Natural Home Remedies and Insomnia

It has been some time since I wrote about natural home remedies and insomnia. It seems a good time to talk about insomnia now, with so many people facing higher and higher levels of stress every day.

Insomnia is generally considered a symptom rather than a disease, and stress is one condition that can produce insomnia.

Insomnia is defined as difficulty in falling or staying asleep, the absence of restful sleep, or poor quality of sleep.

There is a good article from MedicineNet.com on insomnia, which talks about some of the causes, and possible treatments:

"The most common causes of insomnia are:


medications,
psychological conditions (for example, depression, anxiety),
environmental changes (travel, jet lag, or altitude changes), and
stressful events or a stressful lifestyle.


Insomnia can also be caused by poor sleeping habits such as excessive daytime naps or caffeine consumption and poor sleep hygiene.


The National Center for Sleep Disorders Research at the National Institutes of Health estimates 30%-40% of adults report some symptoms of insomnia each year, and about 10%-15% report they have chronic insomnia."

The article on MedicineNet also lists some medications, both over the counter and prescription medications that may contribute to insomnia. You can read the full article here: Sleep Aids.

As a long time herbalist, I disagree with the statement from this article "the safety or effectiveness of these products has not been documented" with relation to Valerian.

Valerian is a natural remedy for insomnia that has been used at least since the time of Hippocrates. To say that its safety or efficacy are in question is to ignore centuries of use. There is no pharmaceutical insomnia treatment with as long a record of safe and effective use.

Many of the studies I have seen have used a water extract of valerian; herbalists know that an alcohol extract is more effective. Also, many studies have still observed improvements in insomnia after taking valerian.

Here are some reports from the National Institute of Health's (NIH) fact sheet on Valerian:
(They are discussing three studies which they rated as 5 out of 5 in a rating of the quality of the study)
The first study: "Compared with the placebo, the valerian extract resulted in a subjective improvement in time required to fall asleep (more or less difficult than usual), sleep quality (better or worse than usual), and number of nighttime awakenings (more or less than usual).This result was more pronounced in a subgroup of 61 participants who identified themselves as poor sleepers..."

The second study: "The 450-mg test sample of valerian extract reduced average sleep latency (defined as the first 5-minute period without movement)from about 16 to 9 minutes, which is similar to the activity of prescription benzodiazepine medication (used as a sedative or tranquilizer)."

The third study: "...examined longer-term effects in 121 participants with documented nonorganic insomnia...After 28 days, the group receiving the valerian extract showed a decrease in insomnia symptoms on all the assessment tools compared with the placebo group. The differences in improvement between valerian and placebo increased between the assessments done on days 14 and 28."

And a more recent study called Effect of valerian on sleep quality in postmenopausal women: a randomized placebo-controlled clinical trial, concluded: "Valerian improves the quality of sleep in women with menopause who are experiencing insomnia. Findings from this study add support to the reported effectiveness of valerian in the clinical management of insomnia."

You can read about the first three studies here: Valerian Fact Sheet

The more recent study can be read here:  Valerian and Postmenopausal Women