Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Insomnia help

I personally hardly ever have any trouble sleeping. I do have a new puppy that wakes up in the middle of the night. Having a puppy is like having a baby! But, I have a lot of friends that have trouble sleeping and I have some info that may help.

Honey, honey!!

There are some studies going on right now on honey and here's a short version of why it works.

Honey does a couple of things that help you sleep.
 Number 1, it causes a mild insulin spike. The glucose is then stored in the liver as glycogen. Its then released slowly into your body feeding your brain all night helping you to get into the REM cycle.
Number 2, because you have a slow release of glucose into your blood stream all night you avoid releasing stress hormones into your body.
Number 3, it helps your body make serotonin. Serotonin is a calming hormone and in the dark your body converts serotonin into melatonin which helps you sleep.

There are some ways you can use the honey before bed to increase it efficacy. We all know that chamomile tea helps induce sleep. If you put a little honey in it, it works even better. Lindonberry and Passionflower teas are good too. For centuries people have been drinking warm milk to help them get to sleep. Again, add a little honey to it and you'll sleep like a baby.

I will tell you that we also drink Monavie before we go to bed. I'm not allowed to tell you that we sleep like drunken babies....So, I won't say that. :)

Monavie is a super delicious beverage. 2 oz twice a day is recommended. We choose to drink ours right before bed. Its a food and as such the FDA prohibits me from telling you that any food will actually benefit you in any way. But, I think you can infer from that what you will.

I also know that exercising during the day helps people get to sleep. Not over exercising though. If you workout so hard that you're sore when you go to bed, you'll be in pain and not sleeping.

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