxation Techniques to help insomniacs sleep better:

Relaxation techniques are one of the most effective ways to increase sleep time, fall asleep faster, and feel more rested in the morning. They require a minimum of 20 minutes before going to bed. There are many different techniques: Read The Full Story…