Counting the Sheep and feel relaxing helps against sleeping disorders
Lack of sleep is a real problem. Often people don’t realize
until during the day that their overnight sleep was not truly recuperative.
“Handling sleep the wrong way often is the problem,” says Juergen Zulley, a
sleep researcher in Regensburg, Germany. Many of those affected can help
themselves with an improved lifestyle on the way to a peaceful night. To
changing your behavior is not so easy, says Zulley, who has dealt with the
issue of sleeping for more than 35 years and is the current president of the
German Academy for Health and Sleep(DAGS). The diagnosis insomnia is not made
until the individual’s daily activities are clearly impaired from sleep
problems every day for more than four weeks. By that time it’s definitely time
to act.
Many affected
seek advice from people with the same problem. “Of course I cannot give medical
advice. The family doctor is responsible for that. But many people are
comforted by talking to others and getting tips,” says Hartmut Rentmeister, who
runs a self-help group in Germany. Sleep expert Zulley does’t mind if the
initial household remedies are recommended, as long as it’s not alcohol. “A
nightcap is not a help but more a hazard for good sleep and one’s health,” says
Zulley. Warm milk with honey or valerian could help. Audio books and quiet
music are also options. Even “counting sheep” can help as it represents a
monotonous stimulation, meaning it puts you to sleep. “Relaxation is the main
way to get to sleep,” Zulley stresses.
Maintaining certain basic rules is essential for good sleep, such as not
going to bed until you are really tired. A comfortable bedroom is also
recommended, including the right bed and room temperature. If the tips and
tricks don’t help, then the individual should seek out a doctor. “The family
doctor can first rule out if there is an illness that can cause insomnia,” says
Marie-Luise Hansen, medical head of the competence centre at the Charite
university clinic in Berlin.
If that’s
not the case, sleeping pills could help under certain circumstances as long as
they are not taken for more than four weeks. If that doesn’t work, a sleep
physician should be contacted. “Insomnia is very complex. There is not a
standard treatment,” Hansen says.
“Nature
tells us to sleep when it’s dark and be awake when it’s light outside. So we
train ourselves to wake up at the break of dawn and beactive. The time when you
wake up is the most important time of the day,” says the sleep expert.
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