Chronic Insomnia Cures

What are the symptoms of insomnia?

The first symptom that is very dominant is sleep anxiety. This is that anxious feeling that you get when you get into bed.

Waking up in the middle of the night and cannot fall back to sleep.

You are always tired during the day.

You have low concentration and focus.

Feels like you are dragging a dead body with you wherever you go.

Depression is also a symptom that you might have insomnia.

For more information on the symptoms of insomnia, you can check out my signs and symptoms of insomnia page.

Now how do we deal with insomnia?

There are several things that you can do to reduce the severity of insomnia, but there is only one way to actually cure it. Before I can talk about the cure, let me firstly discuss the causes of insomnia. Insomnia is primarily a psychological disorder, but there are other things that can contribute to it. Lifestyle changes are mainly the biggest contributor to this problem.

Some of the lifestyle changes that might help

Keep to your bedtime routine. This will help with your circadian rhythm to keep your bed time routine healthy.

Avoid caffeine and alcohol after 2 pm.

Exercise can help to reduce stress and lowers the cortisol levels in the blood.

Eat more green foods that are high in Ca and Mg. This helps in melatonin production which is our natural sleeping hormone.

Do not get addicted to sleep meds. Having insomnia is bad enough and sleeping pill addiction is not the solution.

Avoid too much light before bedtime and YES I am also talking about your tablet, PC and cellphone. The blue light that comes from these devices sends signals to your brain to stay awake.

Not what about the cure?

There are several things that can help with insomnia as discussed above, but there is only one way to get rid of this problem. Because insomnia is a psychological problem, you need to address it in a psychological manner. Cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT in short is by far the best way to approach insomnia.

If you are struggling with insomnia, then you must know that insomnia is actually a fear of not getting enough sleep that keeps us awake. I you stress, your body releases adrenaline that puts your body in a fight or flight mode which makes it nearly impossible to fall asleep. The source is not some kind of disease or shortage in chemicals, but actually your subconscious mind.

CBT targets your subconscious and helps your brain to develop new habits to fall asleep.

So what should I do now?

In this post I told you the causes of insomnia and also the symptoms. I also gave you the best way on how you can address this problem. There is a CBT therapy course that I tried and know for a fact that will work. This course is called six steps to sleep and uses CBT as its primary weapon to retrain the mind to sleep better. It also has some nice additions to CBT. Feel free to leave me a comment below if you have any questions.