The digitalization of our economy creates a need for home remedies for insomnia.
These lifestyles have gradually grown since the early 1990s, but the exponential advances in technology in recent years have been overwhelming to say the least.
People born after the year 2005 have probably never lived a day without somebody in their household making a phone call from a cell phone, what to say of children who’ve never known a world without smart phones.
Constant connection is a double edged sword: while we can Facetime our grandparents two continents away, meet strangers who share our same interests and hobbies, and even have food delivered to us without even leaving the couch, the price we pay for constant connections is an unrelenting dependence on exterior stimuli.
While it may be a Godsend to have so many possibilities on the one hand, redesigning our lives to be available at any moment, day or night, eventually catches up with you.
One of the most common effects of the social media age is the lack of purifying and rejuvenating sleep.
Within the chorus of pings, status updates, unlimited scrolling feeds, if you doesn’t want to take a break, technically speaking you don’t have to take one because there will always be someone awake halfway across the world uploading their life online.
But we need breaks. Technological addiction is becoming a real problem, and as faster and faster communications become reality, those born before cell phones may feel like the world is spinning out of control.
If one word could describe the Internet, it may as well be “restless” because, save for a world wide blackout, it is a phenomenon that is turning human beings into restless machines on a path towards fatigue and burn-out
The inability to enjoy quality sleep, to have vivid dreams, and the privilege to wake up in the morning without digital responsibilities waiting for responses eventually leads to a lower quality of living and, at worst, insomniac tendencies.
One edge of the sword is the seemingly infinite quantity in life technology provides, paid for by a diminished ability to enjoy a healthy quality of life.
Home remedies to get rid of insomnia
A dirty little secret of the cell phone and computer industry is the debilitating effect that blue-light emitting screens have on the body’s natural circadian rhythm, which is the body’s ability to judge what time it is during the day or night. Our body has built-in functions to adapt itself accordingly to day and night through the secretion of specific hormones at specific times that allow it to enter a more relaxed state and begin recharging itself.
Our eyes take in light from the sun throughout the day, and these short blue light wavelengths from the sun mix with air molecules which is what makes the sky appear blue.
Our body responds in two ways: first, by cuing the secretion of melanin, which is a protective layer for our skin to against powerful ultraviolet rays from the sun. Second, by cueing the pineal gland to secrete a hormone called melatonin which directly regulates our circadian rhythm.
When we are engaging with blue light from screens at night, our body thinks it is daylight and thus secretes both melanin and melatonin, keeping body under the illusion that it is still daytime.
With so much blue light agitation our bodies become overwhelmed with information, and instead of a calm, soothing end-of-day sensation we may experience chronic fatigue and insomnia.
Fortunately, there is a quickly growing awareness and industry related to protecting people from experiencing the domino-like effects that blue light emitting screens have on our overall health. Some companies produce adhesive filters to place over computer screens, and others produce eye glasses with the filtration built into a prescription or clip-on filters to place over glasses.
Combating the harmful short and long-term term effects of blue light emission can be solved with practical at-home steps, first with the awareness of its effects, and second with inexpensive and practical solutions that are guaranteed to improve our sleep cycle and can drastically help those suffering from insomniac and sleep-deprived conditions.
What are some home remedies for insomnia
Discovering the likely causes for sleep deprivation and insomnia is the first step finding a solution. Cutting out blue light emission after-hours may be improve one’s circadian rhythm, but for others the cause may be deeper and more difficult to pinpoint.
The second most common culprit for unhealthy sleep cycles is one’s diet. Eating too late at night forces the digestive system to kick into high gear and utilize energy for digestion instead of replenishing and recycling deficient cellular proteins for the next day. So you may feel drowsy after eating a meal, the body is stuck overworking itself with digestion when it’s supposed to be resting.
For others, replenishing the body and inducing a conducive state for productive sleep can be as simple as adding herbal supplements to one’s diet. Nature has provided mankind with hundreds of completely safe, side effect-free compounds within plants and fruits across the world that have been proven to work through the test of time.
While some of the best herbal remedies are available in their singular pure form over-the-counter as oils, powders and in pill form, we have the advantage of companies that combine multiple remedies into a singular formula, and many of them are difficult to find or we may have never heard of.
The Sleep and Meditation Tonic by Medicinal Foods is designed for treating insomnia and other sleep related problems by sourcing its ingredients from trees, roots and plants used in traditional Chinese medicine for centuries.
These herbs, such as Albizzia Julibrissin Flower, Eclipta, Schisandra, and Zhi Mu, are relatively rare and difficult to find in most health food stores, but treat anxiety and stress-related illnesses and help the body calm down and regulating the hormonal balance in the body (substances called adaptogens).
In fact, several of the ingredients in the Sleep and Meditation Tonic have been used by monks in Tibet and India for meditation because they prepare the body for deep relaxation.
Such influences are hleping our technologically-driven way of life slowly but surely re-discover the need for a balanced routine that supports the need of an active as well as passive rhythm.
There are many ways to solve insomnia-related disorders and imbalanced living straight from home; and there may be no need for medications, just a change in lifestyle.
The combination of consciously understanding the roots of potential unhealthy habits, such as over-stimulation caused by blue light emissions from our devices and irregular eating, combined with providing the body with compounds that induce relaxation, are the first steps to treating modern lifestyle based disorders.
