Hello readers/guests/family, you're all great I hope… Today I decided to write about something that used to be a topic in my life. It is something that can make a sudden appearance in our lives or it might be a steady companion, one that affects many people on a daily basis: insomnia.

It's never been fun to lay their awake when you should be soundly asleep in dreamland. The thoughts that run through my head at those times were the worse. No matter what I tried they invaded my mind, when everyone was asleep. It is so quite when everyone is asleep and you are awake.

After much reading and research, I realized that some of my daily habits played a crucial role when I couldn't sleep. In other words, I had adopt behaviors that unknowingly increase the likeliness of insomnia.

The reasons why insomnia is more common now than it was decades ago is a hot area of research. But it is important to understand that sleep is very important for your health. Being deprived of it on an ongoing basis leads to serious problems of concentration, memory, and mental. So if you suffer from a pour sleep cycle it is important to reverse it as soon as possible so it does not become a pattern. Many forms of psychosis appear when we are exhausted. Many people that spend time in a mental institute end up sleeping for a whole day and their problems gone. Sleep is important.

In addition, insomnia causes drowsiness throughout the next day, reduced reflexes, lack of motivation and decreased immune defenses resulting in the risk of being prone to disease.

There are a lot of obstacles to getting a good sleep that most people seem to avoid.

Not all people have a natural disposition to sleep, these cases are supposedly very low however, and most people have a lifestyle that works against them. This was my situation and when we know what to look out for we can avoid situations that make it difficult:

• Caffeine: Coffee, tea, cola-based soft drinks, painkillers and slimming products contain enough caffeine to impair sleep. I love tea and I drink coffee in the morning. But at noon I won't touch it. My risk of a sleepless night is just too high.
• Nicotine is another culprit that can interrupt a health sleep pattern. When compared to non-smokers, smokers are more likely to sleep and wake up more frequently.
• Alcoholic drinks, like nicotine are another destructive habit that many people enjoy. While there are some people who drink a small glass of alcohol before going to bed because they believe the alcohol puts them to sleep (going to bed without would have the same effect for these people) this in an exception. The truth is that the presence of alcohol in the blood alters the sleep cycle and causes an intermittent moments of wakefulness or the person will wake far too early.
• Drugs are destructive in all aspects of a persons life. Why should sleep be any different? Narcotics and amphetamines are identified as drugs that prevent the person from falling to sleep. And when the user manages to fall asleep, the substances contained in these products interrupt the sleep cycle and cause an unwanted wakefulness.
• While I mentioned drugs already, it should be noted that medications can have the same effect on our sleep as narcotics do. There is a long list of medications that produce insomnia, mainly antidepressants and steroids.
• That hearty supper might also be a cause of restless nights. It has been prove that heavy food has a way of limiting rest. While the opposite can be said about light food which can make sleep easier, especially if it contains complex carbohydrates (bread, pasta, rice), as the serotonin or 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) content helps you sleep. But when you eat hearty food, especially close to bed time centralizes all the organic energy towards digestion and interrupts sleep. Think about it like drinking too much water before going to sleep, the body will wake you up to urinate.

There are other circumstantial inconveniences that also promote insomnia:

Stress: Your sleep will suffer when you go through periods of excessive amounts of stress, for example if you lose a loved one.

It will be the same when you have to go through a significant transition time (such as your wedding, the start of a new job or a move). If the stress is transient, wait until it disappears, but if it stabilizes, do something to drive it away.

Stress was the reason I went through years of sleepless nights. Once I learned how to combat in my life I was so much happier and sleep came naturally.