Lunesta as a treatment for insomnia

Lunesta as a new treatment for insomnia

Nothing is more frustrating than chronic problems with sleep. When you and your doctor have exhausted all of the logical sleep hygiene tips, and over the counter medications for insomnia are not doing the trick, there is now a new and potentially much safer option. Lunesta, known by it’s generic name as eszopiclone, is a popular new medication to help you get to sleep.

Prescription sleep medications, also called hypnotic agents, have gone through an evolution from the use of barbiturates, to long acting benzodiazepines, to shorter acting benzodiazepines. All three of these groups, while very effective, had definite potential to become habit forming and were only intended for short term use. These drugs all have not only the potential to become habit forming, but it is also common to develop an accelerated need for higher doses of the drug. The more barbiturates and benzodiazepines you use over a long period, the more you need to achieve the same effectiveness.

Unfortunately, the need to treat insomnia is not a temporary situation for many people.

Many individuals need a safe, hypnotic agent on a more long term basis. They need and want the option of a medication they can take for a long time without the risk of becoming truly dependent on the drug.

Lunesta (eszopiclone) is a novel compound approved as a sleep agent. It is effective at inducing and maintaining sleep for a full night.

It is important to note that Lunesta is approved for long term use and does not diminish effectiveness over at least a six month period. Studies were done on people with insomnia over this six month time frame and showed at it was equally effective during that time, even at the same doses.

As with any medication, there are some potential side effects of taking Lunesta. It is possible to have an allergic reaction to Lunesta. If you experience swelling of your lips, throat, face or tongue, you should stop taking Lunesta immediately and contact your doctor. Of course Lunesta will make you sleepy, so you should not take the drug if you are not prepared for a full 8 hours of sleep.

If you are going to need to drive, or do anything that requires your full attention, you should not take Lunesta. You should not suddenly stop taking Lunesta without talking to your doctor first. Stopping the medication quickly could lead to a rebound effect where you are less likely to get to sleep. Instead, the medication should be tapered off over a period of time under the care of your doctor.

Women who are pregnant or who think they could be pregnant should not take Lunesta. This medication has also been found to be able to pass in to breast milk, so it should be avoided in mothers who are nursing you don’t want a drugged up baby after all!

Even though Lunesta is more expensive than the many of the older agents which are already available in generic form, it is potentially much less habit forming, can be used longer term and allows a better quality of sleep.

The benefit of this option clearly can outweigh the increased cost for many individuals. If you have further questions about Lunesta and whether it is a good option to treat your insomnia, talk to your doctor. Good luck and sleep well.

Trying To Stop Jack Russell Terrier From Sleeping With Us

Adam:

My boyfriend has allowed his wonderful, very well-behaved Jack Russell, who is two years old, to sleep not just on but in his bed. We are trying to teach her to sleep in her bed which is on the floor by our bed but it’s proving very difficult! She’s managed to sleep there until about 4 AM, but then the whining starts and she ends up with us. It’s not really a problem so much when we are at our house but we are planning to go on holiday and she will be staying with my parents and they really won’t tolerate her sleeping in bed with them, nor the whining when she isn’t allowed to, so we thought it best to nip the habit in the bud completely. We can get her to stay in her bed but we can’t get her to actually sleep … she just whines … even if we take her for a hundred walks to tire her out. It’s as if she HAS to be that close to us!

Tiffany

Dear Tiffany:

Put the dog in a crate. Not only will she be UNABLE to get onto your bed, but when she goes to your parent’s house, you will be able to take the crate with her so she will have a familiar place to sleep at the different residence. By crating her at night, you’re providing her with her own “den” since dogs derive more satisfaction from small places than we do. She will more than likely put up a fuss in being confined beyond her control, but it should go away after a few nights as she becomes more comfortable with the crate. Do not give her any attention while she is whining, as this will only reinforce the behavior. Some people go so far as to buy earplugs for those first nights.

Introduce the crate in a positive manner, with lots of treats and praise. Put her bed in it so it has her scent in it. Feed her in her crate so she gets the idea that no one will disturb her and the crate is a safe place. When you have to shut her in, give her a special “crate toy.” Many people have had success with Kong toys stuffed with peanut butter or cheese/liver paste and freezing these.

The crate is also useful for confining the dog when it can’t be supervised to keep it out of trouble (see the first article above). My book “Secrets of a Professional Dog Trainer!” goes more in-depth on the use of crates and other training devices, and can be found at: http://www.dogproblems.com/newvideos.htm

That’s all for now, folks!

Adam

Free Tips For Curing Insomnia

Lying in bed late at night you can feel very alone when everyone else in the house is sound asleep. Take comfort in knowing that you are not alone and in fact insomnia is a very common sleep disorder. In fact, it is estimated in the United States that $2.5 billion is spent each year on prescribed anti-insomnia medications and that doesn’t take into account how much is spent on natural medicines used for insomnia.

The amount of sleep you need will vary from person to person and most people will find that they tend to sleep less as they get older. For example, children are recommended to have 12 hours of sleep per night while for adults the recommended sleep is between six and eight hours per night. This is because as we get older our bodies produce less melatonin which is a hormone that helps control sleep.

However, if you are not receiving those six to eight hours of sleep at night and wake each day feeling like you haven’t slept then you may be suffering from insomnia.

The main symptoms of insomnia are:

- Difficulty in falling asleep at night

- Waking up during the night and being unable to fall back to sleep

- Waking up extremely early in the morning

- Feeling tired all day and feeling like you haven’t slept at all.

There are many things that can cause insomnia but generally it tends to be psychological and often becomes a habit.

Stress, anxiety and depression are the most common causes of insomnia as when you are anxious your body finds it hard to relax and settle into sleep mode. If you go to bed stressed you will be thinking about your stressful situations and your mind will be going over and over the situation trying to resolve it somehow. Your mind cannot relax and therefore you will find it very difficult to fall into a deep sleep.

Once you start having trouble falling off to sleep at night, then you will tend to go to bed with the thought in your mind that you are not going to be able to sleep. The mind has amazing powers over the body and if the mind is telling your body that you won’t be able to sleep, then your body will believe it and stay awake. If you can break this habit your sleep patterns should return to normal.

Some tips for beating Insomnia are:

- The first thing to do is to have a physical and make sure there is no underlying medical condition that may be causing your sleeplessness.

- Get yourself into a good routine, and that may include making sure you don’t have any caffeine within a few hours of going to bed and having some quiet time leading up to bed time.

- Try some relaxation techniques such as meditation, soft music or yoga. This will help to relax your body and your mind in preparation for sleep. These techniques are also extremely good for helping you with deal with stress.

- Try some herbal medication for a few days, just long enough to break the habit. Once the habit is broken and your mind stops thinking that you will be unable to sleep then your insomnia should stop.

In some cases insomnia may just stop on its own, but often it is a matter of trying some of these steps and developing a positive mental attitude. Then you can stop lying in bed listening to your family snoring and join them instead.

Insomnia treatment – Part 4

Insomnia the inability to fall asleep when you want to be sleeping. There are two strategies to cure insomnia. Typically, most people find successful methods to fall asleep when they want to be asleep. However, the other strategy is to be happy to be awake when you are not sleeping, and then you have also cured your insomnia.

I struggle with insomnia and have tried many purported cures. I have found that my insomnia is has two main causes, physical pain and emotional distress. When I lay down in bed to go to sleep and I can get comfortable, it is very difficult to fall asleep. The pain is not usually great, but it is enough to stop me from easily falling asleep. My most reliable cure for this is to take a hot shower or bath.

When my brain is spinning, it is also very difficult for me to sleep. The solution to this problem is a little different. I have to replace spinning with an activity. I used to get up and read or surf, but then I would get into reading or surfing and I would be up a long time and very tired the next day. I have found a quicker solution that I try first before deciding to get out of bed.

I decide I’m going to meditate. I just lay in my bed with my eyes closed breathing in and out and paying attention to my breath, and bringing my attention back to my breath when it wanders. Sometimes I count my breath in groups of ten. When I get to ten, I start back at one again. Most instruction on meditation recommends not meditating while lying down. Can you guess why? You have a tendency to fall asleep. I figure that I am benefiting whether I am awake or sleeping. If I stay awake, I am practicing meditation and learning to relax my spinning brain, or else I am sleeping. There are very few nights that I am still awake at the twenty minute mark from when I start my meditation.

Now that not sleeping doesn’t bother me that much, I think more about the negative effects of an irregular sleep habit rather than the problem of not sleeping. There are some days, I feel tired and groggy and have little motivation to make decisions and get the items on my list done. I have come to the conclusion that when my life is going well, and I am making healthy lifestyle choices and am excited about the projects and activities in my life, I do not get that groggy feeling even when I stay up late.

So perhaps insomnia is just my body’s way of alerting me to the fact that there is something in my life out of kilter. The real cure for insomnia is living a life that is working for me. It’s not as quick a fix as meditating lying down, but will probably have more profound consequences if we work to resolving the issues that are keeping us awake.

How Do You Treat Your Sleep Problem?

Do you know that over 50% of adult peoples are suffer from some kind of sleep problem? I used to be a part of them. How about you? They have difficulties for falling asleep or still wake up during sleep time and insomnia is a term to described them. Normally, we will falling sleep at 9-11 o’clock every night but not for peoples who have sleep problem. They still wake up until midnight or even more. Another symptom is, even if they can sleep like normal people 7 or 8 hours a day, they are not feeling refreshed. And you can imagine that a person who have not feeling refreshed in the morning will effects their days. Let’s say like they can not concentrated during work, feeling stressed, fatigue, and many more. Having sleep problem can significantly lower quality of life.

Someone who lack of sleep doesn’t mean that he/she have sleep problem, because some peoples do not sleep very much but awaken after a few hours of sleep full of energy and feeling well rested. If that is you, then you don’t have to worry that you have insomnia, you just don’t need as much sleep as you think you do. So the most important is the quality of your sleep not quantity.

There are many potential causes insomnia or sleep problem such as, the side effect of medication, bad lifestyle habit, diseases, stress, depression and, etc. And some research say that most of insomnia cases are linked to psychological causes like depression and stress.

The best treatment for insomnia depends on what kind of insomnia do you have. You must consult your physician for treatment. For people who are seeking advice on an effective insomnia treatment, it may be as simple as making some changes in lifestyle habit, such as following a regular sleep schedule to improve your sleep and the others it takes more research and more serious treatment. So, it’s depends of cause on your insomnia.

If you want to find more about insomnia, here a good resources for your references. You can find what kind and caused of insomnia and what is the best for treatment. But it’s only for references, you must consult your doctor for advices.

Copyrights and reprint rights @ www.insomnia-prevention-cure.com

She’s Trying To Stop Her Jack Russell Terrier From Sleeping In Their Bed

A Jack Russell Terrier owner e-mailed me with the following
question: “My boyfriend has allowed his wonderful, very
well-behaved Jack Russell, who is two years old, to sleep not
just on but in his bed. We are trying to teach her to sleep in
her bed which is on the floor by our bed but it’s proving very
difficult! She’s managed to sleep there until about 4 AM, but
then the whining starts and she ends up with us. It’s not really
a problem so much when we are at our house but we are planning
to go on holiday and she will be staying with my parents and
they really won’t tolerate her sleeping in bed with them, nor
the whining when she isn’t allowed to, so we thought it best to
nip the habit in the bud completely. We can get her to stay in
her bed but we can’t get her to actually sleep … she just
whines … even if we take her for a hundred walks to tire her
out. It’s as if she HAS to be that close to us!”

Thanks, Tiffany

Dear Tiffany:

Put the dog in a crate. Not only will she be UNABLE to get onto
your bed, but when she goes to your parent’s house, you will be
able to take the crate with her so she will have a familiar
place to sleep at the different residence. By crating her at
night, you’re providing her with her own “den” since dogs derive
more satisfaction from small places than we do. She will more
than likely put up a fuss in being confined beyond her control,
but it should go away after a few nights as she becomes more
comfortable with the crate. Do not give her any attention while
she is whining, as this will only reinforce the behavior. Some
people go so far as to buy earplugs for those first nights.

Introduce the crate in a positive manner, with lots of treats
and praise. Put her bed in it so it has her scent in it. Feed
her in her crate so she gets the idea that no one will disturb
her and the crate is a safe place. When you have to shut her in,
give her a special “crate toy.” Many people have had success
with Kong toys stuffed with peanut butter or cheese/liver paste
and freezing these.

The crate is also useful for confining the dog when it can’t be
supervised to keep it out of trouble (see the first article
above). My book, “Secrets of a Professional Dog Trainer!” which
is available exclusively at Dogproblems.com, goes into more
depth on the use of crates and other training devices

Inform Yourself — Know The Facts About Insomnia

Insomnia affects approximately 30 per cent of all adults, to different degrees. That’s an overwhelming amount of people who are having trouble sleeping at night! Some suffer from severe insomnia, while others are affected to a much milder extent. Yet, not much is known about this common medical condition.

Being more informed and knowing the facts about insomnia—the definition, the different types, who it affects most—can make all the difference in managing and possibly getting rid of the condition for good.

A Misconception about Insomnia

Those who don’t know the facts about insomnia might be under the misconception that the condition is only used to describe people who can’t sleep at all. However, this is not the correct definition of the disorder.

Insomnia is defined as a condition wherein a person has difficulties with regards to his or her sleep patterns. This means that the term could be used to describe difficulties falling asleep, staying asleep, or restlessness during sleep.

Who Gets Insomnia?

Though it is possible for anyone to get insomnia, the medical disorder is more common in certain groups than in others. Insomnia has been found to be more common in females than in males, especially after menopause. Additionally, one little known fact about insomnia is that the ability to sleep, not the need for sleep, decreases with age. Thus, insomnia is also more common in the elderly.

Two Types of Insomnia

Another fact about insomnia is that there are two main types, which is one reason why it affects people to various degrees. The two different categories of insomnia are primary and secondary.

The type of insomnia that is most common is secondary insomnia. Secondary insomnia is caused by other factors, such as pain, disease, environmental changes, depression, or schedule changes. Treating secondary insomnia simply involves removing the cause. For example, if the patient drinks a lot of coffee, ending this habit would be a way to end the insomnia.

When insomnia occurs and a cause cannot be determined, it is called primary insomnia. Usually, primary insomnia can be traced back to an emotional disturbance or long term illness. One of the facts about primary insomnia is that it is usually more difficult to treat than secondary insomnia. Usually, some type of therapy is involved in the treatment.

Knowledge Is Power

Knowing the facts about insomnia and more about the disorder will help you to master the condition once and for all. Going to the source of the problem might be the solution you were looking for. http://www.about-sleep-disorder.com

Bruxism treatments – Part 13

After briefly introducing Bruxism, this article will provide you with information on managing and alleviating pain, reducing damage to your teeth and jaw and finally it will look at ways in which you can have a real chance of kicking the Bruxism habit for good.

BRUXISM is characterized by a grinding together of the teeth and clenching of the jaw when not eating. It is habit forming and usually triggered in childhood as a type of self-soothing’ mechanism just like sucking a comforter or a thumb. Most people grow out of the habit by the age of eight or nine. However, if the problem persists into the teenage and/or adult years or it begins to cause other problems (see below), then help should be sought to alleviate the symptoms and free you from the habit. It can also occur in adulthood at times of stress etc.

The aim of treatment should be to: alleviate pain, prevent damage to the teeth and jaw and reduce or eliminate the behavior.

If, whilst working on eliminating the behavior, your aim is to reduce associated pain, there are some steps that you can take:

Learn to relax. Get into the habit of relaxing your facial muscles and your

jaw several times a day.

Massage the muscles in your neck, shoulders and face with the aim of soothing

and alleviating pain.

Use ice to relieve sore jaw muscles.

Avoid chewy food such as, toffee, steak etc.

Drink lots of water daily.

Reduce your general stress levels.

Learn relaxation techniques (e.g. progressive muscle relaxation).

Take care of yourself: improve your diet, get some exercise and ensure that

you get enough sleep balance is the key here.

Reduce the amount of caffeine in your diet (and stimulants generally).

If your aim is to prevent damage to your teeth you should:

Talk to your dentist or orthodontist about the fitting of a mouth guard.

Remember, your dentist will have many different types so if one doesn’t work ask for another.

If you aim is to unlearn the behavior then the following are probably the most effective options:

Behavior therapy

Hypnotherapy

Self-hypnosis

Behavior therapy is good for day-time clenching, as through it you can become consciously aware of the habit. Once you are consciously aware you can then learn to control, reduce and ultimately eliminate the behavior. However, even though individuals can successfully overcome bruxism using this technique it is also possible that during future periods of stress you