Resting Well - Sleep Well - Cure Insomnia

What would you do when you can't fall asleep for the night or worse, for a few nights?Indeed, you'll feel awful and grouchy if you lose sleep the whole night. Thanks to the invention of sleeping pills - you hit the sack and sleep like a log throughout the night.So you start taking drugs, thinking you found a remedy for your insomnia? No, do not depend entirely on sleep medications as they can create undesirable side effects while temporarily inducing sleep.To cure insomnia, you just need some natural remedies. In fact, start by analyzing your lifestyle, as they may be the cause of your insomnia. Once you change some of your habits, you'll nip your sleepless problem in the bud.Now, try out these simple natural insomnia remedies, which aim to change your habits to make you sleep better at bedtime. They work best for you if your sleep problem is not sparked by the side effects from other medications you're undertaking.1. Reserve your bedroom for TWO things only - sleep and sex. In other words, avoid eating, working, computers, TV, video or loud music in the bedroom.2. Create a clean and comfy environment for slumbering - soft lights, good ventilation, appropriate room temperature, good support pillows, and sufficient comforters.3. Taking a relaxing warm bath before bedtime can lower your body temperature thereby helps to induce sleep. Soaking your feet in a tub of warm water before bedtime can achieve similar effect. Certain aromatherapy oil can enhance calming effect, provided you like the smell.4. Avoid caffeinated drinks such as coffee, tea, soft drinks or chocolate drink and / or cigarettes after 7pm in the evening. Also avoid snacking just before slumber time so that your body can fully focus on making you sleep instead of having to partially work on the food you send to your stomach.5. Turn off your cell phone (its radiation can upset your normal sleep pattern), blackberries, MSN or Yahoo! Messenger, ICQ etc after a certain time at night.6. Sleep inducers such as soy milk, whole grain, certain seeds (pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, flaxseeds) and nuts (walnuts, cashews, almonds, pecans, peanuts) help your brain to relax. Drink a glass of milk or calming herbal tea with a handful of whole-wheat crackers before bedtime. But remember not to overeat those foods and do visit the bathroom right before sack time so that you won't have to drag yourself up in the mid of your sweet dream (I hate that!).7. If you cannot conk out after half an hour in bed, get up and listen to some soothing music, or read a book (but avoid stimulating or exciting content such as horrors and thrillers). Use warm tungsten reading lamp instead of fluorescent lamp. Avoid watching TV or DVDs as the light from these devices are bright and will interfere with your body's biological clock, worsening your sleepless condition. Return to bed as soon as you feel sleepy.8. Regular exercise relieves tension, thereby aiding sleep. But try not to work out before sleeptime as it may keep you awake.9. Train your body to sleep and wake up at the same time every day regardless of whether it is weekend or public holiday. Setting a regular sleep routine helps your body and brain get used to falling asleep naturally at a fixed time each day. The ideal time to hit the hay is between 9 to 11pm so as to achieve better sleep quality.10. If you need to snooze during the day, try to keep it within 20 - 30 minutes that is sufficient to charge you up. Napping too long may result in dizzy mind, which can adversely affect your productivity as well as your nocturnal sleep.11. If you're working at home, stop work at least two hours before turning in to allow your mind to unwind and relax.12. Improve your diet by reducing meat intake and eating more fruits and vegetables such as berries, green leafy vegetables, whole grains and cereals. These natural goodies help to revitalize your body and help to keep your sleeping mechanism function properly with less "glitches".I would also recommend an amazing sleep-inducing fruit - Kiwi.Packed with abundant vitamins (especially vitamin C), minerals (including calcium, potassium, magnesium) and dietary fiber, you should eat them more often and not only for insomnia problem.Among the nutrients in kiwi, calcium is the one helping you to relax, which isn't found in many fruits. But be prepared that you'll only feel the effect after a few weeks of eating 2 kiwis each night.How about taking calcium supplements? As with all artificially extracted supplements, they bring some adverse conditions. I reckon you do not want to add more toll on your health with those side effects.Kiwi's effect too slow for you? Think about this - eating two per night replenishes you with so much nutrition and makes you sleep better naturally in the long run. Isn't this an easy deal?Sleeping pill or natural cure for insomnia? Make your choice.

How to Lucid Dream? For most this question would seem to appeal to beginners only. I found there are different types of beginners that start off within different stages in there Lucid Dreaming journey. Let me explain. I know people who recently discovered what lucid dreaming is only to realize they have been doing it for all their dreaming life. These people typically can give you a detailed five minute rendition or blow by blow version of last nights dream. This they can do every day. Well lets just say this was not the case with me and I had to start right at the beginning. You'll also find that if you talk to them about techniques for practicing dream awareness, while awake in order to achieve dream awareness while in a dream, they are successful without much effort at all.If this last sentence did not make sense let me try and explain in another way. The first goal with lucid dreaming is to realize or to become conscious that you are dreaming and that you are not awake. So you are consciously aware of the fact that you are dreaming while you are asleep. Now to achieve this you have to practice checking or testing whether you are in a dream while you are awake. This can be done in different ways but one example is to have a set routine. For example every half an hour ask yourself "Am I dreaming", pinch yourself (and feel it) and look at the time on your watch twice a couple seconds apart.The main idea involves conditioning yourself to test if you are dreaming, so that your subconscious mind keeps on requesting you to do this test. Eventually while you are in a dream the answers change FROM "no I am not in a dream"," ouch that hurt" and 10:10am & 10:10am TO "yes, I am in a dream", wow that did not hurt and 10:10am & 05:28pm.Typically in lucid dreaming, otherwise known a conscious dreaming, if you look at your watch twice a few seconds apart, the time with each view is totally different and you do not feel being pinched and you just somehow know you are now dreaming.Typically people need to practice this for days and weeks before they get it right. The naturally talented lucid dreamer mentioned above was able to tell me, the day after a conversation we had about double checking the time, that the previous evening they where "practiced" enough to remember to do this test in a dream. We had one conversation about it and they were able to try it in a dream and succeed within hours. Their starting point in the lucid dreaming journey was not the same as mine.The point being that learning how to lucid dream is a journey and each individual will have a different starting point. Not to mention also a totally different paths. This is important to understand in order to know where you are on this journey to help you focus on the next techniques to practice for you. This journey's life cycle could involve the following phases:
not being aware of any dreams
conscious awareness practice while awake
successful dream recall
successful dream control
create and experience amazing adventure and fantasies
use lucid dreaming for self discovery and personal growth
out of body experiences
personal healing
spiritual awareness and growth.
and much more.Not only is it important to understand where you are in your journey but also to know where you want to be. There are many end destinations and they keep on changing as you reach some successfully.Note that the above list is only a rough guide and that each phase can involve lots of ground work and practice while awake. The trick is to first learn about conscious dreaming, understanding more about each phase and then deciding what you want gain from it. Then it is simple to know where you are and what you need to do to get to your destination. From there you can easily find out exactly what lucid dreaming techniques and exercises you need to do. As you start your journey and become more experienced you'll soon notice that there are many other benefits and usage of lucid dreaming that can to be discovered and help you to archive your goals, basically you can tailor make a journey for you.To really make the most of conscious dreaming one needs to find ways to work on your creative imagination. After all everything you experience and create in your dream comes from yourself and you need to cultivate this gift with a creative imagination. But first things first, aim to understand the big picture as discussed above, then realize where you are in it and then figure out the detailed effort involved to get to the next step. So when learning how to lucid dream make sure you know what your first goal is, you need to be very goal focused to be successful.And lastly remember to enjoy the lucid dreaming experience from the beginning. In this case the cliché of the journey is more important or fun than reaching the destination is so true as with most things in live.

Lots of people want to learn how to have lucid dreams, and it's not surprising why - when you're in control of your dreams, you can basically live out any scenario you desire! Whether it's limitless wealth, a perfect body, that ideal man/woman, or trips to exotic locales or even outer space - you can experience it all, without leaving the comfort of your own bed.So why doesn't everyone have lucid dreams?Well, one reason is that not everyone is aware that it's possible. But even among those who are, many people try to learn lucid dreaming, but give up because their early attempts prove fruitless. This is a shame, because with the right approach, just about anyone can learn to take control of the dream state.There are lots of ways to train yourself to have lucid dreams, but most of these are a bit hit and miss. However, there's one method that's extremely effective, and that's brainwave entrainment.What Is Brainwave Entrainment?Brainwave entrainment (also called brainwave synchronization) involves exposure to a repeating stimulus of certain frequencies. The most common stimuli are pulses of light or sound, with sound recordings being the most popular and easy to use method. There are three types - binaural beats, monaural beats and isochronic tones, with binaural beats being the most widely used.As you listen to a brainwave entrainment track, your brain will tend to produce brainwaves that match the frequency of the recording. This is useful because different states of consciousness are associated with brainwaves of different frequencies. When you dream, your brain produces brainwaves that are predominantly in the theta band (5 - 8 Hz). Then as you awaken, you ascend into the alpha band (8 - 12Hz).Brainwave Entrainment & Lucid DreamingIn order to have a lucid dream, you need to remain conscious while in the theta state. This is very difficult for most people, and takes a lot of practice and mental discipline to achieve. Most people give up because it takes to long to get results. However, by listening to a good brainwave synchronisation recording that's designed with lucid dreaming in mind, it becomes easier to stay aware of what's going on as you enter the theta state and begin dreaming - the recording helps to keep your brain in the correct state, so you don't have to do all the hard work yourself.Of course it'll probably take some practice before you're consistently getting the results you want (although there are some who become lucid the first time they try brainwave entrainment), but most people who try it find that lucid dreaming is easier with brain wave entrainment than without.So if you want to experience the thrill of living out your perfect life every night, it's worth giving this great technology a try!