Doctors have coined a new phrase called Covid-Somnia. Many folks aren’t sleeping as well as they did before the pandemic. They have a hard time falling to sleep, and they’re waking up more in the middle of the night. Worries keep them awake. Will I get the virus? When will the lockdown end? What will I do when the money runs out? And now, election 2020 has added to the anxiety. Was the election stolen? Will my vote mean anything in the future? Consequently, there’s an increased demand for sleeping pills, but they really don’t help long term. You might try some alternative remedies. As an example, it’s been found that a taste of honey helps you sleep.

According to doctors, Here’s how honey helps you sleep:

1. It provides fuel for your brain throughout the night by restocking your liver’s glycogen. Low levels of glycogen tell your brain that you need to eat . This “hunger” can cause you to wake up in the middle of the night and sleep less soundly.

2. Honey helps your brain release melatonin, the hormone that your body uses to restore itself during sleep. This happens through a series of transformations in your brain: honey’s sugars spike your insulin levels, releasing tryptophan, which becomes serotonin, which becomes melatonin.

A tasste of honey helps you sleep because it has serotonin

A taste of honey helps you sleep. It feeds your brain with relaxing serotonin.

Yes, honey increases the brain’s natural sedative, serotonin– a hormone that stabilizes our mood, feelings of well being, and happiness. Honey is inexpensive, compared to sleeping pills. It’s not habit forming, and it doesn’t lead to a typical “drug hangover,” that leaves you feeling sluggish. However , honey has calories—about 20 per teaspoon. So you don’t want to go overboard.

Honey has been a game changer for me. I started by by taking one teaspoon of honey in my afternoon tea. Then , right before bedtime, another teaspoon. After a couple of nights, I realized I was sleeping later in the morning than usual. And if I did wake in the middle of the night, I could easily get back to sleep.

Honey can also help you sleep if you have a cough. The Mayo Clinic says it works just as well as a cough suppressant.

Why not try a taste of honey? It may help you sleep.

The “twilight years”, when people grow old, is supposed to be a time of peace. Our worries are over, kids grown, and we can relax, enjoy life. Why, then, do most elderly people have trouble falling to sleep? We’re told to go out in the sunlight and get more exercise. Avoid caffeine and alcohol, and take magnesium. But what if these things don’t work? Warning: one thing may ruin your sleep.

Even after retirement, I didn’t have problems falling to sleep. But that changed when we stopped going South last winter. We looked for something to get us though the long winter nights. Our grown children had been talking about Netflix for years, so we decided to bite the bullet and embrace technology. We, too, could binge on House of Cards and Ranch on those long, cold evenings. Instead of yearning for spring, we would liven up the season with some great television shows. And that’s when I began to lie awake long after I’d gone to bed.

At first, I resigned myself to my fate. The experts said it was normal. The elderly have trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep, and that’s the way it was going to be. The sleeplessness continued even when spring arrived. and during the long hot summer,.

And then, last week, I stumbled across a story about “blue light,’ and what it does to our sleep patterns. According the the National Academy of Sciences, “the use of a light emitting electronic devise…before bedtime prolongs the time it takes to fall asleep…suppresses melatonin*, reduces the amount and delays the timing of REM sleep, and reduces alertness the following morning.”

For the first 30 years of my life , children went to bed after dark, while grownups listened to the radio, watched black and white TV and read books. No one had ever heard of blue light.. Then along came television and e mail and i phones.

TV emits blue light, blocks the prodution of melatonin, and may keep you awake — Watching television two hours before bedtime could keep you from falling asleep promptly

And now, our new habit of watching Netflix before going to bed was exposing me to hours of blue light , and keeping me awake. Computers also emit blue light, so I would have had the same problem if I’d been online for the same amount of time.

Last week, I found glasses on the internet that block UV light, and promptly ordered some. Since they hadn’t arrived, , I put on a pair of sunglasses while watching television. Within an hour, I felt groggy and struggled to stay awake. By the time our programs were over, I stumbled into bed, and fell asleep within minutes.

I’m hoping my new UV blocking glasses will have the same effect as the sunglasses. There is plenty of evidence that blue light affects when our bodies create melatonin. So, if you watch television a couple of hours before bedtime, these glasses might help stop you from staying up later than you want.

There are many factors that affect the quality of your sleep, but blue light may be one of them.

*Melatonin is a hormone that plays a role in sleep. The production and release of melatonin in the brain increases when it’s dark, and decreases when it’s light.

Tag: sleeplessness

A TASTE OF HONEY HELPS YOU SLEEP

WARNING: ONE THING MAY RUIN SLEEP

*Melatonin is a hormone that plays a role in sleep. The production and release of melatonin in the brain increases when it’s dark, and decreases when it’s light.