Insomnia anxiety is being anxious about the fact that you can’t fall asleep. Usually it is accompanied by other forms of anxiety such as worrying about the economy, your job or your home loan. We live in a very uncertain world at the moment and this is affecting our peace of mind and sometimes our ability to sleep.
Taking a sleeping pill can help you over a bout of short term anxiety about a specific problem, but sleeping pills are not suitable for long term use. This is because the sleep that results from taking these drugs is not good quality sleep. Normal sleep cycles through various stages light and deep sleep and REM (dreaming). These cycles vary in length over the night are are necessary for good physical and mental health.
Anxiety insomnia is not a physical complaint so can’t be remedied by physical remedies. Most people who suffer with anxiety insomnia have excellent sleep hygiene; they have a dark quiet cool bedroom, they don’t drink coffee in the evening and they practice some form of relaxation therapy such as breathing exercises or meditation. This is all necessary of course, but it won’t fix the anxiety.
It is possible to untangle this vicious cycle, but you have to start with treating your anxiety. There are medical drugs you can take such as benzodiazepines. However there is a natural remedy called Passionflower which has shown to equal the relaxing qualities of benzodiazepines in some people.
Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata) comes in tea of capsule form. It has no dangerous side effects but can cause hives and allergies in some people.
Like most natural remedies, Passionflower can be taken long term, however do not use it together with benzodiazepines, blood thinning medication or if you are pregnant.
