Difficulty getting to sleep or staying asleep for long enough to feel refreshed the next morning?
This is a common problem and regularly affects 1 in every 3 people in the UK, particularly elderly people. Persistent insomnia can severely affect your quality of life.
As a health practitioner, I always pay close attention to sleep patterns; good deep sleep should replenish our batteries, aid healing, curb inflammation, spur creativity, aid sporting performance and concentration levels, to name but a few of the benefits.
Insomnia can affect people in different ways:
- difficulty in falling asleep
- lying awake for extended periods at night
- waking several times during the night
- waking too early and unable to go back to sleep
- unrefreshed sleep
- tiredness and irritability during the day, often resulting in difficulty concentrating and memory issues
There are many potential reasons why difficulties in sleep occur: anxiety and stress, lighting, certain foods, caffeine, alcohol, inconsistent sleeping schedule, some medications….the list goes on.
Several homeopathic remedies have sleeplessness as part of their picture, each one taking into account possible specific reasons for difficulty sleeping:
Belladonna
Restless sleep, sleeping with eyes half open, children cry out in their sleep. Nightmares. In children, pain tend to crescendo between 9pm and 3am and then begin to subside.
Coffea cruda
Sleeplessness from over stimulation, mental activity, awakes from hearing every sound. Pleasurable excitement. Only dozing after 3am.
Cocculus
Sleeplessness occurs from night-watching, or nursing. Sleepless from mental or physical exhaustion from constant vigil. Anxious frightful dreams.
Nux vomica
Sleepless from rush of ideas. Cannot sleep after 3am. Drowsy all evening but unable to go to sleep on going to bed. Anxious dreams; weeping and talking during sleep.
Chamomilla
For sleeplessness in children due to severe pain (often teething). Drowsy but unable to sleep. Moaning during sleep.
Gelsemium
For the insomnia of those with anxieties over work issues. Restless nights and early waking, worrying over business affairs. Difficulty in getting fully to sleep.
Pulsatilla
The baby needs to be rocked and nursed in order to fall asleep. Every time the infant awakens he or she will cry for a parent to rock or caress the child back to sleep. Often the parent has to sleep with the child. An older child may be sleepless from worry.
There are, of course, many other remedies that can be considered – this is simply a small selection of those that may help, taking into account the specific reasons behind the insomnia.
