Up All Night? Six Ways to Treat Your Insomnia

Sleep is essential to the human body’s ability to function, yet there are millions of people who struggle to fall asleep every night due to insomnia. There are few things more frustrating than lying in bed, exhausted, without being able to fall asleep. While there are many different insomnia treatments out there for sufferers of the condition to try, these are six of the most effective:

 

Melatonin Supplements

Melatonin is a natural hormone your body produces at night to make you fall asleep easier. Inadequate production of melatonin often manifests in difficulty getting to sleep and insomnia. This problem is easily treatable with a melatonin supplement. The normalized levels of melatonin in the body help sufferers of low melatonin-induced insomnia fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer.

 

Sleeping Pills

While sleeping pills are not a long-term solution to insomnia, they can be used to provide sleep during your worst nights. There are prescription sleeping pills specifically made to treat insomnia, but prolonged used of these drugs can result in dependency and worsen the insomniac’s condition.

 

Proper Sleep Hygiene

Designating a specific time and place to go to sleep—and sticking to your designations—is one of the best ways to practice good sleep habits. When you go to bed at different times, or in different locations, your body’s sleep schedule and recognition response get confused. A sleep systems expert from Crowley Furniture Mattress Store often advises people to set aside their bed for sleeping purposes only, as reading, eating, etc. on your bed causes your body to respond to it as it would an active place, rather than a restful place. Only use your bed when you go to sleep at night, and be sure to keep roughly the same sleeping hours every night. This will restore your body’s natural sleep-recognition cycle and help you get to sleep faster.

 

Avoiding Alcohol

Many people think that a drink or two will actually word as a sleep aid, since it relaxes and tires the drinker out. While a drink will make you sleepy, alcohol actually prevents the body from sleeping properly by blocking the REM cycle. Since this cycle is necessary for deep sleep and a sense of restfulness, those who drink before bed will usually wake up feeling as if they did not sleep at all.

 

Getting Out of Bed

A common habit of many insomniacs is rolling around in bed for hours, trying to fall asleep. Doing this, however, raises stress levels, making it even harder to get to sleep. If you are having trouble sleeping, try getting out of bed and participating in a relaxing activity until you feel tired. Read a book, take a bath, or drink a cup of tea—do whatever you find works to lower your stress levels and allow you to get back to sleep.

 

Abdominal Breathing Exercises

 

Relaxation techniques are a great way to prepare the body sleep. Deep breathing with your chest, stomach and back will slowly help you become more relaxed. Breathing exercises like this clear the mind and send calming signals through the body, stopping the release of the stress hormones which are often responsible for insomnia.

 

There are many possible causes of insomnia, so it may require a lot of trial-and-error with treatments to determine what, exactly, works for your insomnia.

Categories: body, breathing exercises, fall asleep, insomnia, nbsp, night, sleep, Sleeping, sleeping pills, Stress Levels, treat

As Easy As Breathing: 3 Kundalini Techniques for Better Sex

There are many ways in which fitness improves your sexual health, but is there such a thing as sexual fitness? According to wellness expert Susan Crain Bakos, author of The Daily Sex Bible: Inspirations and Techniques for the Best Year of Sex Ever, ‘You, too, can become a sex goddess. I’m perfectly serious: By investing a little time, less effort and no money, you can become a powerful erotic force, a woman capable of reducing your partner to a state of gasping, spent gratitude. All you have to do is become sexually fit – and I swear you won’t have to set foot in a gym.’ However, before you start imagining all sorts of weird, kinky exercises, fear not; achieving your sexual fitness and wellbeing is as easy as breathing.

 

Crain Bakos notes, ‘Like Kegels, breathing exercises are easy to learn and practice, and require only a few minutes…You don’t have to do breathing exercises every day or every time you make love. Some women use them only when they’re having trouble focusing on lovemaking or sustaining arousal during sex.’ The following breathing exercises have been adapted from Kundalini yoga, often described as sexual yoga because the exercises target your pelvic and genital areas.

 

1. The Breath of Fire: Crain Bakos advises, ‘Use this before or during lovemaking to get you in the mood or increase arousal, especially if you’re having trouble reaching orgasm. There’s no simpler way to oxygenate the blood, a process that increases sexual energy and elevates desire. Take rapid, rhythmic and shallow breaths through the nose. Keep your mouth closed. Breathe this way for one to three minutes.’

 

2. Fire Breathing: Although this has a similar name to the first breathing exercise, it involves a very different technique. Before you incorporate it into lovemaking, you should practice the fire breathing exercise alone. Crain Bakos instructs, ‘Lie on your back, knees bent, feet spaced well apart. Start by taking deep breaths: Pull each breath into your body so deeply that you feel your diaphragm expanding. Imagine this huge intake of air going all the way down into your genitals. When you exhale, pull that air all the way up from your genitals and out of your body. After a dozen or so deep breaths, pant by breathing rapidly from your belly with your mouth open. Do this 10 or 20 times, then breathe deeply, inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth. Make the breathing a continuous circular motion. Imagine a circle of fire, beginning as a small circle, composed at first only of nose and mouth, then expanding to include chest, belly and finally genitals. Feel the erotic heat moving in a circle throughout your body as you breathe. And feel your arousal growing with every breath.’

 

3. The Fire-Breathing Orgasm: Crain Bakos directs, ‘While you’re making love, flex your PC muscles in the same pattern as you perform your Fire Breath, squeezing as you inhale and releasing as you exhale. Start by flexing with the panting, then deep breathing and finally Fire Breathing. This may sound a little complicated, but it really isn’t; Fire Breathing becomes a reflex action after you’ve practiced it a half dozen times. Your orgasm will be stunning in its intensity.’

 

Hot stuff (pun intended) but does it work? Reader Jill, 34, reports, ‘I had problems with focus during lovemaking. I worried about whether he would come too soon, or would I come at all—and lost my momentum. Fire Breathing helps me regain sexual focus. The breathing and flexing get me very excited. I can make myself have an orgasm this way, even if he’s already come. I can hold him inside me and sustain his erection for a little while by the sheer force of my PCs. I have an explosive orgasm. And he loves it too.’

Categories: bakos, better sex, Breathing, breathing exercise, breathing exercises, crain bakos, deep breaths, kundalini yoga, orgasm, sexual, sexual fitness

Could You Lose Weight Simply by Breathing In and Out?

Many people know that they need to lose weight to benefit their wellness and well-being, but they struggle with exercise and eating salads. Losing weight simply by breathing in and out may sound like a dream come true, but it could be a real possibility if the Long Breath Diet turns out to actually work.

 

Miki Ryosuke, a former actor, claims that he has lost over two stone as well as five inches from his waist in just seven weeks, simply by following the Long Breath Diet. The 55 year old actor says that to follow the diet you simply have to spend just two minutes each day focusing on taking deep breaths and exhaling aggressively.

 

The guru for the new diet says that he invented it purely by accident whilst he was doing some breathing exercises to help him cope with some long-term back pain. Whilst doing these breathing exercises, he noticed that he was starting to lose weight without doing anything altogether. Following on from this, he drew up what is now known as the Long Breath Diet. This involves the dieter holding a specific body position and then inhaling for three seconds followed by exhaling strongly for seven seconds.

 

Ryosuke is confident that those who are carrying out these breathing exercises for two to five minutes every day will soon start to see the weight fall off them.This can be achieved by clenching the buttocks and then standing with one foot in front of the other, with most weight being on the back foot. Holding this position, the dieters should then inhale for three seconds and slowly raise their arms up above their head. Once they have done this, they then breathe out tensing all of their muscles at the same time for seven seconds.

Categories: breath, breath diet, Breathing, breathing exercises, diet, long breath, Lose weight, simply, weight, weight simply