Man do I need it! I have not been
sleeping at all lately and when I do, I have to get back up at 4 to work out,
soooooooo I am so tired! You would think working out would make you more tired,
but it does not!
I have a lot of stuff going on
right now and have more stress on my plate than ever before and my mind races
at night. I have been also super uncomfortable.
I don’t know if it is really watching what I am eating, work, finances
or some health stuff, but it seems to be all triggering it. A friend gave me
some Ambien, and I was super worried that I would eat the entire contents of
the fridge, so I tried to dream about working out, because maybe I would sleep
walk on the treadmill. Lol well it did not happen. Dang it.
The reason I like this ARTICLE, is
because I might try some of these homeopathic options, minus the Chinese food, clearly.
I am pretty sure eating Chinese food is the same as eating the entire fridge on
Ambien, at least then I would not remember! Also, I am positive that Chinese food it the reason, or one of them, that i am in this situation in the first place. Check it out and let me know if you
have tried any of these, because advice is def appreciated.
Aufwiedersehen!
Bananas
A little sugar counters the
effects of your orexin cells, says Dr. Winter. Try a banana before bed—it will
give you just enough sugar to calm your orexin cells, plus magnesium and
potassium to help to relax your muscles.
Passionfruit Tea
An Australian study found that when people drank a cup of
either passionfruit or parsley tea, the passionfruit drinkers slept more
soundly. Researchers believe chemicals called harman alkaloids—high levels of
which are unique to the passionfruit flower—act on your nervous system to make
you sleepy.
Hummus
While L-tryptophan—the amino acid
that supposedly makes you crash after Thanksgiving dinner—does make you sleepy,
there are better sources than turkey. Consider elk instead, says Christine J.
Jones, sleep researcher at Charlottesville Neurology and Sleep Medicine. At 746
milligrams (mg) a portion, it far surpasses turkey (333 mg). Game meats not
your thing? Sesame seeds (120 mg) and hummus (usually about 600 mg) are packed
with L-tryptophan too.
Dates
L-tryprophan works best when
combined with carbs. Carbs trigger your body to secrete insulin, which uses up
other amino acids in your bloodstream first, leaving more L-tryptophan to
sedate, says Dr. Winter. The best foods for the job? Carbs that raise your blood
sugar levels fast, since slow-acting carbs don’t produce the same kind of
insulin response. Go for a healthy handful of dates—they’re high in carbs and have
a fair amount of L-tryptophan. Fruit and air-popped popcorn are other healthy
fast-acting carbohydrates.
Chinese Food
GABA (gamma-Aminobutyric acid) is
an inhibitory neurotransmitter in your body—in other words, it’s your brain’s
brakes to calm the party down. It plays a role in regulating the excitability
of neurons throughout your nervous system. The only problem: “It’s not found in
food, so you can’t really eat GABA-rich products,” says Dr. Winter. Instead,
you can eat foods high in glutamic acid—a precursor to GABA that turns into the
neurotransmitter in your body. Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is the salt of
glutamic acid, and it’s usually added to Chinese food.
While MSG sometimes gets a bad
reputation because it makes food “addictively” good tasting, the FDA has
declared it a safe food additive. MSG can be made simply enough by putting salt
on a tomato, Dr. Winter says. Other natural options: raw seaweed/spirulina
(6,648 mg glutamic acid), Chinese cabbage (6,232 mg), or low-fat cottage cheese
(7,455 mg). Still, if you experience the symptoms
often associated with MSG, you
should avoid it.
Cherries
Recent research in the European Journal of Nutrition found that drinking an ounce of cherry
juice twice a day—once in the morning and once at night—for a week helped
people sleep an extra 25 minutes. Why? It’s laced with L-tryptophan, which can
convert into serotonin, and eventually melatonin—the compound that influences
your sleep cycle, says Jason Ellis, Ph.D., the director of the Northumbria
Centre for Sleep Research. Increase the melatonin circulating in your body, and
you’ll increase the chances of a good night’s sleep, too. Try an ounce of juice
or a cup of cherries before bed. Since there are no foods high in melatonin,
you want to look for foods that can produce it, says Dr. Winter. A few to keep
in mind: milk, yogurt, oats, eggs, and peanuts.
