Insomnia: what to do at home, how to fall asleep faster

Symptoms of insomnia

Insomnia manifests itself in different ways. Some people find it difficult to sleep, while others find it difficult to get out of bed in the morning. Some patients complain of frequent awakenings in the middle of the night.

Symptoms of insomnia include:

Difficulty falling asleep.
In this case, a person may not experience any disorders in the nervous system. The conditions for sleeping are favorable: the bed is comfortable, the room is ventilated, but it’s not even possible to doze off. A person is looking for a comfortable position, but cannot find it, he becomes either hot or cold. Sometimes he cannot distract himself from thoughts about various matters. This leads to the fact that sleep does not occur.
Waking up after a short sleep.
An inexplicable fear or a nightmare makes you wake up. The man tries to doze off again, but he fails. Therefore, in the morning he feels overwhelmed and tired.
A short night's sleep.
Sometimes it happens that after sleeping for several hours, a person wakes up and can no longer sleep. A sleep duration of 3-4 hours does not allow you to fully rest.
Read also: Ambivert: between introvert and extrovert

All these symptoms first bother a person from time to time, and then appear more and more often. You need to be wary if signs of insomnia occur every other day for a month.

Symptoms of neurological disorders may include the following:

A person cannot cope with insomnia on his own.
At night he suffers from discomfort. At the same time, during the day he painfully wants to lie down and fall asleep, his activity decreases.
A person's thought processes suffer.
It is difficult for him to concentrate on work or study, attention and memory deteriorate.
A person develops depression.
Although sometimes it becomes the root cause of insomnia.

Experts do not recommend starting to take medications at the first signs of insomnia. This will lead to the fact that in the future you will not be able to fall asleep without their help, and the dose will have to be increased all the time.

Insomnia is a disease, which means you need to look for the causes of its occurrence. Only by eliminating them can you get rid of the problem.

“Please go away, insomnia...”

Surely each of us has suffered from insomnia at least once in our lives. Perhaps it happened the night before an exam or before an important meeting, when you were trying to go to bed early and get a good night's sleep. But instead, they lay awake for hours, painfully scrolling through the options for upcoming events. Or, having come after a hard day at work, literally “falling asleep on the go,” you went to bed dreaming of the desired rest, but, alas, the bed is uncomfortable, or some barely audible sounds are disturbing you, and the desire to sleep disappears irrevocably. Such problems regularly occur in 30-45% of people, and in half of them they become chronic; about 80% of patients complaining of poor sleep suffer from neuroses.

Causes of insomnia

Sleep is controlled by the central nervous system.

Therefore, the causes of insomnia may be hidden in such disorders as:

Stress. The more impressionable a person is, the higher the likelihood that nervous tension will negatively affect falling asleep.
Uncomfortable conditions for falling asleep. Insomnia can be caused by extraneous noise in the room, bright light in the room, heat or cold. Sometimes insomnia develops when your usual environment changes.
Changes in your usual lifestyle. An example is rearranging your work or school schedule.
Climate change or moving to a country with a different time zone. Adaptation mechanisms are developed to varying degrees in each person.
Taking drugs that have a stimulating effect on the central nervous system.
Overeating before bed. Not only a heavy dinner, but also the consumption of alcoholic beverages, strong tea or coffee, chocolate, and Coca-Cola can affect the quality of sleep.
Watching TV before bed. If the program or film was exciting, then the person may develop insomnia. A similar situation is observed among people who spend a long time at the computer and play games.
Diseases of the thyroid gland with its hypo- and hyperfunction.
Pain. Any painful sensations will not allow you to fall asleep. The more intense they are, the more difficult it will be to fall asleep.
Respiratory diseases. People with bronchial asthma and obstructive pulmonary disease often suffer from insomnia. Cough of any etiology negatively affects the quality of sleep.
Diseases of the digestive system. Any discomfort disrupts sleep.
Calf muscle cramps, restless legs syndrome, apnea - all these syndromes are causes of insomnia.
Mental disorders. These include depression, neurosis, and anxiety.
Neurological diseases: Parkinson's disease, previous traumatic brain injuries, spinal osteochondrosis.
Cardiovascular pathologies: arrhythmia, previous heart attack or stroke, hypertension, heart defects.
Alcohol abuse. Withdrawal syndrome is the cause of insomnia in all alcoholics. It is not possible to cope with the problem even with the help of taking potent medications.
Smoking. Smokers often suffer from poor sleep quality. Adherence to a bad habit makes them get up at night and reach for a cigarette. This further aggravates the existing problem.
The age of the person. There are certain periods when people often have trouble sleeping. This happens in children, adolescents, women during menopause, and the elderly. Sometimes pregnancy and childbirth can trigger insomnia.

Unusual ways and places to combat insomnia

Between stress levels, crazy work hours become unusual, but with a negative feeling, devices and smartphones that attract our attention even late at night (and whose blue lights suppress melatonin, the hormone responsible for regulating the sleep cycle), it's no wonder when every morning is satisfying a parade of dark circles in the office, as well as in the bar and on the tram. Moreover, today's society seems to have forgotten how much sleep is vital for a person: between supermarkets open 24 hours a day, active gyms all night, happy night hours that are consumed between 2 and 5 am and exchange evenings nightlife. in which one can buy and sell from dusk to dawn, there is little left for sleep.

Office polka dots

This is the era of comfortable work, that is, the quality of life taken into account during working hours. Many illuminated companies have corporate sleeping areas where you can take a nap. Besides this benefit (much more beneficial than the gym), there are many work situations in which an office yoga course is not a joke to talk about during your lunch break. Leave the mouse pad for a few minutes and grab a yoga mat.

Meditation bar

And yet, this time we are forced to change our minds. And yawn: not for boredom, but for relaxation, a real highlight on the menu at the so-called yoga bar. In the most chaotic and noisy metropolis, these cafes spring up like mushrooms to refresh not only the body, but also the soul through immersion in silence, the meditation that follows from it, and the final stage: the inevitable fall asleep.

SleepBox, what is it?

For those who need a break at the bar, the so-called SleepBoxes will come in handy. These are mini rooms (which resemble very small spaces in Japanese hotel capsules) where you can sleep. The first experiments were born in non-transit places such as airports and celebrated success, so that these "sleeping boxes" multiplied, reaching even the city centers of ever dormant metropolises.

What to do if you suffer from insomnia?

If you have insomnia, you should not immediately resort to taking medications. Such drugs exist, but a doctor must prescribe them.

First you need to try to cope with the problem in other ways:

Adhere to a work-rest schedule. You need to go to bed at the same time. The body will get used to the established rhythm and sleep problems may resolve on their own.
Avoid eating before bed.
Avoid drinking alcohol and stimulating soft drinks.
Stop smoking.
Don't go to bed on an empty stomach. Before going to bed, you can drink a glass of kefir or warm milk. If you want to eat something, then preference should be given to light snacks that do not contain hot sauces and seasonings.
Take a walk before bed. Relaxing massage and gymnastics also help you fall asleep faster. You can take a warm bath with herbal decoctions.
Refusal of mental work before bedtime. It must be completed no later than 2 hours before the night's rest.
Avoid reading books and watching TV before bed. You should not play computer games or talk on the phone.
Create comfortable sleeping conditions for yourself. The room needs to be ventilated. Light and noise should not interfere with falling asleep.

If all these conditions have been met, but sleep still does not occur, then after 30 minutes you need to get out of bed and walk around. You can listen to pleasant music.

Insomnia pills

Medicines should be aimed at eliminating the cause of insomnia. If they do not help cope with the disorder, the doctor may prescribe hypnotics (sleeping pills). Such prescriptions are prescribed only to those people who suffer from chronic insomnia.

Features of taking sleeping pills:

Tablets should not be combined with alcoholic beverages or other medications.
Sleeping pills can enhance the effect of antipsychotics and antidepressants.
Pregnant and lactating women should not take sleeping pills.
Sleeping pills have a negative effect on concentration. They are prohibited for people whose work requires quick reactions.
Drugs for the treatment of insomnia are addictive, so they should not be taken for more than 21 days. Then you need to take a break.

If you can’t cope with insomnia without pills, then you need to start with dietary supplements and herbal remedies:

Valerian. Take 2 tablets before bedtime.
Anti-stress. The drug is based on plant components. It contains hawthorn, hops, mint, motherwort, etc.
Neurostable. The product is based on B vitamins, hops, oregano and motherwort.
Femina Alga. This drug is suitable for the treatment of insomnia in women.
Herbal tea with mint and oregano, hibiscus.
Normoxan. It contains Baikal skullcap. This plant is much more effective than valerian.
Products containing magnesium.

You can buy drugs without a prescription such as: Circadin, Melaxen and Melaton. All of them are based on melatonin. This substance controls blood pressure, endocrine glands and circadian rhythms.

Melatonin is produced at night. It is produced by the body itself. Preparations with melatonin are designed to compensate for its deficiency, thereby relieving a person of insomnia. However, such drugs cannot be called sleeping pills. Melatonin preparations are often used when changing time zones to help the body readjust itself.

Sleeping pills based on chemical components include:

Benzodiazepine tranquilizers: Phenazepam, Diazepam, Relanium.
Zopiclone: Zolpidem, Sonex, Somnol, Sonnat.
Barbiturates: Phenobarbital, Sodium etaminal.
H1 histamine receptor blockers: Pipolfen, Diphenhydramine.

All these drugs are available at the pharmacy with a prescription. Therefore, the doctor selects their dosage. He also determines the timing of treatment.

Why can't we close our eyes?

Insomnia that lasts several nights is considered transient. The reasons for this may be long work on night shifts, stay in different climatic zones and time zones, and stressful situations. Short-term insomnia can last from several days to one month. Chronic insomnia most often accompanies neuroses, chronic somatic diseases, metabolic and endocrine diseases, organic lesions of the central and peripheral nervous systems, mental illnesses, which in turn lead to endogenous insomnia. Endogenous insomnia can be associated with external factors: drinking alcohol, medications with a stimulant effect, drinking strong tea, coffee, sedatives before bed, living near busy roads and highways. A rare manifestation of sleep disorder is idiopathic insomnia. It begins in childhood and persists throughout life. Such insomnia is characterized by fragmented short sleep, irritability, complaints of daytime fatigue, increased fatigue, and sometimes has a family history.