Natural remedies for insomnia, anxiety, and stress relief
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- On: 03 Mar 2021
- Written by SuzannaW
Stress is becoming an emergent public health problem after the recent coronavirus outbreak. But even before that and after it resolves, many people are affected by multiple triggers of anxiety and insomnia.
In most cases, anxiety is triggered by our daily activities and how we react to them. It could be your boss, your teacher, raising your kids, or going through the burden of chronic disease. Either way, stress, and anxiety can take away your calm and quite literally rob you of your sleep.
What causes insomnia, anxiety, and stress?
The cause of stress, anxiety, and insomnia depends on each one of us. Sometimes you can point at an obvious trigger, but maybe you need to look through and evaluate what changes you are going through and how they are affecting you. Even so, it might be challenging to pinpoint the cause, but here is a list of causes that most of us go through at some point:
- Starting a new job can be stressful, especially if you’re doing something new and it feels challenging.
- Moving or starting a new phase in your life. For example, you could feel very anxious after moving away from your family to start college.
- Injuries and disease. In this case, it is physical stress, but you may feel it in your emotions as well.
- Chronic health issues, mainly if they cause a limitation or affect your quality of life.
- Health problems in your family or a recent loss of a family member
- Changes in your immediate family, such as recent marriage or having kids
- Not having time to complete your schedule or being against the clock
As a result, you may start displaying stress and anxiety symptoms. They are initially emotional symptoms such as nervousness or restlessness. You could feel difficulty concentrating or become irritable. But the symptoms can be felt and measured in your body. For example, rapid breathing and a fast heartbeat, muscle tension, sweating, or a very strong headache.
Treatment of insomnia and anxiety problems
Feeling nervous gives you an intense headache, and you keep having problems despite using over-the-counter painkillers. These symptoms won’t be gone if you don’t treat the root cause.
Medical treatment
The standard medical treatment for anxiety disorder and insomnia requires anxiolytic medications and sometimes anti-depressants. They change your brain chemistry in different ways, and doctors recommend using them.
Maintaining therapy for a long time leads to side effects, especially a withdrawal syndrome that worsens anxiety and agitation.
Herbal treatment
Natural treatment based on infusions and herbs can be maintained for a very long time without side effects. It does not require a prescription, either. These herbs have anxiolytic properties that stabilize your brain chemistry instead of making aggressive changes. You can try one of these or a combination:
- Holy basil: Used for mood support in Ayurveda tradition and particularly helpful for depression and anxiety
- Chamomile: One of the best insomnia natural remedies. It soothes the body and mind, especially in hot infusions.
- Lavender: An excellent herb for stress relief, either as an essential oil or in oral administration.
- Lemon Balm: Induces calmness in people under chronic stress. Thus, it is an excellent stress management tool.
- Passion Flower: A powerful anxiety reliever used before surgery and in patients with attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder
- Withania: An alternative treatment that reduces stress hormone levels and works as a supplementary sleep aid
- Ginger: A potent spice that normalizes your serotonin levels and provides sustainable mood support
- Bacopa: Used in Ayurveda medicine to treat anxiety and some types of epilepsy disorders.
Essential nutrients
Nutrients do not have healing properties of their own, but they can trigger anxiety problems when they are lacking. Thus, I recommend getting your handful of these essential nutrients:
- Magnesium: Particularly useful in patients with panic attacks and phobias. It has been tested in generalized anxiety disorder.
- B complex: Improves cognitive performance and relieves depression symptoms in case of B vitamin deficiency.
- Tryptophan: An essential nutrient that converts into the neurotransmitter serotonin, which is critical for emotional health
- L-theanine: An excellent stress relief nutrient that modulates brain excitation in stressful situations
Lifestyle habits
Finally, your treatment will only be complete when you adopt a few lifestyle recommendations. They stabilize your mood and sometimes relieve mental health problems. I recommend:
- Exercising regularly: Exercise is a reliable stress management method. It relieves tension while releasing endorphins in the middle of the session.
- Staying clean of substances: Staying clean from tobacco, alcohol, and drugs can also help you reduce cravings and a stressful withdrawal syndrome.
- Mindfulness and meditation: An essential practice to maintain your emotional health and stay in the present moment.
Yes, we do have increasing causes of stress and anxiety in our modern world. But you also have more than enough methods, nutrients, and lifestyle recommendations to counter this influence.
For example, if you need to control your anxiety during the day, you have our Calm & Clear Herbal tea, a blend infusion with ginger, withania, rose petals, and fennel.
You can also consume Calm & Clear as a herbal tonic to clear your mind and improve your cognition. It has Withania and Bacopa, but also Gotu Kola, Codonopsis, and Skullcap.
Relax & Unwind is an excellent tea if you’re about to go to sleep. It contains Chamomile, Lavender, Holy Basil, Lime flowers, Lemon balm, and Passionflower.
When you’re using these natural blends, remember that herbs and nutrients are safer but require constant use to experience for yourself their true potential.
“The human body has been designed to resist an infinite number of changes and attacks brought about by its environment. The secret of good health lies in successful adjustment to changing stresses on the body.” – Harry J. Johnson
MEDICAL DISCLAIMER
This content is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide medical advice or to take the place of such advice or treatment from a personal physician. All readers/viewers of this content are advised to consult their doctors or qualified health professionals regarding specific health questions. The Green Naturopath takes no responsibility for possible health consequences of any person or persons reading or following the information in this educational content. All viewers of this content, especially those taking prescription or over-the-counter medications, should consult their physicians before beginning any nutrition, supplement or lifestyle program.