Who would have thought that a thing like resting (sleep) would be hard to come by? Given that sleeping is relaxing and rejuvenating, why then is sleep prone to being a disorder? It's true that insufficient or disturbed sleep can have detrimental affects on the functioning of the brain, which besides affecting one's alertness can also affect memory.
Ayurveda, which is a traditional medicine practice and a native to India, says "The people or constitutions who are most vulnerable to having a sleep disorder are the Vata people". Now by that we mean people, who have all or either of these physical descriptions like light dry hair that tends to fall a lot, dry skin, sensitive digestion, impatient by character, usually light boned, restless, smokers and/or with a massive sweet tooth. These are qualities that can keep sleep at bay.
Food is also an essential part of this disorder; it has the power to affect our sleep. We have some food suggestions that could help you have a sound sleep:
- Limit consumption of Tea/Coffee: When we consume more than 3 cups of tea or coffee through the day, our nervous system goes into a hyper stimulation state hence preventing the natural rhythm of sleep induction. Similar effects are observed with smoking, pans and tobacco.
- Have light dinners: Eating a very heavy dinner, close to sleep time results in disturbed sleep as well as snoring, heavy breathing and GERD.
- Eat foods that induce sleep: Foods which can improve sleep are ones that have a high concentration of tryptophan. This is an amino acid which increases the availability of serotonin in the brain, which lulls us into a night of restful sleep. Foods containing tryptophan are milk, cheese, curd, potato, wheat (roti, whole wheat pasta), apricots and bananas. Many foods like oatmeal/oat flakes also help to induce sleep when taken as dinner along with milk and honey.
- Avoid chocolates at night: Eating chocolates at night leads to low brain serotonin levels.
- Avoid junk food: It's important to avoid junk food and highly refined food because processed carbs like maida over stimulate the insulin levels in our body leading to disturbed sleep.
- Try cool drinks before sleeping: For some people, drinking a cool glass of lassi or a fizzy iced drink at night is very soothing especially if one has spicy meal or beer at dinner time.
Following just a few of these basic rules could help us sleep better and wake up with a sound mind in the morning.
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