SLEEP HYGIENE: DRINKS
According to The Oxford Dictionary, hygiene is the principles of maintaining health, such as by cleanliness. There is one part of hygiene which maintains good health at night and promotes sleep. This is 'sleep hygiene', and this has become standard terminology among sleep experts. Practising good sleep hygiene is an important alternative to taking sleeping pills.
Caffeine is the number one enemy for people who cannot sleep. This is present in coffee, tea, cola, cocoa, and chocolate. It is estimated that the average cup of coffee contains about 100 mg of caffeine, a normal serve of tea or cola contains about 50 mg, and a cup of hot chocolate about 10 mg. Caffeine is a strong stimulant. It has been demonstrated that three cups of coffee can totally cancel out the hypnotic effect of one sleeping pill. (250 mg of caffeine can reverse the effect of 100 mg of barbiturate.) Some people find that they cannot sleep at night because they have been drinking a few cups of cocoa or hot chocolate every night. It is very easy for us to forget that these drinks contain caffeine.
The caffeine cycle
There is a condition which I call the 'caffeine cycle'. People who suffer from insomnia do not get enough sleep and feel sleepy in the daytime, so they drink a lot of coffee to keep themselves awake. This increases the caffeine content in their brains and, at nighttime, this stimulant reduces their chances of falling asleep. Hence they suffer from increasing insomnia each night, which leads to more and more sleepy feeling in the daytime. Consequently more and more cups of coffee are required to keep themselves awake in the day, and the caffeine cycle goes on. The only way to break the cycle is to stop drinking coffee altogether at the expense of feeling sleepy in the daytime for a few days. Ultimately, however, this will increase their chance of sleeping better at night.
Caffeine tolerance
There are people who drink ten cups of coffee a day, but do not have any problem sleeping. However, as we get older, our tolerance to caffeine deteriorates. Caffeine is absorbed and metabolized in the liver, then excreted in the urine. When we are older our liver is unable to handle the chemical as effectively as when we were younger. If you have sleeping problems, coffee and tea should be the first drinks to cut down on. If you still like a cup of coffee, why not try decaffeinated coffee? It is like changing from butter to margarine. After a while you become used to margarine and find it just as tasty as butter. The old technique of extracting caffeine by chemical solvents such as methylene chloride made most coffee drinkers suspicious of decaffeinated coffee. But the new technique is a water process, whereby warm water is circulated over the coffee beans until most of the caffeine is extracted.
Alcohol
Alcohol is to be avoided, although it may induce sleep in some people. After a few hours, when the effect of the alcohol has passed, alcohol drinkers experience a mini-withdrawal, wake up with a hangover, and find it difficult to fall asleep again. This is because alcohol has an extremely short half-life. There is of course the potential of addiction to alcohol if it is taken on a regular basis. Addiction means that you need a bigger and bigger drink each night before you can sleep, and you will also find that you cannot do without the drink.
Smoking
Smoking cigarettes is also detrimental to sleep. It has been shown that smoking delays the onset of sleep. Nowadays, in fact, more and more people are giving up cigarettes, not just because they are detrimental to sleep but also because they cause so many serious medical problems. *35/23/5*
