We’ve all had bad sleep at some point yes?

You could have a major exam coming up or a really important meeting at work; and guaranteed at some point in the build up to it, you’ll wake up feeling worse off than if you hadn’t slept at all.

The main problems start if this keeps happening. Sleep deprivation kicks in and your concentration among other things start going down the pan. Some of the most common reasons for people to have poor sleep include stress, poor sleeping habits; poor mental or physical health and sleep disorders.

So I wanted to see what could help. Night routines and sleeping are things that are more personal to us. It’s a time when we feel calm, relaxed and safe; ready to restart and refresh for the following day. With this being a herb lover’s blog, I wanted to share some information and make a couple of things to help.

A quick note, this article ended up being a lot longer than I expected. I wanted to provide a small selection of crafts to help encourage sleep, but was worried that it would make the article too long. I decided to publish this article into two parts for a more comfortable reading experience. So stay tuned if you want to make a sleep cushion and a night time tea.

A search for information

Realistically speaking, sleep problems are common worldwide for a multitude of reasons. But like many other people it’s not something that I’ve put too much energy into thinking about. I decided that if I was going to focus an entire article or two to the making of a herbal sleep assist-thing, it would be a good idea to look into some of the causes and effects of poor sleep on a person as well as some of the main recommendations for getting a good night sleep.

A little disclaimer that should have been at the start of this post; neither this post nor the blog in general has any affiliations with any named sites or organisations. I found the information through a general search and I am in no way an expert on such topics.

For this reason the search I carried out was a general search engine search (tongue twister!). This is not a medical or literary review and is no where near as detailed as one. I wanted to have a basic understanding and to see just how easy it was to find information, but the qualified nurse in me can’t resist a medical journal article so a couple of those might be mentioned too. Let’s go!

Nightmares

Ok, so pretty much everyone has had nightmares or bad dreams during their lives and is an extremely common factor in poor sleep. Up to 50% of children have experienced severe nightmares, especially between the ages of 3 – 6 years old; whereas approximately 50 – 85% of adults have nightmares occasionally.

They tend to happen during the deepest part of sleep (the REM cycle) and have many different causes such as stress, anxieties, worry, trauma and mental health conditions. An article published in Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology in 2017 looked into a study carried out in the UK to have a detailed look into the causes of nightmares in relation to how nasty the nightmares can potentially be.

They found that among the main causes, people with higher levels of stress and worry linked with more regular nightmares and with higher severity.

Regular nightmares can become a problem because they cause people to have broken sleep, which in turn affects their day to day functioning. Sleepiness during the day is expected but poor sleep also affects a person’s ability to concentrate, makes them more irritable and leads to higher levels of anxiety, stress and worry to the point it becomes one big negative cycle. The worse sleep you get, the more likely that sleep deprivation kicks in and leads to a whole new thing to deal with.

Sleep deprivation

Sleep deprivation or lack of sleep can have a serious effect on a person’s health. Despite some people taking a strange amount of pride in being able to barely function on only a few hours sleep a night; it can cause a fair few symptoms including:

Fatigue/tiredness during the day
Poor concentration
Memory problems
Irritability
Increased appetite

Consequences of these symptoms have been reported and researched a lot over the years, from performance issues in work to the increased risk of fatal accidents. The studies have also linked regular and long term sleep deprivation to health issues including obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

Causes of sleep deprivation can vary as there are a lot of them such as:

Illness
Work patterns, such as shifts work
Poor sleep hygiene, this means your habits and night time routine
The environment you’re trying to sleep in

Or

Having small children – this one is not included as an insult or a dig. Parents to young children tend to get less sleep either because their child needs extra care during the night or they sleep lighter to hear if their child needs them.

Improving sleep

The good news is that sleep deprivation can be reversible. But it takes some time, so needs diligence and patience to get the most out of it.

There are different ways to improve personal sleep patterns, such as:

Reset circadian rhythm – this is literally your biological clock and is how your body knows to get sleepy when it’s dark and wake up in the morning. When your circadian rhythm is off you will stay awake much later in the evening and struggle to maintain your morning routine. More like a vampire’s schedule. Resetting your circadian rhythm involves setting some strict times to go to be and wake up because it’s all about the routine and habits.
Time old tested – I put it under this heading because its advice that you’ve probably heard before. Limiting caffeine intake and avoiding it completely up to six hours before bed. Avoiding blue light from electronics up to two hours before bed. Not eating a heavy meal or high calorie snacks up to two hours before bed (unless, you’re me. I get hungry as I try to sleep.)
Meditation/exercise – I admit, I’m not a huge fan of exercising; but meditation is something that I can’t recommend enough! A soothing meditation session before bed even for 5 – 10 minutes at a time can really help. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a deep sleep before practicing meditation regularly. My mind gets easily distracted, so I’m not the best at solo meditations. I use the FitOn app; it has a huge selection of workouts and meditations to try with different trainers as well as advice on different topics to help you keep healthy. It has something for everyone and really encourages their community. I’ll put a link at the bottom of the post so if you want to, you can see what they can offer.
A nice cup of tea – I know I’ve already mentioned about drinking caffeine before bed, but there are a lot of caffeine free options for hot beverages that are available. A hot chocolate if you’re feeling particularly indulgent; or herbal teas are widely available from health food shops and supermarkets that are really tasty as well as being naturally caffeine free. I like this Pukka ‘night time’ tea personally; it smells amazing and is so soothing I can practically feel daily strain melt away. But that’s just me, there are so many different teas to try, I’m sure you could find one you love.
A relaxing bed time routine – combined with the steps above, this can help kick start the entire programme to improve sleep. Starting your bed time routine at a specific time helps to signal to your body that it needs to wind down. From having a warm shower or bath, a relaxing cup of tea and/or doing a bed time stretch or meditation session; is a sure way of bringing your day to a close on the best note.

If you’re struggling to sleep well, give it a try and let me know how you get on.

What has this got to do with herbs?

This is the question that I don’t hear you ask but will try to answer anyway.

Herbs have been used to make remedies for as long as there have been people. Sleep remedies is one of many areas that remains consistent. Tinctures are a form of medicine that involves steeping herbs in alcohol for a set amount of time to extract the plant’s properties. You would take it by putting a few drops under your tongue or dilute it in a drink. Tonic wines work in a similar way to tinctures; well essentially they are the same. Herbs steeped in a bottle of wine (usually red from what I found) and taking a set dose to help calm the nerves and ease the mind.

Herbs such as Valerian were commonly used to make tonic wines, as they are very good for helping someone with ‘nervous complaints’ and to ease anxiety. These symptoms’ including fainting and irritability – among others – were referred to as ‘hysteria’ and was a genuine diagnosis from as early as 1880. Worryingly, it was only no longer recognised as an individual condition as recently as 1980. Such treatments were also given to encourage sleep in a patient.

Other plants were also popular in their abilities to help people sleep. Poppies made a widely used sedative as well as Belladonna extract.

Despite my love of sharing information, I will not be sharing too much detail on the “how to” of using these plants. Poppy extract makes opium, an illegal substance and officially has been with the Dangerous Drugs Act (1920) in the UK. Refined opium makes morphine; can you see where I’m going with this?

Long story short, opium is still an ingredient in making heroine. So I won’t be looking into that.

Ingredients such as belladonna and valerian are both still used in natural remedies, and even have some over the counter versions in sleeping pills and specific pain killers.

Valerian alone is generally considered safe with consideration, but side effects have been noted including:

Stomach pain
Liver problems
Headache
Tremors

Belladonna is probably my favourite plant, problem being it’s highly poisonous and causes ‘delightful’ symptoms such as:

Blurred vision
Tachycardia
Confusion
Hallucinations
Delirium
Convulsions
Death

So yeah, I’d say they should be recommended for use by qualified herbalists only. That being said, if you want to try something a little extra to help with sleep, talking to your GP can help. They can give you advice and help you find something that works for you while making sure you’re safe, whether that’s conventional medicine or a natural remedy.

So what can I actually do?

On my end I looked at some of my essential oils and dried herbs to see what I could make to help me sleep and wanted to share something actually helpful.

At first I thought about making a herbal sleep pillow to help; cottagecore is still really popular as I write this so I thought a cute vintage themed cushion would be ideal. Then I thought again, which is truly dangerous for me. I realised not everyone has access to a sewing machine or has the time or even enjoys sewing.

Eventually, I settled on a couple of things. I would make a sleep cushion and an oil burner blend, because I seem to be a glutton for punishment.

I used lavender and chamomile as the base fragrances for this blend. They’re a soothing staple that you can traditionally rely on. Although I get that some people aren’t keen on lavender; if you’re not a lavender fan, you can reduce the amount to help make it a little bit less prominent, or leave it out altogether.

For the oil burner blend

This oil is designed for oil burners and/or reed diffusers. Check with any manufacturer’s guides if planning to use in electrical diffusers and follow their advice.

I remember mentioning this in the Christmas room fragrance post, but I like to put the blend in a little bottle of its own, that way I can dilute it as needed and make it last a while longer.