Insomnia and sleep disorders can have a devastating trickle-down affect on your health. Whether your problem is getting to sleep or staying asleep, incomplete restful sleep cycles have a serious impact on your body.

When a person doesn’t get adequate sleep the body cannot regenerate and repair properly. This causes serious energy depletion, organ malfunction and eventual failure. The hormonal system is delicately orchestrated and when sleep is disrupted it can throw the hormonal balance completely off track and premature aging, migraines, skin problems, weight gain and digestion issues ensue.

Sometime the problem with not being able to go to sleep or stay asleep has to do with evening activities, electronics, light sound and food. Here are some of the common mistakes made at bedtime;

Eating or drinking foods containing stimulants like caffeine and sugar. Many people are not aware of the levels of caffeine in soda, tea, decaffeinated coffee, chocolate, clear sodas, mountain dew or cocoa. Alcohol too near bedtime can disrupt sleep a few hours later.

Getting too stimulated before bed with exciting movies, books or music, thinking about work or problem solving or exercise can keep you from getting relaxed enough to easily fall asleep.

Lights and sound are common problems that cause people to wake up in the night. The flashing light and tone from cell phone notification, the moon or outside lights shining through the window or leaving the television on can destroy could sleep habits.

Extensive studies on the effects of brain development for small babies with a nightlight in their room showed significant problems. This implies that light during sleep has a powerful affect. The brightness of a lighted alarm clock has shown significant sleep disruption for many.

For those who are very sensitive to electricity, eliminating any electronics within several feet of the bed was found to be beneficial. With this type of sensitivity, the use of electric blankets was found to be quite disruptive.

There is one surprising culprit which is actually a sign of good health is when someone awakens during the lung meridian restoration and repair time which is between 3:00-4:00 A.M. when the body pumps great amounts of oxygen through the system. This is sometime so stimulating that the person wakes. However, when this happens, if they would just notice that it was lung repair time and go back to sleep instead of worrying and thinking about their ‘to-do’ list, they would fall back to sleep easily.

The best prescription for a good night’s rest is peaceful quiet activities when winding down in the evening, a glass of warm milk or herbal calming tea, a warm bath or shower, therapeutic sleep formulas along with a sleep diffuser and complete darkness and quiet during sleep. Brainwave entrainment audio can be very helpful when ambient noises are to blame for waking you.

If all of this does not fully do the trick, sleep hypnosis guided meditation before bed can be just what the doctor ordered.