Is your bedroom conductive to sound sleep? Your sleep space should be clam, comfortable, clean and cozy. While mental clutter may keep you from falling asleep, physical clutter in the bedroom, such as piles of dirty clothes, unwieldy stacks of magazines, or too many knickknacks, can also distract. Spend some time cleaning out the mess.

In addition, don’t allow your bedroom to do double duty as mini office. Put the desk and the computer in another room or screen them from view. Relocated the television and answering machine. If you keep a telephone by the bed to increase your sense of safety and security, turn the ringer to low. Reverse your bedroom for only three things – sleeping, reflecting, and romancing.

According to the principles of feng shui, the ancient Oriental art of object placement, positioning your bed correctly can improve your sleep as well as your relationships. For optimum health, never put your bed in a direct line with door or a bathroom. Don’t place your bed under beams and don’t store items under your bed and it will affect your sleeping.

To transform your bedroom into a restful sanctuary, eliminate flashy or distracting artwork, bedding, wall coverings, and window treatments to get rid of your sleepless night. For serene surroundings, add gently flowing fabrics and soft music. Decorate with light blues and greens. View only gently beauty from your bed to enhance your moods and the quality of your sleep.

Make your bedroom a relaxation haven by paging through magazines, cutting out some pictures, and creating a file of serene bedroom scenes to enhance your sleep. What do you like about these rooms? Find similarities in colors, shapes, and textures. Choose three things you could change in your bedroom that would make it more relaxing.

Bed and breakfast inns can provide inspiration. Their proprietors often entice is with theme oriented rooms and special treats. Have you ever stayed in, or wanted to stay in, the Garden Room, the Emily Dickinson Room, or the Blue Room? Copy these style amenities and small indulgences in your own home, such as a decorating scheme, soft colors, flesh flowers, a canopied bed, or a comfy chaise lounge. The most important thing is to learn to associate sleep and calm with your restful bedroom.

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1. They give sleep top priority by assuring themselves ample sleep time.
2. They provide themselves with a comfortable place to sleep.
3. They choose daily activities that enhance their sleep.
4. They approach sleep problems as temporary challenges that can be remedied with creative perseverance.
5. They accommodate the physical changes and emotional transitions that negatively affect their sleep.
6. They replenish themselves with rest and relaxation.
7. They utilize outside resources to help assess and treat sleep problems.

What you eat and drink during the day can enhance or inhabit your sleep potential. Also, think about what you do in the evening. Do you choose stimulating or sedating activities? Review your physical and emotional habits to learn how to transform them into sleep enhancers.

Carbohydrates, such as bread, cereal, and pasta, are good nighttime foods because they trigger the brain chemical serotonin, which makes you sleepy. Such a snack approximately 45 minutes before bed can sedate you. But keep it on the light side –a piece of toast with little jam may go the trick.

Dr. Samantha Hement has 10 years experience in neurology. She is specialty concerned with nervous system function and sleeping disorders. She has created a website to deal with insomnia and provided some information on how to deal your insomnia without medications.

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Do you share your bed? Do you sleep with another adult, with pets, or have an open family bed policy?

Do your evening’s sidekick wakes up often, have allergies, and take up too much of the bed or the blankets, snore, watch late night TV from bed, or go to sleep with cold feet?

Do they have any habits that may be restricting your sleep? The sleep wake cycles of your bed partners can negatively affect you. Discussing the problem with them and making some physical changes may therefore be necessary.

Snoring affects approximately 30 to 40 percent of adults. For those who snore and their partners, the sound effects and health hazards are more than a noisy nuisance. Snoring can curb both intimacy and sleep. Sometimes separate bedroom are necessary to assure the nonsnoring partner a good night’s sleep.

If your partner snores, recommend that he or she consult a healthcare practitioner. There are remedies to lessen snoring. And snoring can be symptom of sleep apnea, a disorder that requires medical treatment.

One average sized woman complained to her doctor of sleep problems. When queried, she revealed that she had recently remarried and her new husband, who was 6 feet tall and weighed 205 pounds, was now sharing her double bed. The problem sleeper had overlooked the obvious – that little mattresses are not good matches for big people. After purchasing a new king side bed, the woman regained the deep sleep of her single years. Is your mattress large enough for you and your companion?

Another couple had to change sleeping positions to regain refreshing sleep. From the beginning of their 20 year relationship, they would fall asleep “spooning,” their bodies in contact all night. This position was initially very comfortable for both partners and continued to be so until the woman approached menopause. “Now I don’t like to be touched in bed at all when I am going to sleep. I’ve been having trouble with night sweats. My husband’s body temperature irritates me.”

After some discussion, the couple decided to sleep with a bit of distance between them. The recent change in their lives made them reevaluate a habit that had previously enhanced their sleep. There is an important lesson here: Are there any bed sharing behaviors that no longer work for you?

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“You are what you eat.” This is popular slogan reflects the serious consequences our eating habits can have on our lives. Food affects health, vitality, and mood. When assessing a sleep problem, amend this phrase to “You sleep what you eat,” since your choice of when and what you eat affects your sleep.

Schedule your evening meal at least 3 hours before bedtime. For better sleep, as well as overall health, eat a large breakfast, a moderate lunch, and a light dinner with a small portion of protein. Or eat smaller, more frequent meals throughout the day to maintain consistent blood sugar levels.

Ask yourself, “Does my daily diet promote health and sound sleep?” A heart healthy, anticancer diet that is high fiber, loaded with nutrient rich fruits and veggies, and low in fat improves your general health and help foster sleep.

Conversely, eating too many fatty foods can curtail your sleep. In The Sleep Rx, Norman Ford calls dietary fat a “gremlin food that promotes insomnia.” Why the harsh characterization? Because, Ford explains, “virtually every disease or dysfunction attributed to eating a high fat diet and to being overweight has a detrimental effect on sleep and cause insomnia.”

Vitamins and minerals are also important for sleep. “Nutritional deficiencies or poor absorption of nutrients can cause chronic insomnia,” report Peter Hauri, PH.D, and Shirley Linde, Ph.D, the authors of “No More Sleepless Nights”. So, make sure to get your share of claming calcium.

The National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine reports that the majority of Americans do not get sufficient amounts of calcium. Average consumption is 500 to 700 mg, most people need 1200 to 1500mg. in addition to building strong bones and teeth, calcium helps regulate healthy nerve and muscle functioning. Supplemental calcium relieves premenstrual symptoms too.

A combination of calcium and magnesium acts as a mild relaxant and sleep promoter. Other vitamins and minerals associated with sound sleep are the B vitamins, zinc, copper, and iron. A nutritionist can help you assess your need for supplementation.

Certainly, our overall nutritional status affects how we sleep, but can individual food sedate or stimulate? Anecdotal accounts of sleep including warm milk and turkey dinners seem to say so, yet the claims are not scientifically substantiated.

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The major culprits of sound sleep are the jolting substance nicotine, alcohol, and caffeine. Several studies suggest that the stimulating effects if cigarette smoking steal sleep time. Heavy smokers tend to take longer to fall asleep, rouse more often, and experience less deep sleep. Some smokers wake up craving a cigarette during the night. In one study, those who quit their cigarette habits also cut their insomnia by half.

The paradox of alcohol is that it acts as both a relaxant and a stimulant. Some people insist that imbibing before bedtime helps them fall asleep. But physiological changes caused by alcohol deprive the body of needed rest. Drinking in the evening alters to stay deeply asleep stages, making it harder to stay deeply asleep. It is also important to note that the process of withdrawing from nicotine and alcohol may initially increase insomnia in formerly heavy users.

Coffee drinkers, beware: Your habit may be hazardous to your sleep. The aroma of a freshly brewed cup of coffee and the jolt of alertness it brings make coffee drinking an attractive activity. But consuming 300mg of caffeine, the equivalent of three cups of strong coffee or six cola drinks, at any time during a single day causes nighttime awakenings and disruption of the REM phase of sleep. Habitual coffee drinkers have excessively high levels of stress hormones and slight elevated blood pressure many hours after coffee consumption.

Caffeine sensitivity increase with age. The snakes you once enjoyed, such as a cup of java in the afternoon or a slice of double chocolate cake for dessert, may now keep you up at night. Other stimulating substance that you may want to eliminate or reduce includes chocolate, some over the counter medications, and coffee flavored ice cream and yogurt.

If you are having sleep problems, you should bypass all beverages with a buzz. In addition to limiting coffee consumption, drink less tea and fewer soft drinks that have high caffeine levels. Tea drinking is charming and healthful, but it can be stimulating, too. The common green and black teas, which contain caffeine, give you a physiological boost and strong antioxidant protection. Tea’s health benefits include reducing cancer risk, increasing cardiovascular strength, and normalizing intestinal flora. So savor your tea, but drink it 3 or more hours before bedtime.

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Chamomile is the perfect choice to create a calm evening. Alexandra Stoddard, an interior decorator and prolific author of lifestyle books, was once filmed for an episode of the Oprah television show sitting on her bed sipping a cup of chamomile tea. Chamomile’s pretty white flowers with yellow centers make a mild, relaxing beverage and are good in baths for sleepless adults and fussy babies.

The scent of chamomile tea is reminiscent of apple orchards. The herb has a relaxing effect on the nervous system, as it contains a compound that affects the same brain receptors as antianxiety drugs.

In addition to being a sleep aid, this wonderful herb relaxes the digestive system and has traditionally been used to treat stomachaches, ulcers, and cramps. A cup of chamomile tea may soothe evening heartburn and indigestion. Remember Peter Rabbit? In the children’s book, Peter’s mother served him a cup of chamomile tea after his escape from My.McGregor’s garden. Many herbalists also recommend this herb as a colic remedy for children.

In her delightful bath book Water Magic Mary Muryn describes how sharing an evening with chamomile just calls you to sleep. Following a chamomile steam facial, put wet chamomile tea bags over your closed eyes while you lie in a tub of chamomile infused water sip a steaming cup of this twilight tea.

When this is accompanied by a scented candle, soothing music, and an aromatic sleep pillow lightly scented with chamomile, almost anyone can be relaxed enough to fall asleep. (Wait until you are out of the bath and comfortably in bed, though!)

Brewing chamomile tea
For a pleasant tasting tea, steep chamomile for no longer than five minutes, since it becomes bitter if it’s steeped too long.

Chamomile Caution
As with al herb use, individual reactions may differ. Although the PDR for Herbal Medicines reports that chamomile has “a very weak potential for sensitization,” some people, especially those with hay fever or other ragweed allergies, may experience an allergic reaction to the plant. The U.S Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lists chamomile as “generally regarded as safe”

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“Natural” or alternative treatments describe any treatment that has not been scientifically documented or identifies as safe or effective for certain medical condition. Examples of alternative treatment include acupuncture, yoga, herbal remedies, aromatherapy, biofeedback, and many others. In considering an alternative treatment, as with any scientifically documented treatment, one should consider the risks versus the benefits of such a treatment.

If a particular procedure has no specific, direct risks associated with it, an important risk is potentially delayed treatment of the depression. For a mild depression, this risk may not be too great, but for more severe depression with suicidal thoughts, it could be a fatal risk.

Other risks include loss of money on an ineffective treatment, the use of a treatment that is not standardized nor required to conform to specific regulations and frustration when hopes of a unique treatment are not realized.

Herbal remedies are popular natural choice for treatment of many conditions. A common assumption about these natural treatment choices is that they are safe because they are natural. Although herbs are found in nature, as with man made chemicals, herbs have specific chemical structure that also alters the body chemistry.

As such, there can be significant side effects from such compounds as well. Some of these side effects can be life threatening. For example, there have been many cases of liver failure from use of kava supplements around the world.

In many cases, the problem per se is no that there are side effects; it is that the herbal treatments are not regulated as to either their safety or efficacy. If a specific treatment is known to be effective, one may be willing to take certain risks for relief. Without knows efficacy, however, it is not possible to make an informed decision about the risks from exposure. A lack of regulation also means that supplements available in the store are not rigorously tested for purity or quantity of the active compound in question.

Individual who sell these treatments may act expert but have no necessarily obtained any specialized training or certification either. It is important to keep these issues in mind when undertaking an alternative treatment so that fully informed decisions about treatment can be made. If it is decided an alternative treatment should be tried, it is important to communicate this information with a doctor. Herbal treatments in particular may interact with other medications, making it especially important to do so.

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The one major concern for many patients who take these medications for years is the fear that they are addicted to the depression medication. Addiction is a complicated and controversial issue that bears some explaining. Form a medical standpoint, addiction is defined as pursuit of a substance in such a manner that the pursuit and use of it consumer so much time and energy for the person to the exclusion of the majority of, if not all of, important activities in that person’s life.

Therefore, anything that gives pleasure causing one to pursue it with abandon is potentially addictive – from gambling to sex to drugs and all variation on those themes. By that simple definition, no antidepressant has proven to be addictive, and very few psychiatric medications have shown to be addictive as well.

Many people do, however, become dependent on various prescription medications, and this is where confusion reigns. Dependency is defined medically by the fact that physiologically measurable changes occur in the body after repeated administration of a drug. The most obvious drug that people think about in term of dependency includes most of the prescription pain medication that are called opiates.

Everyone who takes these medications on a regular basis will become dependent on them. Then confusion between dependency comes withdrawal when the drug is removed abruptly from the body, which can lead to craving for the drug. Because a drug like an opiate can make one high is often pursued with abandon, and dose cause dependency, people often mistake dependency for addiction.

Dependency and addiction may or may not be linked depending on the drug. For example, most anticonvulsant medications, many antihypertensive medications, all steroid medications cause dependency, but no one would ever consider these drugs addictive. In stark contrast, many hallucinogens and stimulants do not cause any measurable physiologic changes in the body that one could absolutely label dependency, and nevertheless know to human.

Where do antidepressants and other psychiatric medications fit on this continuum? Most antidepressants cause some level of physiological dependency. Some mood stabilizers and antipsychotic medications also cause some physiologic dependency. Any drug, whether prescription medication or street drug, that cause dependency, must be tapered over time, or one risks developing withdrawal.

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Both medication and therapy are effective treatments for depression. The treatment choice depends on the severity of the episode. Mild depression is often effectively treated with cognitive behavioral therapy or interpersonal therapy alone, for example. More severe forms of depression typically require the adjunctive use of medication.

Some individuals only take medication, but studies have shown that the combination of medication with therapy can be the most effective. When taking medication, it is usually best to have some form of therapy at some point during treatment in order to address the precipitating stressors. This would help develop coping mechanism and problem solving abilities and reduces the risk of recurrence under stressful circumstance in the future.

The most important factor in determining a positive outcome from either modality is that both forms of treatment require commitment to the treatment in order for it works. Therapy requires regular attendance to appointment, communication with therapist during the session, and for some forms of therapy, work on assignments between sessions.

The process of therapy is not easy. It can be anxiety provoking, and one does not necessarily feel relief after each individual session. Relief comes over time with hard work on the issues. It may feel easier to cancel sessions or to terminate treatment prematurely, but then the therapy is not given a chance to be effective.

As for medication, its use requires daily compliance and regular communication with your doctor. It is often difficult for many people to remember to take a medication daily, twice a day, or more. Doses may be skipped. Missing doses regularly result in reduced efficacy of the medication. Sometimes a medication does not work right away. It becomes frustrating, and the medication treatment is abandoned prematurely. Oftentimes, when a person has list of “ineffective” medication, many of them did not get adequate trials.

You may wish to try therapy alone first, and depending on progress, consider use of medication later. This route may be appropriate for milder cases of depression. Again, the more severe the depression, the more likely medication will also be necessary, as improvement in symptom usually occurs more quickly with medication.

Persistent, unremitting depression can be harmful because of its adverse physical and emotional affects as well as its associated risk of suicide. Therefore, the decision to initiate or hold off on medication needs to be made very carefully. Again, it is optimal to be in therapy while on medication, as the therapy will provide the skills needed to manage stressful situations in the future and will hopefully deter future depressive episodes.

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Types of treatment for depression fall into two broad categories: psychosocial and pharmacological. Within each category are many choices. Psychosocial treatment includes individual therapies, group therapies, vocational services, family couple’s therapies, as well as others.

Furthermore, there are different types of individual therapies, such as supportive, insight oriented or cognitive behavioral. There are also various levels of treatment setting, ranging from private practice settings, outpatient clinic settings, day treatment or partial hospital programs, and inpatient treatment.

Pharmacologic treatment involves the use of medications from various groups, such as antidepressants, anticonvulsants, antipsychotic, or anxiolytics. Psycho tropics are those medicines that are primary used in psychiatric care for the treatment of mental disorder, including depression.

However, there is often a crossover use of medicines from other medical specialties, such as from neurology, wherein antiseizure medications (anti convulsants) are frequently found to have efficacy in the treatment of many psychiatric conditions.

As part of an evaluation, your clinician will consider the most appropriate treatment plan for your depression. For a mild depression, psychotherapy alone may be recommended first. For more severe depressions, both medication and therapy may be recommended. If already in psychotherapy, your therapist may refer you to a psychiatrist for a medication evaluation of there is concerns about the level of response, the severity of symptoms, or confounding co-morbid conditions.

The type of therapy chosen can be depending on many factors such as cost, duration, or patient fit. Frequency of psychotherapy typically start at once per week may be more or less often depending on your individual needs or therapy type.

As part of the treatment plan, the treatment setting also needs to be determined. Most individuals can be treated in private office settings or outpatient clinic settings. Sometimes, a higher level of structure is needed in which more services can be provided, on a daily basis, such as in a day treatment program.

If impairment are severe or it safety is in question, hospitalization may be warranted. Within the hospital, several modalities of treatment are provided on a daily basis, making the treatment more intense.

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