Sleep Restriction Therapy - A New Natural Cure for Insomnia
A new natural cure for insomnia that appears to be quite effective is called sleep restrictions therapy. Developed by Dr. Spielman of Columbia Presbyterian in New York it is reported that patients undergoing this treatment achieved seven hours of good sleep within a month. The quality of their sleep was also improved. So how does it work?
This therapy is based on the idea that your body has adapted to go without sleep and that it can be retrained sleep better. It is not an overnight cure and will take a few weeks to retrain the body and to achieve better sleep. If you have been taking sleeping pills to help you sleep you will need to stop taking them before using this therapy. They do not help long-term in any case and will prevent you from retraining your body to sleep better.
1. Determine the minimum time you can sleep. This can be achieved by keeping a daily log of how much time you are sleeping. You can also use this to monitor things that are keeping you from sleeping, for instance activities, events or foods that are disrupting your sleep.
2. Disrupt your sleep pattern by going without sleep for 24 hours. Not sleeping for this time builds up chemicals in your body induced sleep and also disrupts learned faulty sleep pattern.
3. Allow yourself to sleep for the minimum time you found in step one. For instance if your minimum time was four hours and you normally wake up at 7 AM stay awake until 3 AM. Make sure you still get up at 7 AM even if you want to sleep more.
4. Use a bright light to help regulate your sleep pattern. This should be used for about half an hour to waking. This helps to regulate sleep pattern and is an important part of sleep deprivation therapy.
5. Increase the minimum time you sleep slowly. Add 15 minutes of sleep time each night. For instance if you are going to sleep at 3 AM the first night try to go to sleep at 2:45 AM instead. Gradually increasing sleep time by 15 minutes will help to retrain the sleep pattern. If you find that you again cannot sleep returned to the point where you could sleep. Do not try to do this too quickly as if you try to sleep the whole night you will disrupt beneficial sleep patterns you have already established.
6. Do not sleep during the day however tired you may feel. this is teaching the body to sleep at an inappropriate time and will prevent the sleeping properly at night. You start to fill time during the day do something active to keep you away.
Most chronic insomniacs can benefit from this natural cure for insomnia, although results may vary considerably. Even if it does not allow you to sleep the whole night it should extend the time that you can sleep.