One Cent At A Time

A Personal finance blog for saving money and earning more and thus having a better life

10 Reasons and Possible Cures of Sleeplessness

18 Comments

I decided to diversify a little bit on the topics here at OCAAT. I had almost forgotten that the theme is “getting ahead” not just monetarily but, in every aspect of your life. Today’s coverage is on mental piece and having good night’s sleep. Let me reveal a secret, SMB and I sleep in different rooms. Why?

Because I snore!

I wasn’t paying attention but, lately I started analyzing our marital relationship, which is obviously doesn’t quiet resemble a romantic couple.

I have never paid much attention to my snoring habit. I behaved as if it was my birth right to snore and she should adjust to it. I was wrong. I wasn’t even trying to cure this almost incurable habit. In-fact sleep in different rooms helped my blogging in to late nights. I never thought about the damages it was doing to our relationship.

Now that SMB is spending time with her parents in India, and I started missing her, all these self-realization started. Yesterday I Got some patches from pharmacy, if that doesn’t work, I will apply nasal sprays, and so on. I am determined to see an end of snoring. By the time she gets back here in two months, I am determined to at least reduce the intensity.

I’ll ask her to be in the same room and at least try spend the night for first few days upon her return. I have another bad habit, that of smoking, which SMB is strictly against of. Let it be my next project to quit.

How to get good night’s sleep

A night’s sleep is as important as your 8 hours (often more) day job. It rejuvenate your body and mind. Prepares you for another day of mental and physical stress. If you don’t get sleep, there are serious consequences. Not only snoring, there could be many reasons behind a sleepless night. Let’s look at them.

I will not try to give solution, let the causes reveal the solution.

  • Stress or Depression: Stress and depression can be the biggest cause of not getting a good night’s sleep as per experts. I remember spending sleepless nights during critical phases of our projects. Even I remember not being able to sleep during my job hunt days.
  • Unhealthy habits: Your alcohol, nicotine and caffeine addiction may tale toll on your sleep. caffeine and nicotine  are stimulants that prevent sleeping by sending wrong signals to your brain. Alcohol, however, prevents deep sleep.
  • Sleeping environment: This include your bed, pillows,, sheets, partner, etc. Poor-quality sleep can be caused by factors such as sleeping with a pet, drinking caffeinated beverages before going to bed. Having too much noise in the background. People living near highways often suffer poor sleep quality.
  • Medication: certain heart drugs and asthma drugs are known to cause sleeplessness. A quick search on internet reveals many other type of medication for depression, blood pressure and allergies can also cause sleep disorder.
  • Medical condition: Certain medical conditions like sleep apnea can disrupt your night’s rest. If you have chronic pain, breathing difficulties or a need to urinate frequently, you might develop sleeplessness.
  • Not maintaining body clock: Late nights or night outs causes disorder, you won’t feel it in a day or few. Constant erratic and irregular schedule is dangerous to your sleeping order. Little power naps are OK but sleeping for a few hours in the afternoon is not very helpful for night’s sleep.
  • Snoring: As explained above, I am a live example of this problem. There are cure, and we men should try it at least. Having a partner who snores is a night mare, which couples discover late in their relationship.
  • Room temperature: Sometimes thermostat is the culprit. Programmable thermostats can cause sudden temperature change during night if setting are not adjusted properly. A wrong programming can cause morning temperature rise causing you waking up.
  • Eating habit: Believe it or not,  Too much food intake before you go to sleep can cause sleeplessness. You may feel physically uncomfortable lying down.
  • Worrying too Much about sleep: If you can’t sleep for a day or too, you get worried. That may cause further problem. When you are too much anxious it works against your mind. If you face this, stop trying to sleep, get a book and start reading instead.

A Possible cures that may help you getting back some sleep.

The cures often involve very subtle changes to lifestyle. If you read, you’ll find them easy to follow. The challenge is in keeping the habit intact for days, months and years.

  1. Use your bed only for sleeping; Don’t use it for any other purpose, if possible do not enter in to the bed room during day.
  2. Make your sleeping environment as quiet as possible. Noise-insulate the room. If you can’t sleep when light is on, make sure blinds/curtains are closed, take special care of the space under the door. Make the room as dark as possible
  3. Take television out of the bedroom.
  4. Adjust AC vents to keep you warm/cool when you sleep as per your choice. if you like air flow hit you on your face for a good sleep adjust the vents your way.
  5. Throw away/donate mattresses/pillows that are not fit for you and hinder your night’s sleep.
  6. Avoid caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, tranquilizers, and other such drugs, especially in the five hours prior to bedtime
  7. Keep a consistent sleep / wake schedule. Do not become a night owl and expect to get a sleep as soon as you hit bed.
  8. Avoid irregular napping. and if you get less sleep, try to catch up as quickly as possible.
  9. If you absolutely can’t fall a sleep, take a book and start reading, often it gives better result than keep lying on the bed.
  10. Exercise daily, this is one very effective habit I learned lately. A good 15 mins of exercise can do wonder to your body, mind and sleep. Be careful not to over-exercise though.

If all else fails, you might look into getting some medication to help you sleep. The good news is that you can purchase sleeping pills and other aids online, which saves you money throughout the process. Online pharmacies are excellent at delivering the items that you need directly to your door. This saves you a trip to the pharmacy and ensures that you have a constant supply of this medicine arriving when you need it. While sleeping naturally is the ideal solution, it is nice to know that sleep aids are so easy to come by if they become necessary.

Readers, Isn’t a good night’s sleep the most important factor in our daily effectiveness and productivity? What do you suggest more? 

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Comments

  1. I haven’t been sleeping well lately and I know it’s because of the temperature of our place. Our apartment building only has the one thermostat and it is seriously 27 degree celsius in our place. We’re still waiting for the landlord to fix it, because even with the window open and fan on it feels like I’m trying to sleep through the hottest day in summer!

    Reply

  2. You should never, ever ever take any type of drugs to get a good night’s sleep. There are plenty of natural ways to improve your sleep.

    Exercise works great! When I do get a good workout in, I always sleep great that night!

    I recently started using an electric fan at bedtime that makes this nice, soothing humming sound. I love the sound that thing makes, and I’ve never slept better in my life than I do to the sweet sound of that fan.

    I also downloaded a free Android app called Sleepy Time that plays a wide variety of sounds that are conducive to better sleep. I highly recommend it as it’s really helped me sleep better when I’ve used it.

    Nobody should ever take drugs to get a good night’s sleep, EVER!

    Reply

    • I am having sleep disorder lately. I know what to do but it’s all emotional thing that’s keeping me from sleeping. I am guilty of taking medicines without trying for the more natural cure, that is to keep my mind calm and leaving everything to the fate…perhaps I’ll learn soon.

      Good to know about that app, should try once.

      Reply

  3. Developing a rhythm – a set of activities I do before sleeping – has helped me train to fall asleep. Try doing the same activities before bed everyday, like reading a novel for 10 mins, a glass of milk,etc. and you will notice after some time this becomes a habit that will effectively put you to sleep.

    Reply

    • thats good suggestion Rohit. A glass of cold milk helped me a lot in the past. Sadly I develop a bad problem I get acidity if I drink milk.

      Reply

  4. I’ve always been restless and have never been a good sleeper. I have actually never slept through the night. As I’m sure you can imagine, this is less than ideal. Some of these things help, especially as a sensitive sleeper!

    Reply

    • Daisy I am going through the similar restlessness these days. I can’t sleep and I can’t sleep for long. Some uneasiness engulfs my mind. I think some exercise might help us more rather trying to rectify the uneasiness.

      Reply

  5. Not being able to sleep is the worst feeling ever! I’m so sorry you’re going through this. I went through this years ago and it drove me insane. Today, I can sleep fine as long as I don’t see previews for scary movies before bed. Why are there so many right now? I’m afraid to watch even sports anymore! :/

    Reply

    • Are you serious that scary movie previews disturb your sleep? And Halloween is just around the corner that why those previews are appearing consistently these days.

      Reply

  6. I don’t know if I should be proud of this or not, but going to sleep has never been my problem. Unlike other people, I easily fall asleep as soon as I lie my body to bed, regardless of the temperature and sleeping environment. I believe that having a consistent sleep-wake schedule.is the biggest factor that affects my sleeping pattern.

    Reply

    • you are fortunate. Most of us experience sleeplessness a number of times in our lives. Consistent sleep/awake schedule definitely helps.

      Reply

  7. Some time I also face the same problem, especially on weekend nights when I watch late night movies and then can’t sleep. Is there any suggestion for me Mr. SB.?

    Reply

  8. Perhaps you need to get a sleep apnea test while the wife is away. Treatment might fix the insomnia problem and the snoring problem, if that is what you have.

    Reply

  9. I tend to be able to fall asleep easily… too easily my wife would say, but used to struggle with staying asleep.

    One of the culprits we found was our bedding. If you have allergies at all, having down pillows and/or comforters can be a disaster. You may not even know you have allergies… I never had them as a kid, but developed some as an adult.

    Reply

  10. Health is a big factor in your sleep. I used to be overweight and after I lost weight I was able to sleep better and longer without any interruptions during the night.

    Pam

    Reply

  11. I also have sleeping problems especially if I am stress out because of work. Before I used to drink sleeping pills to be able to sleep but my friend of mine told me that it has a bad effect. That’s why I do a little research online and I found out my natural medicine – banana!

    Reply

  12. For years I have struggled with being a very light sleeper. I’m also a long-time Director/Sr. Systems Engineer in the IT field for a DOW 30 company with a focus on enterprise-wide projects with a lot of visibility and potential impact (risk). Often times during certain stages of the projects, I would wake up at night and my mind would immediately start racing through next steps and the stress of approaching due dates (this probably rings very true for SB 🙂 ). After reading an article about the below product in Kiplingers, I purchased the device and my sleep has never been more solid. I still wake up from time-to-time with these same scenarios, partly because I’m genetically pretty high-wired, but I sleep at least 80% better with the consistent subtle noise the machine produces. I has a high and low setting and is the best $50 I have spent considering how important sleep is to happy and healthy body and mind.

    Dohm-DS Dual Speed Sound Conditioner by Marpac (formerly known as the Sleepmate/Sound Screen 980A)
    http://www.amazon.com/Conditioner-Marpac-formerly-Sleepmate-980A/dp/B000KUHFGM

    Reply

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