Older people are susceptible to insomnia for various reasons. This condition is characterized as an acute sleep disorder: the patient cannot fall asleep, or sleeps with constant awakenings. In some older people, insomnia is caused by mental disorders. Folk remedies for insomnia for the elderly, effective methods of alternative therapy, which in most cases provide relief.
If insomnia in an elderly person remains unattended for a long time and progresses, then taking folk recipes in the form of herbs and preventive measures does not always benefit the patient. In any case, it is necessary to consult a doctor in order to begin the fight against the cause of the disorder.
Herbs as one of the best remedies
Herbs as a cure for insomnia in old age are used to eliminate a complex of causes and symptoms. They act much more gently than sleeping pills, but still have sufficient effect. Adverse reactions with proper use of medicinal herbs for insomnia in older people are practically excluded.
Important! Traditional recipes based on herbs calm the psyche and nervous system, and also stimulate the immune system and relieve pain. Most natural herbs have a strengthening effect.
herbal mixtures yourself or buy them at the pharmacy. However, you first need to clarify the absence of contraindications. If there is an intolerance to one of the components of the recipe, it can be excluded or replaced. Such manipulations with folk remedies for insomnia in older people should be carried out after consultation with a doctor.
Recipes with mint and motherwort
Hops, mint and motherwort are the most effective herbs for making recipes for insomnia in older people. Treatment is possible in the following ways:
- a decoction of dried ingredients, taken 1 tbsp. l. They need to be ground well in a mortar and a spoonful of the mixture should be steamed with boiling water. Leave the concentrate for several hours. The resulting dosage is taken throughout the day,
- decoction of mint with the addition of lemon balm - prepared on the basis of chamomile or rosehip tea, adding the dry mixture to boiling water,
- combination with valerian roots - use 30 g of mint and motherwort, as well as 20 g of hop cones and valerian roots. The resulting mixture is brewed in the amount of 1 tbsp. l. a glass of boiling water. You need to steam the recipe in a water bath. Take the entire portion 3 times a day.
Valerian should be taken with caution, as some older people are prone to the opposite reaction to this plant. In addition to the mixture, you can use a recipe made from pure valerian roots, boiled over a fire in water.
Hops and oregano
Folk recipes that can be taken instead of pills for insomnia contain oregano or hop cones. Often these components are brewed as medicine on their own.
Take decoctions 3 times a day, 0.5 cups. You need to brew 20-30 g of raw material per 0.5 liter. Oregano is best given to people over 70 years of age, although it can also be effective in younger age groups. Hop products are suitable for patients of any age.
Recipes with fireweed, cumin and hawthorn
You can treat insomnia in older people with other effective herbs and their combinations:
- Hawthorn with valerian. This universal remedy helps most people, but you need to be careful about its effect regarding lowering blood pressure. The mixture is used in the form of alcohol settings, mixing 15 drops in a glass of water.
- Chamomile and cumin with the addition of valerian. Mix part of valerian roots with 2 parts of other herbs. For 0.3 l you need to take 1 tbsp. l. After boiling, the mixture is cooled and taken in 3 doses.
- St. John's wort. Use dry herbs and brew according to the recipe. St. John's wort should be infused for at least 2 hours and taken 3 times a day.
- Fireweed, or fireweed. The drink is prepared from 2 tbsp. l. in 400 ml boiling water. You can drink it instead of regular tea, or immediately after waking up, at lunch and before bed.
However, you need to remember how to get rid of insomnia in old age with the help of herbs. Restrictions affect the period of use of natural components: the course of treatment with one prescription should not exceed 21-25 days, otherwise the patient will become addicted and the effectiveness of the product will decrease.
Treatment of sleep problems in women
How to overcome insomnia if it occurs in beautiful ladies? Unfortunately, such problems often arise in women, since they are the most sensitive and emotional. Affects sleep and hormonal changes during menstruation or pregnancy. Home remedies, infusions and mixtures are considered an excellent alternative to medications.
There are many ways to restore healthy sleep. You can take medications or use folk remedies. Herbal infusions, for example, help well if insomnia is caused by nervousness. Mint, angelica, sweet clover, and onion seeds are considered excellent natural remedies for women.
Experts recommend taking medicinal preparations that are sold in pharmacies or preparing infusions yourself.
- Prepare the following decoction: sweet clover and mint (one spoon of the mixture), season with boiling water and leave overnight. Drink fifty milliliters daily in the morning before breakfast.
- The angelica rhizome must be thoroughly washed, dried and crushed. Pour boiling water over one small spoon of root, let stand for thirty-five minutes, pass through a sieve and take three times a day. Drink the last part at night.
- Season finely chopped elderberry root with boiling water and simmer for fifteen minutes over low heat. Let it brew for half an hour and strain. You need to drink the product before going to bed, one tablespoon at a time.
- Grind peppermint leaves, valerian root and hop cones. Add a couple of spoons of this mixture with boiling water and let it sit in a warm place for thirty minutes. Strain the drink and take half a glass at night and in the morning.
You can defeat insomnia once and for all only in a comprehensive manner. Physical activity, proper nutrition, adherence to work and rest schedules - all this has a positive effect on the body. Maintaining healthy sleep is easy if you know what causes sleep disturbances.
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How pregnant women can deal with insomnia using non-drug methods
This list includes strong tea and coffee drunk at night; heavy food, unpleasant smell in the room, noise, bright light, obsessive thoughts.
Treatment with honey
Honey, provided there is no allergy to bee products, is considered the safest and most harmless sleeping pill for older people. It calms, improves metabolism and saturates the body with vitamins. Here are the best folk remedies for insomnia:
- Before going to bed, take warm honey tea - dissolve 1 spoon of honey in water,
- prepare a mixture of 200 g of honey and 3 tsp. apple cider vinegar, 1-2 hours before bedtime, take 1 dessert spoon of a natural remedy for insomnia,
- mix 1 tbsp. l. honey with the juice of half a lemon, seasoned with a glass of mineral water,
- nut butter - prepared from 3 lemons, 2 tbsp. l. honey and the same amount of walnuts, take 1 tbsp 30 minutes before bedtime. l.,
- brine and compress - prepare a mixture of a glass of cucumber brine and 1 tbsp. l. flower honey. You need to take the medicine at night. A compress is placed on the calf muscles (honey should be mixed with a spoonful of horseradish and brine).
Folk recipes that relieve insomnia in older people can be combined with effective water procedures.
Why is sleep disrupted?
Due to natural aging, sleep disturbance in old age can manifest itself under the influence of various provoking factors. They may be:
- Atherosclerosis of cerebral vessels. With this pathological process, metabolism in the body of an elderly person sharply deteriorates, as a result of which blood flow in the brain is also significantly impaired. As a result, the patient experiences a sleep rhythm disorder.
- Restlessness in the legs. In certain situations, insomnia in older people becomes a consequence of numbness or cramps in the lower extremities, which often manifests itself at night as difficulty falling asleep or waking up. Because of this, awakening occurs mostly prematurely.
- Sleep value disorder. In extremely rare situations, insomnia manifests itself in the absence of any symptoms: the patient easily falls asleep, and nothing disturbs him at this time. But after waking up, an elderly person feels severe lack of sleep, which is caused by the improper functioning of his organs.
Ancillary signs of sleep disorders in old age include: episodic pain in the heart area that occurs initially, suffocation and a decrease in heart rate. Therefore, if the above pathologies appear, it is necessary to immediately contact a specialist for diagnosis.
In addition to the main provoking factors of insomnia in the elderly, modern scientists identify several related ones. These include:
- diseases that occur in the lungs;
- endocrine disorders: diabetes, inflammatory process in the thyroid gland, etc.;
- disorders in the peripheral nervous system;
- diseases of the heart and blood vessels (heart rhythm disturbances, angina pectoris, etc.).
Important! In certain situations, insomnia in old age occurs after stressful situations or minor emotional outbursts. In addition, other mental disorders become a provoking factor.
It is possible to detect the disorder only after clinical diagnosis, since the patient himself (due to lack of sleep) is not able to assess the signs present in him.
Bath for the treatment of sleep disorders
When visiting a bathhouse, an elderly person experiences serious stress. However, they are effective and healthy. The bath relieves fatigue and helps remove lactic acid from the body.
This causes the elimination of pain from muscles and joints. The water procedure increases blood circulation, warms up the internal organs and promotes strong relaxation 1-2 hours after visiting the bathhouse.
However, you need to remember the rules for visiting a bathhouse when treating insomnia in older people:
- You should not overeat or go to the sauna on an empty stomach,
- It is not recommended to go to a public health resort if you are very tired,
- you should protect your head with a special thermal cap that prevents overheating,
- to combat insomnia, you should choose birch or oak brooms,
- before use, the broom is treated in boiling water,
- you need to stay in the steam rooms for no longer than 5 minutes, the total number of approaches is up to 10 for an elderly person,
- You can use dry herbs and essential oils, placing them on hot stones (a decoction is prepared from the herbs and poured over the stones).
In the bathhouse, it is recommended to drink warm linden tea with honey. After visiting the bathhouse, a person usually sleeps well. However, it is necessary to clarify the contraindications. Doctors indicate high blood pressure (hypertension) as one of the most important.
Insomnia in the elderly – traditional and folk treatment – Neurology
04.02.2020
Older people are susceptible to insomnia for various reasons. This condition is characterized as an acute sleep disorder: the patient cannot fall asleep, or sleeps with constant awakenings.
In some older people, insomnia is caused by mental disorders.
Folk remedies for insomnia for the elderly are effective methods of alternative therapy, which in most cases provide relief.
If insomnia in an elderly person remains unattended for a long time and progresses, then taking folk recipes in the form of herbs and preventive measures does not always benefit the patient. In any case, it is necessary to consult a doctor in order to begin the fight against the cause of the disorder.
Recipes for effective folk remedies for insomnia for the elderly
- In older people, insomnia is one of the leading symptoms of sleep disorders.
- Patients complain of difficulty falling asleep, frequent awakenings at night, and getting up early.
- As a result of this, their general well-being is disrupted, they become irritable, complain of constant fatigue, daytime drowsiness, and loss of strength.
- Insomnia causes various pathological disorders in the functioning of organs and systems at this age.
Source: https://maestro-vu.ru/insult/bessonnitsa-u-pozhilyh-lyudej-lechenie-traditsionnoe-i-narodnoe.html
Relaxing baths to treat insomnia
Instead of a bath, an elderly person can use a folk remedy such as a relaxing bath. To do this, prepare recipes based on some herbs and plants:
- Coniferous procedure. Branches of Christmas trees or pine are brewed in 3 liters of water. You can also add pine cones. Boil the broth for at least a quarter of an hour and leave for another 1-2 hours before adding it to the bath. You can swim in pine water for 15-20 minutes.
- Valerian bathing. The bath mixture is prepared from 1 liter of water and 100 g of roots. You can also immediately add an alcoholic tincture of valerian to the bath.
- Baths with linden blossom. To prepare an effective folk recipe, you will need 2 liters of boiling water and 2 cups of dried inflorescences. After boiling, the product is infused for another 3 hours. You can take a linden bath for 30 minutes.
After consulting a doctor, these procedures can be used in pregnant women and adolescents for insomnia.
And after a pleasant water procedure, you can use a special herbal pillow.
Advice! Soothing pillows are filled with a mixture of dry wormwood, linden, pine needles, mint or hops.
To fill the pillow, plants are placed in a fabric bag through which small particles will not spill out. The pillow is placed in the patient's face. However, this does not mean that you need to sleep with your head on it.
The benefits of using folk remedies for insomnia
Insomnia, or as it is called in science - insomnia, has a detrimental effect on the physical and psychological state of the body.
It is generally accepted that the main cause of insomnia is the stressful environment that surrounds a person during the sunny part of the day. The quality of sleep is also affected by bedding elements: blanket, pillow, mattress; the flow of fresh air into the room is important. Most doctors recommend taking a sedative medication to help you sleep soundly. However, drugs give only a one-time effect and are addictive, but cannot help a person over a long distance. In this case, folk remedies come to the rescue.
There are two advantages of folk remedies in the fight against insomnia:
- Variability . In nature, there are a lot of medicinal herbs and simply useful elements that are selected depending on the characteristics of the body.
- Safe but effective effect on the body . Not all medications can be called 100% safe for humans, which cannot be said about folk recipes.
Aromatherapy for insomnia
Elderly people benefit from essential oils that calm the nervous system. Some remedies have a relaxing effect that is stronger than that of medications. Aromatherapy involves the use of special lamps. You can also drop the oil onto the radiator in the room of an elderly person suffering from insomnia. Inhalations and massages using this natural remedy are effective. When taking a bath, you can drop 15-20 drops directly into the water.
Aromatherapy is also carried out in another form: a drop is rubbed into the temples before bed. The oils that work most effectively for insomnia are: lemon balm, rosemary, mint, basil, rose, juniper and orange. However, citrus esters must be used 2-3 hours before bedtime. Other substances also cope well with stress: lavender, coriander.
Clay compresses
Another effective remedy for treating insomnia in older people is clay applications. White clay is most often used. This product is rich in substances that reduce stress levels. Clay also has good thermal conductivity properties. Here are some effective recipes:
- Take dry clay and heat it in a frying pan without adding water or oil. Transfer the hot mixture into a cloth bag and apply to the feet. Then you need to wrap your feet or put on woolen socks.
- Use a glass of cosmetic clay (white, red or yellow). Mix the product with 40 g of lemon balm leaves and 10 g of yarrow. Then you need to add a third of a glass of boiling water. Mix the solution well.
Applications are applied to the forehead and temples, after spreading the mixture on a napkin. You need to keep the compresses for 20 minutes before going to bed.
Treatment with folk remedies in older people usually has good results. But before using any natural product, you need to remember that herbs, essential oils and other components have a high penetrating ability and sometimes act no weaker than drugs.