More often than not, people experience insomnia or sleeping problems due to a deficiency of vitamins and minerals. A simple and natural way to improve your sleep is to feed your body the vitamins it needs with specific foods or supplements. There are a few supplements known to improve sleep.The three most basic and important vitamins that should be taken to combat insomnia include calcium, magnesium, and the B vitamins. Calcium has sedative effect on the body and without it you may experience restlessness and excessive wakefulness. Drinking calcium rich liquids such as milk or calcium fortified orange juice before bedtime may help calm this restlessness. Calcium in food form is the effective way to induce sleep but a supplement may also be taken.
Magnesium is also helpful when trying to induce sleep. Magnesium can be found in foods like wheat bran, almonds, cashews, and brewers yeast, but can also be taken in the form of a supplement. Sometimes people wake from sleep with painful leg cramps. This may be a sign of both a calcium and magnesium deficiency.
B vitamins along with calcium and magnesium are necessary for normal sleep and have sedative properties. Of the B vitamins, B6, B5 (pantothenic acid) and B12 are the most helpful. These vitamins can be taken as supplements or found in foods like whole grains, liver, wheat germ, tuna, bananas, peanuts, and walnuts.
Other helpful supplements include tryptophan, 5-HTP, phosphatidylserine, chromium, and melatonin. Tryptophan is most commonly known as the reason why everyone falls asleep after eating Thanksgiving dinner. Tryptophan is the amino acid that turns into serotonin in the brain. Serotonin is a natural sleep-inducing chemical. Yes, it is found in turkey but is also available in milk.
Tryptophan supplements are not legal in the United States. Usually high amounts of tryptophan must be taken in order for an effect to seen, but in most cases, the intake of tryptophan is not an effective method of treating insomnia.
5-HTP is a form of tryptophan that is one step closer to serotonin production and has proven to help insomnia patients fall asleep faster. It also increases the length of the REM cycle as well as sleep stages 3 and 4 and by so doing makes sleep more restorative rejuvenating. It should be noted that the higher the dosage of 5-HTP, the longer the REM cycle will be.
Phosphatidylserine is an amino acid that helps regulates how much cortisone your body produces. In normal cases, cortisone is found in high levels in the morning, for wakefulness, and at lower levels in the evening, for sleepiness. But people with increased stress produce high levels of cortisone and have trouble getting to sleep at night. Phosphatidylserine can help those with stress minimize the amount of cortisone their adrenals are producing and thus fall asleep easier.
Chromium can be found in brewers yeast and in supplement form and may be helpful to those people who can't sleep due to blood sugar problems. Melatonin is a sleep hormone that is produced by the pineal gland. A deficiency may be a cause for insomnia and can easily be remedied by taking a supplement.
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