Insomnia...I can't get no sleep!

Occasionally I get insomnia. About 5 years ago, I started dating this half-marathon runner. I was reasonably fit doing boxing and some random running, but nothing like that! So, I decided I better get my butt into gear, literally, and booked myself into a 10 km run in the Gold Coast within 4 weeks. Nothing like a challenge right? However, with working full-time, being totally overworked and stressed out plus studying part-time and my new pumped up exercise regime, I ended up getting insomnia about 4 days before the race! You know the drill, lying there, your mind on loop, kind of resting but not really sleeping and looking at the clock every hour, tick-tock. My Naturopath had put me on all these healthy supplements for adrenal exhaustion as apparently, I was burning the candle at both ends, yet again.

Well, this wouldn’t do as I had flights booked to run in Qld, so I went to the Dr for some last-minute sleeping tablets. Now, don’t get me wrong, this was never my first point of call as I’d never taken them before, I’d always gone natural, but it wasn’t working and I knew that my body couldn’t sustain a 10 km run without adequate sleep so these were desperate measures.

It’s just a little pill, right?

So, they started working, well kind of, they worked for 4 hours and then I would jolt awake like an alarm had gone off. I took them that week, finished the 10 km race (woo hoo!) and finished the pack. What I had found though was they were now taking an hour to kick in so I’d take another. I went back to the Dr, explaining that I didn’t want to keep taking sleeping tablets, but the herbs weren’t working, it was now taking longer to get to sleep and I would wake after 4 hours. He instructed me to continue taking them alongside the herbs, until they kicked in, take 2 at once to get to sleep and if I woke after 4 hours take another. I did this and it worked! However, um that means I was taking 3 of these pills a night? Mmm.

Natural vs Pharmaceuticals

I was taking melatonin, a natural supplement that gives you a boost in well melatonin (your sleeping hormone) as these had worked in the past. But nothing. I researched it and they don’t actually work unless you are low in melatonin? But how would you know? I was also taking some other supplements with a mix of high dose herbs from the Naturopath, all relating to sleeping and relaxing the adrenal system, but again nothing! I started this regime of going to bed earlier each night, starting the natural supplements first and would lie there for 3-4 hours, nearly get to sleep, feel like I was almost tipping over the edge, but didn’t, so would revert to sleeping pills in the early hours.

Withdrawals

I had to get off these pills! I’d stop taking them each Friday afternoon and take herbs all weekend, but then I would barely sleep all weekend and have to start again Sunday night for work so at least I'd get 4 hrs of sleep. Don’t get me wrong, even with insomnia, you do sleep a little, the human body can’t survive that long without sleep, but you don’t get much and as a result, you are exhausted! I felt wired, like I’d had 20 cups of coffee or a 20 hour flight but at the same time so tired, it’s a weird and unsettling combination. I’d still been training, but then I put my disc out again in my lower back and could barely move for 4 days! Your body regenerates and heals when you sleep, particularly your muscles, so my body literally stopped me from moving altogether!

This went on for 6 weeks. I know I have an addictive nature but this was ridiculous! I’d never taken sleeping pills before, but now I couldn’t sleep without them? I’m studying herbs and nutrition, yet none of these were working in this instance. I wanted to make it stop!

Little black balls

I finally went to an acupuncturist which I’m a true believer of. I thought they could help relax my muscles enough to help me sleep and now I had a whole world of back pain plus additional neck pain which is a side effect of insomnia, oh joy! I took all my herbal supplements to show her what I’d been taking naturally. She felt my pulse and proclaimed my body was totally exhausted but wired from the sleeping pills. She told me that I wouldn’t be able to sleep without my sleeping pills now as the DOSE was too high and I had too much in my system so these herbal supplements (which are normally very helpful) would not work! OMG, this is exactly what was happening!

So, a bunch of needles later, she told me about the Chinese herbs that I needed and off I headed to Chinatown. I needed quite a few of them to pretty much sedate me and bring me down off the sleeping tablets. If you’ve ever had Chinese herbs, they make them into these tiny little black balls for the westerners as boiling up the dried herbs can be too much for our poor sensitive tastebuds. Within 3 days, I was totally off the sleeping tablets and sleeping! Within a week of taking these herbs, reducing the amount each night, I no longer had to take them at all and I was sleeping without anything. They were my absolute saviour!

Hindsight

If it strikes now, after a couple of nights, I’ll take these Chinese herbs for 2-3 nights and usually that’s enough. Sleep hygiene as they call it is really important with insomnia. It’s pretty much, turning off all the electronics at least 1 hour before going to bed ie. Laptop, TV, facebook, emails, removing stimulants late in the day and going to bed at the same time each night (& not @ midnight). It helps your body get back into a sleep pattern so it knows when it should go to sleep and I find it can take up to a week to get your body back into proper sleep mode after a bout of insomnia. There’s also a theory that universally if everyone was in bed by 9:30pm and asleep by 10:00pm you will get the best and deepest sleep ever. We however keep ourselves awake through TV, emails or Netflix marathons which stimulate us and keep us awake. If I ever go to bed that early, I do have a pretty amazing night of sleep though, just saying!

Smoking! It's a dying breed....

I was a chain smoker for 12 years with a minimum pack a day habit. If I went out drinking, then I would have finished my 2nd or 3rd pack by the morning! Yes, that’s me, 100% all or nothing kind of personality, it must be the Aries in me. I noticed quite young that I had quite the addictive personality so whether it was smoking, drinking or eating chocolate, I was really good at it! I also used to scuba dive regularly and have about 4 cigarettes before I got on the boat as apparently you just can’t smoke underwater!

Quit? Me? Never!

I was quite healthy, then started getting bronchitis all the time. I would cough so hard I would nearly cry from the pain, drink cough medicine from the bottle and sounded like I had the death rattles even though I was in my 20’s. I always thought I’d give up when I was older as I was clearly young and invincible!

I was the only smoker in my family except my grandmother, who was still smoking whilst on her deathbed (RIP) and even she tried to convince me to give up, god love her, although she couldn’t herself. I’d help her walk so slowly from her bedroom when she lived with us near the end, in so much pain and jaundice from the cancer, just to go outside and have a smoke. She smoked until a week before she passed so that shows you how strong the hold can be.

There’s always a trigger

So, I finally got pneumonia and I literally could barely breathe or move for a week, it was horrid. I remember that’s when it hit me – this just isn’t funny anymore! This is your health and this is all on you and imagine trying to breathe at 60. It just dawned on me that I couldn’t continue this way. So, I gave up that day, cold turkey.

It’s all in the Head Fred!

Now I’m not saying it’s easy, but I truly believe 100% that you have to want to give up smoking to actually be successful at it. I made a conscious decision to give up for myself and nobody else and that’s the key. Yes, it’s difficult, but biologically the actual nicotine is usually physically out of your blood stream within 72 hours – the rest is changing the habit of smoking.  You have a coffee, meal or a drink and you have a cigarette so your brain expects that hit of nicotine which stimulates the release of serotonin and dopamine (your natural feel good neurotransmitters) and makes you feel all warm and fuzzy and relaxed. However, smoking is still poison and linked to lung and heart disease plus so many cancers, it’s seriously not funny.

Like most habits, it takes about 21 days to change your behaviours so those first 3 weeks are crucial. I didn’t go out drinking for a couple of weeks as I knew I would smoke and I told my friends so they would try and support me but it was still hard. However, you can do it as it’s totally mind over matter and you have to want it. I had some tricks. I chewed gum whenever I felt like smoking or drank a glass of water and the feeling goes away – your mind is just so used to that habit of picking one up and you need to help distract and retrain it. Think of it like a naughty child.

I actually kept a full but unopened pack in my car as my emergency in case it got too much but it’s funny, because I knew I could actually get my hands on one quickly, it was like reverse psychology so I never opened it. I kept a screen saver on my PC and each day I updated it with how many days I’d gone without a smoke. This was great reinforcement as I’m really competitive, so this became like a competition with myself and people would start asking my days and congratulate me so it’s positive reinforcement. I know that some people use patches, medication, those fake cigarettes or even hypnotherapy. I think do whatever works for you but I know that you have to mentally want to do this for yourself otherwise it just won’t work.

Did I smoke again?

Yes. I gave up for two years straight, succumbed at the office XMAS party and was back on a pack a day within a week. I gave up a 2nd time, cold turkey again for two years and again was tempted at the XMAS party thinking I’ll just have a few and started all over again. I gave up a 3rd and final time and I made the conscious decision that I will just never smoke again! It was all or nothing with me, so I chose nothing, but I gained everything, including my health.

The little Migraine miracle worker!

I had headaches for most of my life and so have most of the relatives in my family – you’ve got to love genetics! I had my first migraine at 4. Head pounding, light sensitive, it hurt like a hammer! I’d had a bunch of tests when I was young, the usual drill to ensure there wasn’t anything serious going on and then I was just diagnosed as unlucky I guess!

As a teenager I came across mersyndol, the codeine based headache tablets and they seemed like a godsend! The first time I took one I was literally knocked out, but that didn’t last long as my resistance built up. I started getting headaches more and more often and so to avoid having to stay home in bed, I’d just take a mersyndol before going out, just to numb the pain enough. Simple right?

The headaches got worse and more regular as I got older as I started getting more responsible jobs, more stress, tension and lots of overtime at work. I was also chain smoking and pretty unhealthy in general which didn’t help. I had shocking neck-aches and a dodgy back which probably wasn't helping and I figured it was just bad genetics and I was pre-disposed to a lifetime of headaches.

But how wrong was I? What I didn’t realise was that most of this could have been prevented! Say what? Years ago, a lecturer introduced me to the amazing effects of this little mineral called Magnesium! Now, we’ve all heard of it as its pretty common, but I never knew much about it let alone that it can be used to prevent headaches!

Pretty much, your muscles use calcium to contract and Magnesium to relax so they work in synergy. So, it’s a natural muscle relaxant! Physiotherapists use it all the time to help with cramps for athletes. I just never twigged the connection with headaches! Magnesium relaxes the nervous system, is a co-factor to > 300 enzymes, which means it helps facilitate a range of chemical reactions in your body and helps produce energy, as well as being essential for bone health.

It’s said that a lot of people are low in magnesium but who would know right? So by increasing it and the fact it has so many great health benefits means it’s more bang for your buck!

I started taking it regularly for energy reasons and then just literally stopped getting headaches! It was one of those Ah-ha moments when I couldn’t remember the last time I had one. When I think about how much my poor head and liver has suffered from all the pharmaceuticals I’d taken for most of my life, it’s truly scary and now they’ve pretty much disappeared!

Magnesium comes in all kinds of foods like spinach, broccoli, nuts (almonds, cashews, peanuts, brazil), eggs, milk, yoghurt, rice, bananas and oatmeal but you can also take a supplement to give you an initial boost.  Now, I rarely get a headache, they are near non-existent!

This mineral is seriously a magical little miracle worker and probably one of the best things I’ve learnt about health in the past 20 years!