There seems to be very little current information as most studies seem to be from the 70’s and they were tests on rats and cats. There was one test run on two people. Two? Out of the millions of marijuana smokers these scientists could only find two people. This makes any of their finding statistically pointless.

Then there were the anti-pot nonsense about how you can overdose smoking marijuana.  Many people have died from overdosing on sleeping pills but no one has ever died from an overdose of marijuana.

A study in Italy found that THC would dramatically increase the levels of melatonin in a subject which may help them fall asleep faster.

Some smokers have reported a lessoning of nightmares because marijuana interferes with REM sleep, a time when nightmares occur. Sufferers of sleep apnea can be more relaxed and that can keep their airways open and that can reduce snoring.

Since marijuana smoking reduces REM sleep, it should be used as a sleep aid occasionally when needed as apposed to nightly. REM sleep is needed for memory consolidation and cellular repair.

Heavy marijuana users who quit may experience more sleep difficulties such as falling asleep and may experience several nights of REM rebound where they will have more dreaming periods.

Marijuana is a safer medication and is more effective than most if not all of the over the counter sleep aids, which have getting your money their primary function. Since there are thousands of different strains, check with a herbalist for a recommendation as to which strain would work best for you.

And as with any medication, if it doesn’t work then stop using it and try something else. You should also restrict your marijuana use to the evening to promote sleep. Abusing any drug with continual daytime use may lead to other problems and psychological addition.

Have you tried mariuana to get to sleep? Share your views below.

One producer of this milk is Ardrahan Farmhouse in Kanturk, Co. Cork, Ireland, makers of the famous Ardrahan Cheese. The Lullaby Milk, is from cows that are milked in the dark early in the morning which they claim produces a milk with a naturally higher level of melatonin.

Melatonin is a hormone that helps regulate your body’s sleep-wake cycle and they claim their Lullaby milk will help in getting a good night sleep.

The product is so popular in Ireland that it is difficult to find in the stores as it sells out so quickly.

This sleep milk started out in Finland in 2005 and has spread to Germany and Japan. You also pay a premium price for the high melatonin milk.

Ardrahan claims there are studies to back up their findings but you won’t find any hint of them on their web site. I can’t find any independent testing of their product to back up their claims.

Average dose of melatonin that you can get from melatonin pills available at your local drugstore is three milligrams. The web site for Ardrahan’s doesn’t even mention the amount of melatonin in their Lullaby Milk. The German makers of a nighttime milk powder have an amount of melatonin that is so small as to be ineffective as a sleep inducing aid.

It seems this sleep milk has more of a psychological, placebo effect. If you believe it will work, it probably will.

Sleep milk is more the result of great advertising and promotion than any science and seems to be promoted more to help the profits of milk producers than to help people get to sleep.

Save your money and go for a 30 minute walk after dinner.

Take care of yourself and make a pledge to lose your extra pounds by eating right, exercising and sleeping. Sleeping? Numerous studies over the past five years have shown that one of the easiest ways to shed those extra pounds is by sleeping more.

There is apparently a link between your weight and the amount of sleep you get. Those who sleep less than 6 hours a night tend to weigh more than people who get at least eight hours of sleep each night.

The double whammy is that a lack of sleep affects your hormones in such a way that you both have an increased craving for food, especially carbohydrates, and at the same time there is an increased inability of your brain to tell when you when you are full.

Two of your hormones that appear to be affected are ghrelin, which controls your feelings of hunger and leptin that signals your brain you have had enough and it’s time to stop eating. My sleep is currently so messed up that I can feel hungry and full at the same time.

When you get less than eight hours of sleep your body produces less leptin and more ghrelin. In a study conducted at the University of Chicago, leptin levels decreased and ghrelin levels increased when test subjects were deprived of sleep. There was also a dramatic increase in their desire for high carbohydrate, calorie dense foods.

Researchers also found that getting less sleep makes it harder for you body to lose weight.

If all this wasn’t enough, being sleep deprived will also raise the level the stress hormone cortisol which can in turn stimulate hunger and also interfere with your body’s ability to properly metabolize carbohydrates.

All of this sets you up for a vicious cycle. Since you are not getting enough sleep you awake still tired so you have coffee and a Danish for breakfast. Maybe you stop for that mid morning coffee and donut for your sugar and caffeine boost just to make it to lunch, or what passes as lunch.

By afternoon your feet feel like they’re encased in concrete blocks so you have another coffee and a vending machine chocolate bar. You’re so tired you drive right past the gym on your way home and let the dog out into the backyard because you don’t have the energy to even walk around the block.

Dinner is frozen pizza in front of the TV. With your belly stretched by the apparently still rising pizza crust, you plop into bed only to bolt upright in the early hours of the morning with a mouth full of bile and heartburn so bad you can blow smoke. You prop up a wedge of pillows and have a few hours of restless sleep until BUZZZZZZZZZ. Up you get to do your zombie impression as you moan into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee.

Apart from the overeating disrupting your sleep, if you are getting eight hours of sleep each night but still awake tired, maybe you are suffering from sleep apnea, a condition where you stop breathing hundreds of times during the night and have a very light, fragmented sleep.

So if you want to try the sleep diet, add in eating right and some exercise. Then try to get at least eight hours of uninterrupted, quality sleep. Once you put more of a priority on getting a quality night’s sleep, your body’s hormones will start to work as they are supposed to and properly regulate you appetite.

For foods that help promote sleep, this list is the one for you. Combine this list of sleep promoting foods with moderation and you will be sleeping better in just days. One major key is to not to go to bed hungry or bloated like Cool Hand Luke after eating 50 hard boiled eggs.

Almonds
Almonds are heart-healthy nuts that contain arginine to help reduce and control stress, the amino acid tryptophan that acts as a sedative and magnesium that helps to relax your muscles. One small handful of almonds is all you need. Don’t eat too many because although healthy, they are high in fat. Another added benefit is the intestinal scrubbing you’ll receive.

Bananas
Bananas are another super sleep inducing food because they contain the sleep inducing chemicals melatonin and serotonin and muscle relaxing magnesium. Forget the sleeping pills and try a banana with a small glass of milk.

Chamomile Tea
The most celebrated of the herbal teas is Chamomile. It has been consumed for centuries for its sedative effect that helps relax a person’s body and mind.

Flaxseeds
Flaxseeds may be small in size but they are big in omega-3 fatty acids that will lift your mood and make getting to sleep much easier.

Honey
Try adding a small amount of sugar to your herbal tea, milk or oatmeal as it will signal your brain to stop producing the neurotransmitter orexin that keeps people alert. Too much sugar at bed time can be stimulating to you body so keep the amount you use to a teaspoon or less.

Milk and Dairy Products
Milk and cheese both contain sleep promoting amino acid tryptophan as well as calcium which your brain uses to synthesize more tryptophan. You can try a small glass of warm milk and or a small piece of cheddar cheese because cheese also has a high fat content.

Oatmeal
Another melatonin containing food is oatmeal. For a blast of sleep inducing foods try a small bowl of oatmeal with a little milk and top it with a dusting of ground flax seeds and drizzled with honey.

Peppers
Eat vitamin C packed yellow peppers to help control your stress level.

Popcorn
A small amount of air-popped popcorn will provide your body with the carbohydrates it needs to help you relax as aid in the production of serotonin. Don’t use the oil popped popcorn and drown it in butter. The idea is a light snack not an extra thousand calories that will gravitate to your thighs as you sleep.

Potatoes
A small baked potato has carbohydrates and will also help your body use tryptophan.

Sesame Seeds
Grind up some tryptophan rich sesame seeds and add them to whole wheat, peanut butter sandwich.

Tuna
Tuna is high in tryptophan that will help you get to sleep.

Turkey
Combine the tryptophan boost in turkey breast with a whole wheat bun for a sleep inducing snack.

Whole Wheat
Whole wheat bread in a sandwich or as a slice of toast will release insulin which will help your body’s tryptophan be converted into serotonin.

Eat a few of these sleep promoting foods a half hour before bedtime and you will be more likely to have a good night’s sleep. Just remember to keep your snack small because you want the sleep inducing benefits without the excess calories or heavy fat content of a meal that may have you awake with heartburn a few hours later.

The ideal substitute for coffee or regular tea in the evening before bedtime is herbal tea. Having no caffeine, it won’t affect your sleep and may be used to naturally relieve your insomnia symptoms.

Some herbal teas work by relaxing the nervous system and calming your mind and body by reliving your stress and anxiety and induce sleep hence allowing you to get a deep, restful sleep.

Herbal Teas to Improve Sleep

Herbal Teas you can try to improve your sleep are:

• California poppy
• Catnip
• Chamomile
• Hops
• Jamaica dogwood
• Lavender
• Lemon Balm
• Linden
• Lime blossom
• Oats
• Passion flower
• Peppermint
• Primrose
• Rose hips
• St John’s Wort
• Skullcap
• Spearmint
• Valerian

To make a cup of herbal tea, use top quality herbs and let them steep for 10 minutes. You can create your own mixture of 3-4 different types, altering the blend to suit your taste.

You can find herbal teas in health food stores and many grocery stores. You can even grow many of them in your garden. You can also see a herbalist or your local speciality tea shop for a custom blend.

You may want to get together with a few friends and split up a dozen different varieties.  Remember to buy a small quantity so you can try it out. You don’t want to be stuck with the big kahuna box of a blend with a taste that reminds you of wet dog.

Even though herbal teas have been used for thousands of years as a natural sleep aid, not all natural products are completely safe as some can interact with prescription medication. You can have an adverse reaction taking St. John’s wort and antidepressant medication or chamomile and some anticoagulants.

If any time you experience an upset stomach or your insomnia is worse, stop drinking the tea and chalk it up to a learning experience. You may have try several different herbal teas before you find one that works best for you.

Some people, myself include, are not a big fan of having a cup of tea at bedtime as it causes me to wake several time in the night to go to the bathroom. These awakenings will disrupt your sleep and cancel out any benefits of the herbal tea, especially if you find it difficult to get back to sleep.

Smokers tend to sleep poorly because they take longer to fall asleep, wake up more often in the middle of the night and spend less time in the deepest stages of sleep and get less REM sleep.

The nicotine in cigarettes is very addictive and acts as a stimulant on the body. Heavy smokers may even go through withdrawal during the night causing them to wake up to have a cigarette.

Interfering with your sleep is a relatively minor affect of smoking when compared to the deadly effects smoking has such as cancer, heart disease and stroke.

Smoking is all bad. See your doctor about a stop smoking program or check with a pharmacist about the available products like patches and inhalers. When I quit smoking, I found that the physical addiction was over with in three of four days. The hardest part was mentally giving up the smoking when stressed or with my morning coffee, while having a beer, after dinner, or when having a good dump. It was a challenge, but the urge only lasted a few minutes.

The number one thing you can do to quit smoking is don’t hang around other people who are smoking. It’s like an alcoholic going to a bar, or the user car salesman going to hell, the temptation will be overwhelming. If you do stumble and have a smoke, don’t beat yourself up over it and resign yourself to failure. You made a mistake, you won’t do it again, and continue on with your efforts. You will succeed. I tried dozens of times before I succeeded.

If you are eating healthy foods, you will feel better during the day and may sleep better at night. Contrary to popular opinion, there’s nothing good about yak spleen, so cut down or avoid it all together.

You have to eat breakfast because if you skip it and don’t eat until lunch, you may have gone 18 hours without eating, if you ate dinner at 6pm the night before. Your body will be in starvation mode and your metabolism will be slowed down, you may be cranky due to low blood sugar, and when you do eat at lunch, that double bacon cheeseburger, fries and shake you power down is going to get converted into fat and stored on your belly or caboose.

Stick to the basic breakfast, lunch, dinner routine, but eat smaller portions. Prevent hunger between meals by eating a snack mid-morning, mid-afternoon and about 8pm.  Don’t go more than four hours waking without eating.

Eat some protein with every meal and snack, cut down on fats and carbohydrates and eat more vegetables. Your average meal should be ¼ lean protein like chicken, ¼ carbohydrates like pasta or rice and ½ vegetables.

Since there are 3,142 different kinds of vegetables, you should be able to find some you like. O.K., I made that number up, but there is definitely more than the number of my fingers and toes, heck, I’d hazard to say scads.

I supplement my diet with vitamins. Now depending on the medical study of the week, vitamins are either necessary for good health or will kill you faster than a Tasmanian devil with a hangover.

I’ve been taking a collection of vitamins for decades. In the morning I take:

A multi-vitamin with minerals
200 mcg selenium
1200 mg omega 3-6-9
500 mg calcium
500 mg vitamin C
1000 UI vitamin D
400 UI vitamin E

In the evening, same as above, less the multi-vitamin. I have one of those plastic pill containers that has four compartments for each of the seven days of the week. That allows me to sort out two weeks of doses at a time so I’m not fumbling with vitamin containers every day.

Eating a food that has a high sugar content can raise the blood sugar level of your body, act as a stimulant and interfere with your sleep, agrevating your insomnia. Ever see kids cranked up on sugary pop and cake bouncing off the walls? So avoid the late night cookies, cakes, pies  and sodas.

L-Tryptophan

L-tryptophan is an amino acid that is found in dairy products and is a natural sedative because it stimulates the production of the brain chemical serotonin, a chemical associated with sleep.
 
You can purchase L-tryptophan in health food and drug stores, but why not try the original formula; a warm glass of milk.

Calcium is an essential mineral required by the body for the development of bones and teeth and has a calming effect on the nervous system.

If you have a lack of calcium you can feel grouchy, tense or very tired.

You can find calcium in oranges and dairy products. So try a piece of cheese and a glass of milk if you’re not allergic. You’ll utterly love it.

Salt is one of the most common spices, after ketchup. Salt can contribute to high blood pressure and in excessive amounts, can even act as a stimulant, which explains why my mother used to motor about. She used more salt than the Department of Highways in Nebraska.

Salt is in just about every prepared food item of the grocery store. For your overall health and to improve your sleep, you should make an effort to reduce your salt intake. Get out of the habit of sprinkling salt on your food before you have even tasted it. Most food, if prepared properly, will require little or no salt at all.

Try steaming vegetables or sautéing them instead of boiling them into submission. Use herbs to flavour your food, but don’t store them in direct sunlight or in a spice rack close to the stove. Light and heat will reduce the amount of time you can keep your spices. I keep mine in a drawer below the knives and spoons drawer. I put a round label on the top of the container with the spice’s name on it and I have them sorted alphabetically, according to height and popularity. My ex found this to be rather anal behaviour. I just figure a spice for everything and everything in its spice.

When doing your shopping, get into the habit of reading the nutritional label on the side or back of the container and look for the sodium content.  Your average canned vegetables and soups have a very high salt content. You can easily find low sodium varieties. Pick up a can of each and compare the labels. Make a note of the difference in sodium, fat and total calories.

The king of the salt laden foods has got to be fast foods. A bacon, cheese burger with fries usually has enough salt to last a person for the entire week – and it’s only one meal!

Your high fibre, good for your bowels cereal may even contain a large amount of salt (and maybe sugar also). I suppose it’s the only way to make what would normally taste like cardboard, taste good.

Canned tuna can be packed with saltier water than what’s in the ocean. Rinse and drain it to remove the salt and oil that it may be packed in.

Reduce your salt intake gradually, allowing your taste buds to adjust. When you do use salt, try sea salt. It hasn’t been over processed and it contains some micronutrients. Read the list of ingredients on the side of your average box of salt. Notice that one of the ingredients is invert sugar. Who’d a thunk it?