Insomnia Over 100 million North Americans suffer from chronic sleeplessness for medical, psychologi- cal, social, or environmental reasons. A medi- cal cause may be a diagnosed or undiagnosed chronic disease, a temporary illness (such as the flu), pain, or reaction to a remedy. A psycho- logical cause may be general anxiety, depres- sion, anger, or alertness (such as expecting to be awakened by your baby). A social cause may be the habit of going to bed too late or having a late meal. An environmental cause may be a noisy neighborhood or a toxic home. Obviously, you want to rule out interference from a chronic disease or reaction to a medication, so if need be, consult a physician or a pharmacist. You know whether you're anxious, depressed, or overly alert and whether your social habits are or aren't conducive to your sleep and well- being. But here are some sleep habits that rep- resent their own obstacle to a good night's rest: Being fearful about insomnia by entertain- ing such misconceived notions that if you don't sleep eight hours every day you will die, go literally crazy, or become totally inefficient. Generally, these extremes don't happen. These mental expectations pro- gram your body to fulfill your own proph- ecies. More often than not, insomniacs sleep many more hours than they think. Especially, older folks who swear that they haven't slept a wink in days can be found happily snoozing after lunch or another time during the day. Anxiously watching the clock. The best thing is to place your clock where you can't see or reach it. To combat insomnia, cultivate the following: Make peace with yourself and everyone else when getting ready for sleep. That's a good habit anyway. Don't force yourself to sleep. That's where knowing your personal diurnal (daytime) rhythm comes in handy. Some people are naturally sleepy by 9 p.m., but others have a few more hours of activity in them because they rise a bit later. If you go to bed two hours too early, you shouldn't be surprised if you just lie awake counting sheep. Acquaint yourself with your body's unique rhythm or, rather, rhythms. Get enough physical exercise. Yoga should do the trick! Don't nap during the day. Avoid non-sleep activities (TV watching, reading, eating, and so on) in bed. Go to bed at the same time. Make this a force of good habit. Get up if you can't sleep and sit in another room. Try going to bed again when you feel sleepy. Do this change of scenery as often as necessary instead of tormenting yourself in bed for hours on end. Cut an hour off your regular eight-hour sleeping time. Reducing your normal amount of sleep makes you that much more ready to sleep the next night. We counsel against taking sleeping pills. They condition the body wrangly. If you feel that you need to take sleep aids, give herbal oils (mas- saged into the feet or the whole body), acu- pressure, or homeopathy a try. But many Yoga practitioners have found a significant improve- ment of their insomnia just after a few weeks of regular daily practice. 57