If you need a little extra help getting a good night’s sleep, consider trying these 5 natural sleep aids below.
Sleeping well is a restorative process. Just like a phone turns off after long hours of use and needs to be recharged, so does the human body. Sleep helps repair various bodily functions at the cellular level. It enhances an individual’s cognitive ability to carry out daily functions. Therefore, the ability to fall asleep or go back to sleep at night without discomfort is crucial to maintaining a person’s overall well-being.
Sleep is an active state maintained by a highly organized interplay of neural networks and neurotransmitters in the central nervous system (CNS). Stress is one of the main factors in poor quality and quantity of sleep. The end products of the stress response are corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) and cortisol, which are responsible for arousal and insomnia. Conversely, deep sleep has an inhibitory effect on the stress response. Other factors associated with poor sleep quality are: chronic pain, heart failure, COPD, asthma, ulcers, thyroid disorders, Parkinson’s disease, headaches, smoking, etc.
5 Ways Naturopathy Can Help Improve Sleep:
1. Hydrotherapy: A neutral temperature shower for 3-5 minutes at bedtime helps relieve brain congestion. Simple things like a hot foot dip also help. A hot soaking bath or shower at bedtime is a very traditional concept and acts as a natural sedative relieving irritability and restlessness in the body.
2. Massage therapy: A gentle head, neck, and foot massage at bedtime or at the end of the night also induces sleep. Many studies have been done on it and it has been found that endorphins are released during the massage, which reduces pain, de-stresses and provides relaxation.
3. Food: What we eat and when we eat can influence our sleep patterns. A recent study concluded that higher food intake close to bedtime is associated with negative sleep patterns. It was hypothesized that increased gastric volume may cause physical discomfort and delay sleep onset. Certain foods such as beets, bananas, buttermilk, and almonds are very rich in tryptophan, which promotes sleep. Also tracks, cashew, coconut water, jackfruit, sunflower seeds, peanuts, barley, amaranth and bajra are some of the foods rich in potassium and vitamin B6 that act as a natural relaxant.
4.Yoga: Regular Yoga practice helps reduce stress and regularize sleep patterns. Yoga is known to reduce somatization and symptoms related to mental health indicators such as anxiety, depression, anger, and fatigue. Inverted postures, forward and backward bends promote better blood flow to the brain and promote sleep. Pranayama, which is made up of slow breathing, helps activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which can make you calmer and more relaxed.
5. Meditation: Even a simple 15-minute meditation technique of breath awareness can help stimulate the pineal gland, which is responsible for the production of the hormone melatonin, which primarily controls the sleep-wake cycle and mood stability. Practices like deep relaxation, trataka induce an alpha state in which alpha brain waves become dominant. This is a relaxed awake state that leads to calmness, alertness, and better cognitive abilities.
(Entries: Dr. Avantika Krishna Killa, Naturopath, Yoga Physician and Founder, Panchatattva)
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