You have insomnia if you experience:

• Difficulty falling asleep
• Waking frequently during the night
• Waking too early in the morning and not being able to get back to sleep
• Waking feeling un-refreshed

Studies indicate that almost 2/3 of Americans have difficulty falling and staying asleep.  If you feel the need for a nap in the daytime, you are probably one of them, since fatigue is one of the top 10 reasons Americans visit a physician.

Sleeping problems are even common in young adults (17-30yrs).  A German study found that 12% of 4-5 year old children had difficulties falling asleep.

Consequences of insomnia:

Affects your hormone levels setting the stage for some serious health problems.   Insomnia has been associated with accelerated aging, cancer, diabetes, depression and obesity.

Increased risk of accidents.   As reported in Business Week, “Studies show that someone who has been awake for 24 hours has the same mental acuity as a person with a blood alcohol level of 0.1, which is above the legal limit for driving in most states.”

Insomnia has many possible underlying causes

Desynchronization of the biological clock

E.g. if unable to fall asleep, called delayed sleep-phase syndrome (DSPS), your biological clock has lost its timing mechanism, making you more alert in the evening.

The Biological Clock

• Staying awake too many hours or too much light in the evening (maybe from a brightly lit computer screen) can alter your proverbial “timing belt”.   Actually, it is only blue light which suppresses MELATONIN production, and there are some ways to filter out the blue light.
• Lack of exposure to light.   Japanese researchers studied 10 nursing home residents with insomnia and found thatincreasing their exposure to light increased their MELATONIN production (proportional to brightness) and improved their sleeping patterns/quality. Exposing elderly patients to 4 hours of bright, artificial light at midday for 4 weeks (roughly equal to the amount received by a young control group), caused their MELATONIN production to be similar to the young control group’s. (J. of Endocrinology, 2001)
• Too much light in your bedroom can keep you awake.    Once in bed, darkness allows your biological clock to produce MELATONIN -a signal for sleep.Even a small amount of light (E.g. from moonlight through a crack in the curtains) disrupts your circadian rhythm and affects your pineal gland’s production of MELATONIN and SEROTONIN. MELATONIN levels are reduced by 50% when exposed to a low-level incandescent bulb for only 39 minutes at night.

Hormonal imbalance

Decreased MELATONIN / Hormone Imbalance/Depression.   The major cause of insomnia is decreased levels of MELATONIN. Depression is often related to a SEROTONIN deficiency, thus it follows that since MELATONIN is produced from SEROTONIN, that insomnia is likely to be present with depression.

MELATONIN

Stress.   Over-stimulates the brain and is associated with high CORTISOL levels, affected by:

• Negative emotions.   Including worry, fear, anxiety;
• Positive emotions.    Such as excitement, anticipation, or watching thrillers on TV;
• Overactive adrenals.   Chronic insomniacs found to have significantly higher levels of adrenal stress hormones, suggesting that these individuals suffer from sustained, round-the-clock activation of the body’s system for responding to stress. This hyperarousal is also a risk factor for both psychiatric illness (E.g. depression) and medical illness (E.g. high BP, obesity, osteoporosis). (J. of Endocrinology, 2001)

Nutrient-related causes

Caffeine-containing drinks/foods before bedtime

• Promotes the exact reverse of what you want to happen as you go to sleep.   Caffeine speeds nervous system and other major body systems. E.g. 15 minutes after downing a cup of coffee, blood adrenaline level rises, triggering an increase in heart rate, breathing rate, urinary output, and production of stomach acids.
• Caffeine also prompts adrenal hormones to release sugar stored in the liver, which stimulates sugar cravings to replenish the stores.    A blood sugar roller coaster effect ensues as the quick high is followed by a sugar slump.

Caffeine -“The Jitter Drug”

Nutrient deficiencies

• Potassium deficiency.   Causes inability to fall /stay asleep.
• Zinc deficiency.    Causes one to wake up hours earlier than wanted.

Optic nerve damage

Optic nerve damage causes problems sleeping, falling and staying asleep, and daytime sleepiness.   A non-visual part of the retina uses daylight to synchronize your body’s sleep patterns, telling the body when to sleep and when to get up. It resets the internal body clock and regulates the release of hormones such as MELATONIN (the “Body’s natural sleeping pill”hormone). Studies on blind people found that those with damage to the optic nerve (connects eye to brain) were far more likely to need daytime naps and suffer from daytime sleepiness than blind people without damage to nerve.

EMF Disturbances

• Cell phone use before bed.   Can have electromagnetic affects on your brain and the rest of your body that cause insomnia, headaches and confusion;
• Unshielded wiring in walls / electric clock too close to head / electric blankets in your bedroom.    Such unnatural EMF frequencies have a deleterious effect on cellular communication in the body.

The Body Electric

Sharing a bed

If either you or your partner suffer from insomnia and share a bedroom, neither of you is getting the high quality sleep you need for good health.

Parasites

Ammonia (produced by parasites).   Ammonia is a strong brain irritant (E.g. a person can sometimes be awakened from a coma by smelling ammonia “smelling salts”). The liver and kidneys can convert ammonia to urea for excretion. However, the brain, lacks the required enzyme, ornithine curbamyl-transferase, to make the conversion.

Parasite Cleanses

Solutions for insomnia

The National Sleep Foundation recommends 7-9 hours sleep for 10 year olds and up as guideline for personalization