★★★★★
Earth Clinic is a great and informative website giving much attention to apple cider vinegar as a remedy, but I think it may be helpful to always specify it as ORGANIC apple cider vinegar instead. Many people that come across this website might miss the few areas that do specify the difference, so not knowing better, they will most likely go out to the grocery store and buy the most popular Heinz brand (processed) apple cider vinegar, and therefore they will have less satisfactory results than if they used an organic one from a health food store.
Apple Cider Vinegar
Coconut Oil
Don't Stress!
Apple Cider Vinegar
★★★★★
Mexican Oatmeal Drink
★★★★★
When I could not sleep, my mom would make this for me. Enjoy. Here is the recipe
OATMEAL DRINK
Ingredients
▢ ½ cup ground rolled oats or oat flour
▢ 3 cups unsweetened almond milk or milk
▢ 1 cinnamon stick
▢ ⅓ cup brown sugar or 2 oz Piloncillo or Turbinado more according to taste
▢ ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
1. Grind the oats in a blender or small food processor until it reaches a thick flour consistency.
½ cup ground rolled oats
2. In a small pot, add all ingredients and bring to a soft boil
3 cups unsweetened almond milk, 1 cinnamon stick, ⅓ cup brown sugar or 2 oz Piloncillo, ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
3. Lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring often making sure the milk does not boil over.
4. Remove from heat and serve hot in mugs.
★★★★★
★★★★★
You can take OTC Benadryl 50 or 100mg if you wake up in middle of night then just take another 1 of those and fall back asleep. Since they can cause memory loss in long-term use I advise to take for 3-4 weeks maximum.
Never take sleeping pills, habit forming and dangerous. A Valium is fine a few days but they are habit forming and dangerous after 4-5 weeks maximum. Jujube fruit(Chinese dates)fight insomnia, Anxiety, buy at Amazon.
Last one for sleep: try L-Theanine pills (only must have: Suntheanine, highest quality) take 200mg twice daily or increase to 400mg 2X daily, they are safe and can be taken at 3,000mg safely, but rarely done. Best of luck to anyone who tries them. If you're happy & sleeping send me a message.
★★★★☆
I also take niacin, 100 mg, at bedtime since it helps also. So, most nights this really works and I fall asleep fast. I still wake several times per night but go right back to sleep. I wake up well and feel okay for several hours, then feel like I could nap but power through it since I'm at work.
I've been taking a total of 15 mg melatonin. But, like last night, nothing helped me sleep. I took another 5 mg melatonin an hour after bedtime and still didn't sleep but maybe 3 hours total. Any idea why? Or is this just something you have to deal with? (No choice there, I guess). Also, some days I get a real headache that lasts until noon or so. Is this the melatonin? I think so but it could be allergies.
Thanks, Art, this has worked more often than not and I'm happy for that.
It could be difficult coming off something like Tramadol that is fairly strong and can be on the habit forming side, especially since it was helping you with sleep. Your body has adjusted to it so you could try tapering off of it gradually instead of just stopping it all at once to help with the transition off of it.
Deirdre has the best method of taking melatonin with magnesium. The magnesium tends to help the muscles and tension relax, while the melatonin helps with sleep. Magnesium glycinate is going to be about as good as any form of magnesium for this purpose taken about 1 1/2 hours before bed.
The lowest dose of melatonin that has shown effectiveness for sleep is one third of a milligram, but you are already taking 3 mg. The next dose is 5 milligrams and then 10 mg. Myself, I have used a method I call "melatonin 123" to help me get to sleep. I determine what time I want to go to bed, so lets say I want to go to bed at 11:00pm, I take one melatonin at 9:00 pm, one melatonin at 10:00pm and one melatonin at 11:00 pm and usually by 10:45 I am yawning and ready to go to bed. In your case, you might use 1 mg x three melatonin in order to maintain your current dose of 3 mg. The time released melatonin can have a similar effect as "melatonin 123", but my preference is the melatonin 123. The idea is to release melatonin at a more natural rate into your system. When I take my dose all at once, I do not get as good of a sleep effect as melatonin 123.
There are additional things you can do to help improve sleep. The first thing is exposing yourself to a good dose of morning sunlight, to try and get your circadian rhythm in sync. Avoid using the tv or computer monitor at least 1 1/2 hours before bed because these can trick your mind and body into thinking it is still daylight. Make your bedroom dark enough where you can not see your hand in front of your face in the dark. Failing that, using the soft fabric night glasses like these can make it plenty dark:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=eye+mask+for+sleep&ref=nb_sb_noss_1
If there is ambient noise such as traffic, noise deadening ear plugs may be useful.
Medical marijuana can also be useful, but may be on the habit forming side too.
Antihistamines can help initially, but they are not good for you on a regular basis or long term as they have been shown to possibly contribute to dementia with long term use and they can affect blood pressure in some people.
Lastly, getting on a regular sleep schedule or routine sets your body up for certain expectations of when to fall asleep and when to wake up in order to help sync the circadian rhythm.
You may have to make this extra effort to help with the transition off of Tramadol in order to get back into a good sleep rhythm.
Good luck and keep us posted on how you do!
Art
Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium
★★★★★
Melatonin
★★★★★
Multiple Remedies
Skullcap and Valerian
Magnesium Glycinate as part of the combo at the dose recommended on the bottle is helpful for relaxing muscles and helping to get you to sleep.
Art
Sodium Bicarbonate, Potassium Bicarbonate
The 5 mg melatonin at night.
The baking soda method I use is Teds alkalyzing formula. 2x a day. 1/2 hour after food. 5 days a week.
Apple cider vinegar 2 tbsp add 1/2 tsp of baking soda let fizz then add half a glass of water and drink. This is pain relief and digestive health normalizing stool.
Or... For circulation and digestion I use 1 whole lime squeezed or 8 tsp add 1/2 tsp of baking soda let fizz. Add 1/2 glass of water drink same schedule. This helps get rid of excess calcium too.
The most help for our family for no sleep is in this order.
Potassium carbonate..melatonin..
Digestion ..enzymes aminos baking soda with and after food
Sufficient minerals through the day from food and sea salt.
Bulletproof coffee or butter and collagen...and again improves gut health..drink during the day.
I have used iodine 1 drop in water of 5% lugols iodine before bed.
I had to go further for Ken and I as we are 60 yrs and correct hormones provide a better platform for sleep and health. Progesterone cream applied to upper body 2 or 3x a week. Pregnanolone 25mg. 2x a week. 25mg of dhea. I take it 5x a week as it corrects my intestinal issues too. The melatonin is also part of this.
Ted talks frequently of acid brain preventing sleep th fix is the alkalyzing drink.
Our results...
1 daughters narcolepsy solved with defluoridating water.
1 lifetime of insomnia for another daughter was blending her food. Bulletproof. Because it was her bad digestion and fluoride
Me the quickest relief was potassium carbonate. But my overall health and better sleep was a gentle regime of the above mentioned. I just added things slowly until I normalized.
My husbands body clock must be reset for 3rd shift everyday. He does much of the above and at bedtime takes 2.5 mg lithium gaba melatonin.
Adding niacinamide 250mg 3x a day. Often boosts sleep at night as our bodies need and use quite a lot of it.
These are things if you need further help. Beyond your question. It is what we have found successful. But no sleep is really a symptom of many ailments in our house. Each unique and handled differently.
Janet
Cherry Juice
★★★★★
We joked about it the next morning. But, guess what. When I searched the benefits online, it did what it was supposed to do.
As for our sleep... I have noticed a deeper sleep and he's noticed less grogginess when in the morning.
Magnesium
★★★★★
Finally I googled "insomnia and twitching" and got thousands of hits saying "magnesium deficiency". One site in particular said "if you suffer from insomnia, body jerks and twitches, chest and back pain and cannot take deep breaths, then you should take magnesium. " So I read thousands of sites and found one particular brand of magnesium that seemed to help the best. I assume I cannot mention the brand here but it's a powder form and you must mix it with hot water. Given the severity of my insomnia I didn't think a mineral would ever do the trick, but what could I loose? So I ordered it as a last resort before going to the doctor to get sleeping pills. I am not kidding you, day 1 was better, day 2 even better and since day 3 I have slept like a rock for 8.5 hours straight. My chest and back pain are almost gone and I can breath properly.
I have read countless of anecdotes by people discussing insomnia and magnesium. It seems as if absorption is a big problem. Please don't give up if the first attempt doesn't work. Go to the health food store and ask for the brand that has the best absorption. If you do get a good intake of calcium you may be magnesium deficient and may do better on magnesium alone. Otherwise magnesium and calcium is recommended. Personally I take 800 mg/night. Google it! Given my severity of insomnia I am blown away that it all came down to a mineral. WOW!!!
I actually came to EC to post about a new remedy I've discovered for nightmares (**below if you just want to skip to that), but I'm still having trouble falling asleep. My commute + workday is often 10-13 hours, and it's very stressful when I can only get about 4 hours of sleep! I will start taking borax again TODAY!
I have diabetes (possibly for years before I found out 2 years ago, because my labs were mis-filed at my doctor's office), and have been doing quite a bit of reading on nutrition & hormones. One day various bits of information just sort of clicked together and I came up with an idea that maybe you don't wake up just because you've had a nightmare, but that your brain manufactures the nightmare IN ORDER to wake you up--when your blood sugar gets low, or if you're having muscle cramps, or maybe even just to go to the bathroom!
When you haven't eaten for several hours and your blood sugar starts to get low, your liver will "dump" stored glycogen. In order to do that, cortisol must be released. Cortisol is supposed to be low at night and rise slowly around dawn until it wakes you up. Cortisol is also released when you feel threatened or frightened, and nightmares usually make you feel that way. So my hypothesis was: your body needs cortisol in order to wake you up (so you can eat) and/or to force the liver to release glycogen. The best way to do that is to make you have a nightmare.
I started looking up information and was led to some forums that discuss childhood diabetes and glycogen storage disease. Some of these children will fall into a coma or die if their blood sugar gets too low, and their parents have to wake them several times a night to test their blood sugar and feed them. Corn starch is widely used to help these children make it through the night because it is digested very, very slowly and releases glucose steadily for 5-8 hours. Many parents also reported that their children had nightmares caused by low blood sugar, and that the nightmares ceased when blood sugar was stabilized.
So that same night I started taking:
**Raw cornstarch.
I take 2-3tbsp mixed into cold water right before bed, and don't have nightmares at all!
But it won't work if you cook it; the starch molecules change, and it will cause a blood sugar spike. You can tell if it has "changed" because it will thicken. So don't mix it into warm drinks (such as cocoa) or anything with lemon--lemon also makes it thicken.
If you don't like the cornstarch in water, you could try mixing it into something else cold, like milk, yogurt, or a protein shake. There is also a product that you can find if you do an internet search for "blood sugar crisps" if you need something more convenient, or easier for a kid to eat.
Cod Liver Oil
★★★★★
Coconut Oil
★★★★★
★★★★★
The Pillow Method
★★★★★
Supplements
★★★★★
1. Iron supplementation. I don't take it every day because too much iron is dangerous but I have noticed I am able to get back to sleep more easily after I have taken iron that morning.
2. Calcium supplementation. I take one capsule at bedtime, the dosage is three capsules a day. I also don't take too much of this supplement. It is my understanding that taking too much calcium at one time can cause problems because your body can't absorb too much at a time. Calcium makes me sleepy and doesn't cause loose bowels.
4. Colostrum. I take one capsule at bedtime. I just started taking this and it seems to keep me asleep for a full 7 hours with no waking up to go to the bathroom.
5. Here is a crazy thing that also seems to work for me; eating coconut at bedtime. I will eat a small chocolate covered coconut candy at bedtime and it seems to make me sleep really well.
6. I also recently tried a product that contains both magnesium and L-theanine. It worked great but gave me diarrhea so I had to give it up.
I don't know if any of these remedies will help anyone else, but they are all worth a try.
Spinach Powder
★★★★★
