Although we spend around 3000 hours a year sleeping, you may ask, “what is sleep and what is its purpose”?
Sleep itself follows a set cycle every night; that of REM (rapid eye movement) when most dreaming occurs and non-rapid REM and we will repeat the cycle several times a night. An infant spends roughly half their sleep pattern in REM and the other half non-REM. Alternatively an average adult will spend only 20% of their sleeptime in REM sleep.
Research has shown that non-REM sleep consists of four stages before we reach REM sleep. Stage one is the time when we feel half awake and half asleep but our muscles begin to relax. After about ten minutes we reach Stage two and that lasts for around twenty minutes. This is the time we are fully asleep and our heart rate and breathing slows. While Stage two lasts the longest, we then go to Stage three and our deep sleep pattern where our heart and breathing is at their lowest begins. Finally, we reach Stage four where it is more difficult to be awakened and if we are, we are often rather grumpy! All these stages typically last up to 90 minutes before REM sleep.
REM sleep is a bit strange to describe as although we are not aware, our brain is particularly active and our eyes are exceptionally so (hence the term, rapid eye movement). You may not be aware, but apart from your body resting, your brain is far from inactive when you are asleep. Scientists can now record through the use of expensive equipment and sleep studies that different areas of the brain are certainly very active. During REM, the time when we dream and may sleepwalk, our breathing and blood pressure will begin to increase although our bodies don’t respond to this. It is suggested this is nature’s way of stopping us acting on our dreams and perhaps harming ourselves.
How much sleep we require differs between individuals, but if you don’t feel sleepy during the day, then you are probably getting enough. Sadly, many of us either do not get the opportunity for enough sleep or, when the opportunity is there we find we can’t sleep anyway!
Hopefully this quick overview about What Is Sleep will have been of help to you. If you feel you body has become ‘out of sync’, try some of the natural sleep aids reviewed on these pages.
The NightWave All Natural Sleep Aid Assistant has achieved a 5 star rating on Amazon by at least 25 people so it is considered to be worth a note here. What follows is one of those reviews, the first one. You can read the rest by following the link here.
Last year, I started having a lot of trouble sleeping. When my head hit the pillow, my mind would start reviewing the to-do list that got longer every day. After too many sleepless nights, it began to feel like I was just too tired to fall sleep.
Nothing helped. A therapist/friend told me about the NightWave, and I gave it a try even though I didn’t have much hope left.
When I turned on the NightWave that first night, I watched its soft, blue light reflecting on my ceiling. As the light grew larger and smaller, I felt my breathing start to calm down and my eyes getting sleepy. I dozed off – but woke up again after a few minutes. It didn’t seem to be working for me, but I gave it one more try. I turned it on again – and again watched the calming blue light grow large and small and felt my breathing fall into the same easy rhythm. Next thing I knew; it was morning! I’d had my first good night’s sleep in months.
NightWave All Natural Sleep Aid
After three weeks of peaceful nights, it felt like my body’s rhythms were reset.
When my granddaughter came to visit us, she was nervous that first night and had trouble settling down. I turned on my soft, blue light for her, and we both relaxed and fell asleep.
Now that I’m sleeping again, I’ve had enough energy left over to pursue a lifelong dream. I’ve writen a series of books for other grandparents to read to their grandchildren. Someday (soon) I hope to have those books here on Amazon.com too.
NightWave helped me to have sweet dreams – day and night.
To be honest, if you are looking for sleep aids that work you have to realise that that they all work, but individual products or techniques will work but because of individually differences in body chemistry and lifestyle differences what will work for one, won’t for another.
Unfortunately for you, you may need to try them all until you find that magic formula that does work for you.
Therefore, it would be wise to try the methods that don’t cost you any money first. Should methods involve various forms of relaxation techniques including different ways of reducing stress levels, sleep masks, dietary measures such as getting sufficient exercise and avoiding caffeine late at night and, if you must snack before bed, restrict it to carbs and avoid all sugary foods.
As for the best otc sleep aid, all of the manufacturers will claim their product is the best but in reality and as stated above, when looking for sleep aids that work, what works for one person may not work for another. Despite the fact that most otc sleep aid products are natural, these products can have some quite pronounced side effects. If you have any medical condition and/or are on any prescription medication really must consult their physician because taking them, may affect how their normal medications work.
These products include those based on Melatonin which is a naturally produced hormone in the body and Valerian which is an herbal sleep aid with some unpleasant side effects. Kava is another product that should be avoided as the FDA has now linked it to severe liver damage.
So, choose your otc sleep aids carefully and do this only after you have tried everything else you find.
