Insomnia: What’s keeping you up at night?

Insomniaprolonged and usually abnormal inability to get enough sleep especially due to trouble falling asleep or staying asleep ~Merriam-Webster


I spend one third of my life doing it, yet how much do I really know about it. When it is happening well, I don’t think for a second about it. When it is not happening so well, I think of little else.

When I lose touch with my ability to fall asleep easily everyday life seems like a struggle to keep up with; even just the basics. Pretty clearly lack of good quality sleep interfere’s with my ability to regenerate the vital energy needed for the day to come.

If I find myself complaining about not getting any sleep, it’s not lack of sleep so much as it is lack of quality rest during the nights sleep cycle. And then there is my brain that starts running once I wake. Then comes the thought. Hey you, go get one of those natural sleep aids you got at Vitamin World today. Or better yet, how about those stronger ones that your doctor prescribed. Yeah, the good ones.

Too many physicians dismiss the patient’s problem and prescribe sleeping pills or tranquilizers which ultimately make the problem worse by adding to the body’s toxic load. ~T.C. Fry

I know how I have approached this problem for many years and I’m not that guy anymore. I’ve spent countless thousands of dollars on every imaginable vitamin, mineral and supplement just to discover that they likely didn’t fix a whole lot because deficiency wasn’t the problem. It was excess all along and all of my vital amines; they likely hindered more than helped. I was putting a bandaid on a bullet hole. I was trying to move forward without first removing the cause; the toxic load.

These days I don’t immediately go looking for the newest way to find a more restful nights sleep. I now look for what it is that is causing my inability to sleep. I know for now that stimulation and more of it has always been a problem in my life. Sometimes I’ve found that it is because of poor conditions of my external environment, but most times it is something that I put in my body in excess whether it be of sight, sound, smell, taste(food) or touch. Too much is just that.

Prescription drugs, recreational drugs and drug-like substances(vitamins & herbs) are often the leaders of the offending pack.

My top 10 list of Not-So-Goodies:

  1. Caffeine
  2. Condiments(ketchup/mustard/mayo)
  3. Chocolate
  4. Soft drinks
  5. Cooked foods
  6. Over-the-counter drugs
  7. Prescription drugs
  8. Vitamins
  9. Herbs
  10. Salt

Note from body to Me: The solution to insomnia is simple: Stop the insult. Discontinue the causes! Remove the things that are keeping me from getting to sleep and promote the things that do find me well rested.

A good night sleep isn’t far away if you simply let go of the thing or things that you keeping you awake. Sounds easy right?

T.C. Fry said it well…

A good night’s sleep can be had by almost anyone who discontinues body-disturbing practices and institutes healthful practices.

Thank you to William Warby for the great lion photo. ~William Warby


Scribe(author) – Michael J. Loomis | Editor at Chew Digest