Healthy, Natural, and Restorative Sleep

If inadequate sleep or non-restorative sleep is reducing your quality of life, your body and mind can be reset so that you can enjoy the sleep you need. This can be achieved. Healthy, natural, restorative sleep is defined as a person being able to (1) go to sleep when they want (as opposed to staying up until they drop), (2) sleep through the night or to return quickly to deep sleep after awakening, (3) wake up in the morning feeling refreshed, and (4) achieve all this without medication, alcohol, or supplements.

Program goals

  • To wake feeling rested five mornings out of seven
  • To use sleep as a means to reduce pain, manage depression and anxiety, and reduce the fatigue and physical symptoms associated with an illness

Ours is a behavioral program, which means a non-drug process by which you learn to change your brain chemistry through your own behaviors. These behaviors include exercise, relaxation techniques, nutrition, stress management and anxiety/mood management.

Why non-drug?

Medications can be a useful stepping stone, but they do not correct the underlying sleep disorder. They often make it impossible for people to perceive how their behaviors are helping or hindering their sleep. Medications can contribute to overall fatigue and foggy thinking; and when they wear-off, they can contribute to insomnia. To achieve a non-drug-induced, natural sleep, Solutions for Wellness works with your physician to help reduce dependence on sleep medications. (See Medication Issues and Behavioral Treatment for more info)

Healthy, non-drug-induced sleep is controlled by your own internal biologic clock, which controls body functions that occur on a twenty-four-hour cycle that includes such things as sleep, appetite, fatigue, and alertness. That clock is called the circadian rhythm. Our program helps you bring your circadian rhythm back into balance, so that you can sleep deeply at night and have good energy the next day.

This program will help you learn how to

  • Get off sleeping pills
  • Establish sleep-promoting habits and lifestyle
  • Stop your mind from racing or worrying at night
  • Develop relaxation and stress-reduction techniques
  • Enhance peace of mind and reduce negative emotions
  • Choose foods that promote sleep and avoid foods that disturb sleep
  • Develop an exercise plan to improve sleep
  • Self-manage physical symptoms that interfere with sleep
  • Become sleepy—not just tired—before bed and be alert in the morning
  • Rebalance your circadian rhythm (biologic sleep clock) to fit your work schedule

For more information on pain and sleep and techniques to improve sleep see the interview with Jeanne Melvin in our article in the American Chronic Pain Association’s magazine, Chronicle.