It’s no secret that teenagers don’t get enough sleep. Just ask their parents and teachers! Whether this lack of sleep is due to insomnia and other sleep disorders or is the result of poor lifestyle choices, the result is the same. Teenagers who need between 8 and 9 hours of sleep every night aren’t getting it and this is leaving them sleep deprived. Fortunately, there are some sleep remedies for teenagers that are easy to implement.

As the parent of a teen, I had to stand my ground when it came to making sure my child got enough sleep every night. The first thing we did was establish a proper sleeping schedule.

Going to bed at the same time every night and waking up at the same time every morning works to train your body to know when it’s supposed to be sleeping and when it should be sleeping. (And this is good advice for adults as well as teens.)

Another helpful thing that parents can do to help their teens get more sleep is to make turning off electronics such as tvs and computers at least a half-hour before bed a household rule. Be prepared to stand your ground on this one, and move the electronics out of your teen’s room if you have to. As I wrote in an earlier article on creating the perfect sleep environment, there shouldn’t really be any electronics in the bedroom anyways. (Easier said than done, I know!)

Turning off the cell phone at night is another way to ensure that your teen’s sleep isn’t interrupted by other non-sleeping teens. Voice mails and text messages can always be left and dealt with the next morning.

When it comes to sleeping remedies for teens, common sense and good sleep hygiene apply just as for adults. Following these tips will help to ensure that both you and your teenagers will all benefit from a good night’s sleep.

Lavender is a great herbal sleep aid

Most people wouldn’t think of their mattress as a sleep aid, but your mattress can be a good night’s sleep’s best friend, or its worst nightmare. If your mattress is old or outdated, it could be that replacing it is the best sleep aid you will find.

2. Herbal Sleep Aids

Herbal remedies are a popular way to help you get a good night’s sleep. Whether you choose an herbal tea to help sleep, or some kind of spray or scented pillow liners, lavender is always a good choice when it comes to sleep and relaxation.

3. Hypnosis as a Sleep Aid

Hypnosis can be used to treat many different disorders, insomnia included. A professional hypnotist can teach you how to relax and achieve a peaceful state of mind so you can get to sleep. There are also many self-hypnosis programs you can use at home if you’d rather not see a hypnotherapist.

4. Sleep Apnea Aids

If you’ve been diagnosed with sleep apnea a CPAP machine or a sleep apnea mask will help you to sleep better. These sleep aids force air through your airways to help you keep breathing — and sleeping — through the night.

5. Medicinal Sleep Aids

If all else fails, there are many varieties of medicinal sleep aids that can be purchased over the counter or through a doctor’s prescription. Even if you decide on using an over the counter sleep aid, check with your doctor first especially if you are taking any other medications.

Finding the best sleep aid for you can be a bit of a trial-and-error process. But ensuring yourself of a good night’s sleep is an important part of your overall good health. If you are having problems falling asleep or staying asleep, why not test one of these sleep aids and see if it works for you. As always, don’t forget to discuss your sleep problems with your health care professional to rule out any underlying medical reasons for your insomnia.

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Using Exercise as a Natural Sleep Remedy

Did you know that how well you sleep at night is directly related to how active you are during the day? The more sedentary your lifestyle is, the more likely it is that you will also have sleeping problems.

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way, and you don’t have to become a “gym junkie” to get the sleep benefits of exercise. Sleep experts suggest that as little as 20 to 30 minutes of moderate exercise a day will go a long way toward getting rid of insomnia from your life.

How Does Exercise Help You Sleep Better?

One of the main ways that exercise helps you sleep better is through the effect that it has on your body temperature. Since your body temperature needs to be lower for you to sleep well, experts believe that by exercising before bed time the cooling off period afterward actually prepares you for sleep. The catch is that you need to be careful what type of exercise you do, or you could find yourself wide awake instead of ready to nod off.

The second way exercise affects our sleep patterns is by acting as a stress reliever. Researchers have discovered that people with insomnia often have elevated amounts of stress hormones such as cortisol in their blood. Even though these hormones increase while you’re exercising, the long term effect is that they actually lower over time. Hours after your exercise session is over, your stress hormone levels will be even lower than if you had not exercised at all.

What Kind of Exercise Works Best?

The best type of exercise to use as a sleep remedy is aerobic exercise. Done early enough in the day, it will have the stress-relieving effect I talked about earlier. The two schools of thought on when this should be are first thing in the morning, and mid- to late afternoon. Experimenting with both is really the only way to figure out which time will give you the best results.

As for what type of aerobic exercise is best, that is totally up to you. Anything that you enjoy that gets your heart rate up for 20 to 30 minutes is the best. This could be walking, jogging, taking an aerobics class or even doing yard work. The more you enjoy it, the easier it will be to keep active on a consistent basis. There is one study that suggests that choosing activities which make strenuous use of your leg muscles is best because this has a tranquilizer effect that can help you sleep better.

For mild, pre-bedtime exercise you can try activities such as yoga and stretching. The body positions and breathing techniques used in yoga will help to slow down both body and brain and get you relaxed and ready for sleep.

Tai Chi is another form of exercise that has been shown to have a positive effect on sleep. In a 2005 study, participants who did Tai Chi for one hour three times a week improved their sleep quality and decreased daytime drowsiness. The authors of the study speculated that the main benefit was a modification of the participants circadian rhythms through relaxation and breathing.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter what type of exercise you choose to do. Simply making regular physical exercise a part of your daily routine allows you to harness its effects as a natural sleep remedy.

As always, remember to talk things over with your health care provider, before starting an exercise program, especially if you have other health challenges that you are dealing with.

Here’s to a good night’s sleep!

Image Credit: Morgue File

How much sleep is a good night’s sleep? Is it 4 hours, or six or eight, or even ten hours a night? Experts can establish guidelines to tell us how much they think we should be sleeping, but in reality the amount of sleep each person needs is as individual as our DNA. Quality is much more important when it comes to sleep. How well you sleep determines how much of it you actually need.

How do you tell how much sleep you need?

The best way to judge how much sleep you need is by paying attention to how you feel when you wake up in the morning. If you wake up refreshed and eager to face the day, then you have most likely got the amount of good quality sleep you need. If, on the other hand, you wake up feeling tired and cranky even though you’ve been sleeping for eight hours, you might want to examine the quality of your sleep. You may find that you’re not sleeping nearly as well as you think you are.

One of the best ways to determine sleep quality is to ask your sleeping partner (if you have one) for their opinion. You may not know if you talk in your sleep, have restless legs or snore, but they certainly will. And if you are keeping them awake all night, chances are they’ll be more than happy to let you know about it.

If you do suffer from physical sleep disorders, the best thing to do is talk to your family doctor or health care practitioner to arrange for a sleep test to determine exactly what’s wrong, and what to do about it.

If, however, you can rule out culprits such as sleep apnea, or restless leg syndrome, then the next place to check for sleep saboteurs is in your pre-sleep routines. There are several ways that your actions in the hours before bedtime can keep you from getting the sleep you need. For example, drinking caffeine or alcohol will keep you up at night, as will eating midnight snacks high in sugar. Other actions that stimulate the brain before sleep are watching television, playing computer games, and even some medications.

Changing your pre-sleep routine to eliminate some of these habits may improve the quality of your sleep. Replacing them with mind-calming activities such as meditation or light reading can relax your body as well, making it easier to fall asleep and stay asleep long enough to get rested.

The bottom line is that only you know what a good night’s sleep is for you. It will vary from person to person, and even from year to year as you age. Babies and growing children need much more sleep to be fully rested than adults do. Creating healthy sleep habits will go a long way toward giving you the quality sleep you need to ensure the quantity is perfect for your needs.

Everyone has the occasional sleepless night. It’s not uncommon to have trouble sleeping the night before a job interview, for example. If, however, your sleeplessness lasts for more than a night or two, or if your life is zipping along just as you planned it and you’re still not sleeping well, you may have insomnia. And you might just be surprised by what can cause it.

One of the most frequent causes of insomnia is stress. Whether it’s transient stress from a one-time event or more persistent stress from job or family issues, it can and will play havoc with your sleep. Stress-induced insomnia breeds a vicious cycle because it adds worry about not sleeping to the original cause of the stress.

Relaxation exercises can help to overcome stress and help you sleep. Techniques such as meditation and yoga done as part of a sleep routine work to quiet both mind and body so that you are relaxed when you climb into bed.

Sleep disorders are another common cause of insomnia. This might sound strange since insomnia itself is a sleep disorder, but in many cases it is the secondary disorder caused by another, more serious, sleep disorder such as sleep apnea or restless leg syndrome.

In the case of sleep apnea, a person will actually stop breathing several times during the night. This causes them to wake up several times to restart the breathing process. It is the total effect of waking up several times during the night that causes insomnia.

Treatment for sleep apnea usually involves the use of a machine that keeps the patient’s airways open while he/she is sleeping. If you think you may have sleep apnea make sure your consult your health care practitioner.

Noise and other environmental factors will also affect how will you sleep. If you live on a busy street or have noisy neighbours (or both) you may have a hard time sleeping. One solution is to run a fan or a white noise machine to create a background noise that will drown out the external sounds.

The temperature of your bedroom can also be a cause of insomnia. If you are too hot or too cold you will have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. Experts suggest that the optimal room temperature for sleeping is between 60 and 70 degrees F. The best way to figure out your optimum sleeping temperature is to experiment until you find the best thermostat setting for your needs.

It is possible to eliminate insomnia from your life when you are able to identify its cause. The three causes of insomnia I’ve talked about here are by no means the only ones, but are among the more common. By taking steps to get rid of stress and environmental factors, and by getting treatment for other sleep disorders you are well on your way to achieving a good night’s sleep.