Medicinal plants for insomnia
More than three million Spanish consume plant medicines for insomnia, according to the Center for Research on Phytotherapy ( INFIT ), recalling that the plants medicinal to have guarantees of safety and efficacy must be purchased in pharmacies. Almost half the Spanish (48%) have occasional problems sleeping and almost a quarter of them (22%) relies on the plant medicine to combat it, according to recent surveys of the scientific society.
In contrast, a 16% of the population consume psychoactive drugs (which represents 96 million containers per year), of which 12% do not have any anxiety disorder, depression or mental , resulting risk of side effects, according to the Spanish Society for the Study of Anxiety and Stress ( SEAS ), who has collaborated with INFIT in collecting this data. disorders of sleep linked with the Central Nervous System represent more than half of the reasons use of plant medicines by the Spanish, whose use has increased with the crisis. The main reasons we can not sleep we owe it to family problems, health and labor.
The economic situation increasingly affects more the dream of the Spanish and consultations on plants to help sleep increased in pharmacies. Women have more trouble sleeping than men. And the age at which most cases of insomnia are recorded is between 40 and 49.
Dr. Alberto Sacristan, a specialist in family medicine and a member of the board of INFIT warns that one of the major side effects of sleeping pills of synthetic origin is drowsiness during the day, which is a major cause of traffic accidents and work.
In cases of insomnia due to stress passenger, the use of plant medicines is one of the first treatment options, helping you sleep without creating dependency or side effects.
Some of the plants most often used to help sleep are:
- Valerian has hypnotic properties that promote sleep.
- California poppy , relieves anxiety and helps sleep.
- Lettuce , calms palpitations nerviosy controls, has a calming effect.
- Passionflower , recommended to deal with situations of stress and people with depression.
- Melisa , calms nerves and has narcotic properties .
- Tila , when the insomnia is the nervous type .
- Lavender is calming.
The insomnia is the inability to sleep or difficulty staying asleep . When longer than 20 days in a row happens to be a problem acute to chronic. It is considered that a person has insomnia when getting up in the morning feels he has not slept enough and in need throughout the day sleeping. There are many causes that can lead to particularly highlight the stress, constant schedule changes, the background noise, foods high in fat, drink alcohol or exciting, too much heat, the habits of reading or watching television bed and physical illnesses in that in many cases the pain can not sleep.
Some tips that might come in handy we are trying to use the bed only for sleeping, the other activities in different rooms, the nap should not be more than an hour , eat foods rich in calcium, magnesium and vitamins B and C as yogurt, milk or cheese will help you sleep better, it is also interesting to take a bath with plants relaxing before bedtime. The most common are the thyme and sage. And above all avoid the pills without a prescription, as it may aggravate the problem.