The follow-up of the first experience of the aromatherapy course - find a good way to help you fall asleep
It has been more than a month since I participated in the aromatherapy course for the first time . After the "Good Night's Sleep" essential oil brought back from the experience course failed, I successively bought three more bottles of essential oil, namely
real lavender
bergamot
Benzoin
Their joint effects can make people relax and help sleep, and the strangest of these essential oils is benzoin.
" Benzoin is an essential oil with only a slight vanilla smell, which has the effect of calming emotions and helping sleep. " The clerk introduced it this way.
No matter how moving the description of essential oils is in words, it cannot compare with the direct experience of the five senses of the human body. The slightly sweet vanilla smell, delicate and gentle, made me decide to buy it the moment I smelled it.
At night I mix it with benzoin, lavender and bergamot essential oils and it smells very pleasant and relaxing. I like the smell of benzoin, so I wonder if it has other functions besides sleep aid and relaxation? A search online yielded the following results:
。古代馬來西亞將安息香作為薰香，也用於宗教儀式驅逐邪靈。在中東它被用於宗教儀式，以驅除邪靈和淨化空氣。在古埃及它被認為是一種神聖的油，被用於宗教儀式和典禮This unexpected effect of essential oils made me think that it should be suitable to use more frequently in the next month.
Regardless of the unexpected effect, back to the topic of sleep aid, can benzoin essential oil achieve sleep aid effect? After a few days of personal experimentation, I feel relaxed but the effect of sleep aid has not been felt for a long time.
Since I have tried different essential oils and still can't experience the sleep-aiding effect, then I will change to understand sleep from a scientific perspective , and maybe I can find other solutions.
Three good friends who maintain the normal sleep cycle of the human body
Sleep is the natural physiological mechanism of the human body, and people are born with the function of falling asleep automatically. The maintenance of the body's normal sleep cycle mainly comes from the division of labor and cooperation of three good friends. They work together to maintain the body's sleep mechanism every day. If one of them is sick, it will affect sleep. These three good friends are tryptophan, serotonin and melatonin
Tryptophan: An important raw material for making serotonin, the human body cannot produce it on its own and must be obtained through diet.
Serotonin: A neurotransmitter that makes people feel happy and well-being . Responsible for mood stabilization, digestion, and conversion to melatonin at night.
Melatonin: Hormone used to calm the brain and induce sleepiness. Serotonin is converted to melatonin only in the dark.
Therefore, if you can do something to help the production of tryptophan, serotonin and melatonin on weekdays, it may solve most of the problems of poor sleep.
Another Common Cause of Insomnia - Stress
Once the doctor took the pulse and told me to try to relax.
I wondered and asked the doctor if I didn’t stay up all night and work overtime, isn’t it enough to relax?
The doctor told me with a smile that stress has nothing to do with your environment, but with your state of mind. Even after many people have retired, their hearts are still in a state of combat readiness! Every day, I set myself to get up at 6 o'clock, arrange a lot of schedules, and must fulfill my mission. Even if I retire from work, I am still very tired.
I understand! Attitude determines the size of the pressure.
But having said that, stress is indeed a ubiquitous and unwilling to be alone nuisance! As long as it appears, in addition to disturbing the sleep cycle, it will also affect many places. For example, stress will cause unpleasant emotions in the amygdala and affect the appetite intestine, and then cause shadows in the hippocampus, and finally affect the autonomic nerve. As long as the autonomic nervous system is affected, people will experience a lot of problems, one of which is the inability to sleep normally.
Is taking medicine the best way to solve insomnia?
Unless there are special cases, I personally do not support taking medicine to deal with insomnia. One-fifth of the people in Taiwan suffer from insomnia, and the rate of prescriptions for sleeping pills is the highest in Asia . If it wasn’t for the friends around me who started taking sleep aids, I really didn’t pay attention to the information in this field.
A friend once mentioned that she suffers from long-term poor sleep, taking the "Lifuquan" medicine prescribed by the doctor can make her fall asleep peacefully. The friend also said that it is a sleep aid, not a sleeping pill. What are sleep aids? I'm curious what the principle is.
【利福全】 。用途：用於預防治療癲癎、恐慌、緩解焦慮、肌肉鬆弛、助眠的處方用藥。 。原理：透過抑制或調整中樞神經系統來達到鎮定作用，例如GABA。 。類別：屬於苯二酚（Benzodiazepine）類安眠藥*註:朋友有誤解，利福全是安眠藥不是助眠藥。It seems to be a sleeping pill for relieving anxiety, so what is GABA?
GABA: A neurotransmitter that inhibits the brain. It is responsible for regulating emotions such as anxiety, tension, stress, and fear during the communication between the brain and the spinal cord. GABA comes from protein in the diet, as long as there is a normal diet, there is no need to supplement GABA.
In this way, we can understand why this drug works for my friend, because my friend has been under multiple pressures from work and family, and is always accompanied by tension and anxiety; however, her diet is abnormal and she never exercises. Your daily routine may improve your sleep, too.
After popularizing the above knowledge, I found that there are actually many ways to improve sleep, and the promotion of aromatherapy can help people achieve relaxation and sleep-aiding effects, and I have a better understanding.
芳香分子可以作用於海馬迴、杏仁核、下視丘、大腦皮質額等部位，進而影響記憶與情緒，嗅聞精油有助腦內血清素、多巴胺平衡，也有助大腦穩定於警醒而平靜的狀態。－台安醫院。羅佳琳醫師－
The most effective way to help sleep
Stress does affect insomnia, but the way to improve it is not only through taking medicine. While the essential oils didn't directly help me with sleep, the relaxing effect was remarkable!
In addition, the above-mentioned balanced diet, taking vitamin B, exercising, turning off the lights and going to sleep... etc., after trying them one by one, I found that the most effective way to help sleep is to bask in the sun . As long as you have 10-15 minutes of sunlight at noon that day, you can get a good night's sleep that night.
It turns out that the reason for not sleeping well all the time is that I hide from the sun too well, which leads to insufficient secretion of serotonin, which also affects the insufficient secretion of melatonin at night. Sure enough, knowledge is power, and knowledge made me fall in love with the summer sun.
Thanks for the following references
https://www.commonhealth.com.tw/blog/4400
https://www.commonhealth.com.tw/article/87713
https://www.taic.mohw.gov.tw/?aid=509&pid=88&page_name=detail&type=1144&iid=3426
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