Sometimes patients complain to me when they are outpatients: I often can’t sleep at night. As mentioned online, I have been drinking milk and hot water for half a month, but there is no effect at all. What should I do? Sometimes I would joke: Do you not drink enough milk and not soak the hot water for a long time?❗In fact, I believe many people have experienced or are experiencing the problem of not being able to sleep at night. So can a glass of milk and a basin of hot water solve the problem of insomnia? Today I will learn about it with you.
Insomnia refers to a physiological condition with unsatisfactory quality of continuous sleep. It is a common sleep disorder , which can be caused secondary to physical factors, psychological factors, environmental factors, mental factors, etc. The clinical manifestations are difficult to fall asleep, easy to wake up, early wake up, too shallow sleep, shorten sleep time, resulting in easy sleepiness and even sleep during the day, which seriously affects work and life.
Drinking milk helps sleep, mainly because there is a amino acid in milk called tryptophan, which is a natural calming and sedative that can regulate nerves, stabilize emotions, and relax the mind. Therefore, milk helps sleep.
Soaking your feet in hot water improves your sleep, mainly because the feet are rich in nerve endings and capillaries. Soaking your feet in hot water has a good stimulating effect on the nerves and capillaries. This warm stimulation is reflected to the cerebral cortex, which inhibits excitement on the cerebral cortex, making people in a quiet state of rest, making it easier to fall asleep and improves sleep quality.
So can drink milk and soaking feet in hot water solve all insomnia problems? The answer is no.
First of all, there are many causes of insomnia. In summary, there are roughly the following aspects:
First, age factor--insomnia has a lot to do with age. The time required for human sleep is inversely proportional to age. Infants and young children have the longest and the elderly have the shortest, so the elderly are particularly prone to insomnia. The elderly usually have rich experience and think a lot about things. Sometimes their minds cannot calm down at night, so they are prone to insomnia;
Second, physical factors-- people need to relax when sleeping. If the body does not relax, it is not comfortable, and it is not comfortable, which will inevitably affect sleep. For example, some people will feel pain, itching, or asthma and attacks, etc., which makes people feel very uncomfortable, and discomfort will easily affect their sleep. This requires solving physical diseases. When the disease improves, insomnia will be reduced or disappeared;
Third, psychological factors - Psychological factors are the main causes of insomnia. It should be said that about 80% of insomnia patients are affected by psychological factors, such as long-term emotional tension, depression, excessive thinking, or always competitive in doing things, pursuing perfection, etc. This can easily cause people's excitement, anger and anger, which will inevitably affect sleep. In turn, poor sleep will affect people's psychological state, so this is a vicious cycle;
Fourth, environmental factors - In fact, the sleep environment is also very important. If the environment is too cold, too hot, too loud or too strong, it will interfere with sleep;
Fifth, other factors - such as changes in sleep rhythm, irregular sleep, and not developing good sleep hygiene habits, such as staying up late, surfing the Internet, playing games or late-night snacks, etc., are common causes of insomnia. There are also some drugs and foods, such as excitatory drugs, or drinking a little coffee, strong tea before going to bed, and some hormone drugs, which can cause insomnia.
It is not difficult to see from the above that drinking milk and soaking your feet in hot water can only solve insomnia caused by part of psychological factors. Insomnia caused by other causes should be handled in a targeted manner according to the cause. If necessary, go to the hospital for treatment and seek help from doctors to avoid other health problems caused by long-term insomnia.
