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You are supposed to go to sleep, not on a drive
2009-09-03 |
Last month, a man from a small town near Boise, Idaho hit a number of mailboxes and ran into several parked cars before getting pulled over. The local policemen took the man to the hospital because he appeared to be intoxicated. Turns out, the man wasn‘t drunk, though he had no memory of the previous five hours. Believe it or not, the man was "sleep driving." He had taken an Ambien earlier in the evening and could not remember anything from his wild ride.
I wasn‘t surprised to learn about this man‘s story. Ambien may cause all kinds of crazy side effects. In fact, on the Ambien website, it warns users that: "Sleepwalking, and eating or driving while not fully awake, with memory loss for the event, as well as abnormal behaviors such as being more outgoing or aggressive than normal, confusion, agitation, and hallucinations may occur."
Thankfully, no one was hurt in Boise, Idaho. But nevertheless, the very real risk of "sleep driving" is enough to place Ambien in "you‘ve-got-to-be-nuts-to-take-it" category.
Sleep: No joking matter
All jokes aside, I know why the Boise man took the Ambien in the first place. He wasn‘t nuts. He just needed to get some sleep. And that‘s understandable.
Getting a good night‘s sleep ranks as high as proper nutrition and regular exercise in determining your overall health. But according to Harvard scientists, most of us don‘t get enough. In fact, 75 percent of men and women experience sleep problems at least a couple of times a week.
You may go to bed tired, but your mind just won‘t shut off. You end up tossing and turning, trying not to look at the clock. Or maybe you fall asleep just fine; it‘s staying asleep that‘s the problem. Plus -- insomnia can be worse at certain times in your life. Times of stress obviously can disturb your sleep. In addition, women going through menopause often experience bouts of insomnia.
Unfortunately, long-term sleep deprivation wreaks havoc on your overall health. Scientists now know that sleep is critical to keeping your memory sharp, your weight down, your immune system charged, your mood up, and heart pumping strong.
The good news is, there‘s plenty you can do to improve the quality of your sleep without resorting to a drug like Ambien, or even something milder like Tylenol PM.
Safely and naturally improving your sleep
You know to avoid caffeine (even in the morning), napping during the day, and TV-watching in the bedroom. You know not to exercise before bed. And you know drinking alcohol before hitting the sheets often makes things worse. So what else can you do to improve the quality of your sleep without resorting to drugs? Here are a few suggestions:
1. First off, you may try upping your daily magnesium. Go for 500 mg capsules at bedtime. If you also suffer from mild anxiety, this amount of magnesium may also lessen your symptoms.
2. If you‘re under the age of 40, you should also try using l-tryptophan. It‘s an essential amino acid (meaning your body doesn‘t produce it, so you must get it from your food). You‘ll find l-tryptophan in foods like turkey, chicken, milk and eggs. But you‘d have to eat something like 15 servings of turkey to get as much of this beneficial amino acid as you‘d get in one supplement.
L-tryptophan supplements were favored for years among naturopaths to treat sleep disorders as well as hyperactivity, obsessive-compulsive syndromes, depression, migraines, and even the tremors of Parksinson‘s disease. Then in March of 1990, the FDA banned l-tryptophan from sale in the U.S. after linking a single bad batch of the supplement to a rare blood disorder that caused 37 deaths.
Why didn‘t the FDA just recall the bad batch, like it has done for plenty of contaminated drugs over the years? I have my hunches. In fact, just four days after the FDA ban of l-tryptophan, Newsweek ran an article praising the development of a new wonder drug called Prozac. Coincidence? I think not!
Here‘s why…
You see, your body converts l-tryptophan into serotonin, the feel-good neurotransmitter in the body responsible for regulating your sleep as well as your mood. On the other hand, drugs like Prozac (as well as Paxil and Zoloft) only enhance the performance of the serotonin already present in your bloodstream. They don‘t help you to produce more serotonin, like l-tryptophan can.
Thankfully, the ban on l-tryptophan has been fully lifted. Now, you and I can once again use it as a natural sedative (at bedtime only). It works gently in the body to induce sleep and won‘t cause morning-after fogginess. Unfortunately, if you suffer from lactose intolerance, you may have more difficulty absorbing l-tryptophan.
3. I‘ve also seen excellent results using melatonin supplements. But melatonin is a hormone, so I don‘t recommend taking it if you‘re younger than 40. But as we get older, our melatonin production slows down so there‘s less of a chance of you getting "too much" by taking it as a supplement.
Go for the smallest dose to start: 1.5 mg at bedtime for ages 40 to 50 or 3 mg for people over the age of 50. With higher dosages, you might wake up drowsy. If that‘s the case, you know you‘ve taken too much.
4. After a certain age, many of us wake up every night to visit the bathroom. If a full bladder is what‘s causing your nighttime wakefulness, there‘s a plant extract call three-leaf caper (crateva nurvala) that just might help. Used in Ayurvedic medicine for centuries, three-leaf caper helps to strengthen and tone the bladder wall so it can fully empty. You‘ll find three-leaf caper, along with several other herbs that support bladder function, in a NorthStar Nutritional product called UroLogic. To learn more about three-leaf caper and UroLogic, read this: http://www.northstarnutritionals.com/p/UroLogic.htm. For men interested in a product that supports bladder as well as prostate function, consider ProSense by NorthStar Nutritionals: http://www.northstarnutritionals.com/p/ProSense.htm. It‘s a safe, natural, and effective way to address both bla dder and prostate health.
5. Lastly, is it possible that you‘re just a "light sleeper"? Do you get woken up by sounds in your environment and then have trouble getting back to sleep? If so, you may try putting a "white noise" machine in your room. The machine‘s gentle swooshing sound will drown out any noises that might wake you through the night. A good one runs about $50.
Just remember, sleep is your body‘s time to refresh and reboot. It‘s vital for your overall health. So if you‘re not getting at least 8 hours of restful z‘s each night, go ahead and give one of these natural sleep aids a try.
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