Insomnia, over-stimulation and the adrenal system

I have had problems sleeping ever since I had children. I suspect that I started to sleep lightly then, so I would hear them if they woke and I would be ready to bounce out of bed and rescue them from whatever the problem was. I was over-anxious, and I think that my adrenalin levels started to get a bit higher at night, a time when they should drop right down. After all, these days we don't usually need our 'fight or flight' mechanism at 3 a.m.! We have given up our draughty cave life with its wild animals and barbarian invaders and instead sleep in our secure houses, with no wolves or invaders for hundreds of miles. Why then do so many of us battle all night long for a few hours of well-deserved sleep?

There are probably as many reasons for this as there are people suffering from insomnia. The most obvious issues in modern life are stress, stimulants and over-stimulation.

Over-stimulation means that adrenalin levels are too high for the brain to switch off. Have you ever driven a long way late at night, and then struggled to sleep afterwards? Your brain is still geared up to driving, it is still alert and watching for the red light, the speed limit, the police car sneaking up behind. And that's a good thing - after all, you want your brain to be alert and engaged when you drive. But turning it off afterwards can be a real issue. This is particularly true when you have driven when you are tired. It's almost as if your adrenal system has to turn on all the taps in order to cope with the demands you are making - and then it's a real problem to turn all those taps off later, when it is time to sleep. Over-stimulation can be as simple as watching a scary film late at night - the fear opens those taps again, and sleep becomes elusive. It can occur from playing computer games too - it's not just that the bright screen fools your system into thinking it is daytime not night time, but the game itself demands quick reactions and stimulates your adrenal system all over again.

Stress also over stimulates. A day of rushing around, dealing with difficult situations, trying to get everything done and managing yourself and others will be hard to wind down from, particularly if you carry on when you are tired - again, those taps have to open wider and wider in order to give you the adrenalin to keep reacting, to keep on top of your tasks. And that's before you even start to think about tomorrow, or next week, or even next year. Anxiety opens those taps too, a little surge of adrenalin floods through you when you start to panic about something. The system asks 'Fight or flight?' and provides the means to do either - but of course we don't use that stimulant, we carry on sitting there worrying and it just sloshes about in our system, leaving us bug-eyed and wound-up. If we worried when we heard a noise, saw it was an invader and either fought him or ran away, then we would have used that adrenalin for what it was for. But we don't, and that creates problems for us.

To add to our woes, we also take stimulants so that we can manage our stressful lifestyle. We drink coffee all day to keep going, and alcohol at night to relax. The coffee winds you up and makes it hard to relax after work and to sleep. The alcohol initially relaxes you, but then acts as a stimulant, so you wake in the middle of the night and can't sleep.

How can we fight these things and get a good night's sleep? There are some obvious things - don't drink coffee after lunch, avoid alcohol in the evening, take time to wind down before bed  - all the things that everyone tells you and that we have all tried.

What works? The first place to start is by imposing boundaries around what you think about and when. Think about work at work, and try not to think about it at home. Think about home issues in the evenings and at weekends, but never ever think about work or home issues in bed. Peace of mind at bedtime will bring you sleep, if you can manage it. It is hard, but you can manage it. I used to find that I worried hugely about work at home - one of the perils of self-employment and working at home. Then I started to put boundaries around my thoughts, and the first was 'Never in bed!' I still struggle with that, and have to re-impose the boundary because it slips, but it can be done. Nowadays I am restricting my worries in bed, and I make myself think about the things I am grateful for, not the things I want - so I think about my partner, my children and grandchildren, my health, my garden, my yoga practice - all the things I feel good about, that make me happy. I tell myself 'I'll think about that tomorrow' if  anxieties creep in. I know people who keep a notebook by the bed to write those thoughts in, so they can deal with them in the morning. Too organised for me! But peace of mind is the aim, and whatever gets you there will help you to sleep.

There are some new techniques that might help. An 'earthing sheet' that surrounds you with negative ions is the latest thing - see Amazon for details, but negative ions are reputed to be relaxing and de-stressing. Another idea is Magnesium. There are grounds for assuming that that we don't eat enough magnesium, which leads to insomnia, restlessness and night terrors. You can up your intake by eating more lima and kidney beans, almonds and cashews, and blackstrap molasses, or you can take a supplement of at least 200 mg before bed. Some health advisors are suggesting that, taken in a ratio of 2:1 with calcium, the combination acts as a sedative - the suggested dose is 600mg calcium to 250-300 mg magnesium.

I haven't tried the earthing sheet or the magnesium, actually because my 'peace of mind' regime seems to be working fine, but believe me I will give them a go if I start not sleeping again! Please let me know if you try either of them, I would be very interested to hear how you got on.

Well, all I can say now is 'Night night, sleep well'!