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Digestion continues during sleep and some
foods cause more disturbance than others. A rich meal late at night is
asking for trouble, especially if you are excited, worried or tired
because this affects digestion. Coffee and tea are well known as
stimulants best avoided at night by poor sleepers.
Foods which contain substances which are
vasoactive (they have an effect on blood vessels in some people) may
upset sleep. These include cocoa, cheese, chocolate, red wines. A warm
drink before retiring often helps and milk is said to be mildly
sedative. A little alcohol helps some but a drunken stupor is quite
different from natural sleep.
Can't Sleep Tips
The right temperature and humidity, a
comfortable bed (a firm mattress if you have backache), a dark, quiet
room are desirable but are sometimes impossible to obtain.
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Noise, especially when it is
intermittent, can be very disturbing. When you are relaxed you will
find that you can more easily sleep through noise, but when you are
short of sleep you may find that the less you have the more sensitized
you become to sounds. Ear plugs may help and some people have used a
fan heater to cut out disturbing noise.
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Good sleepers can ignore a snoring partner, others enjoy it as a
welcome reminder of comforting company, but if it causes real distress
and insomnia, and disrupts personal relationships it is better to sleep
separately for a while. This need not diminish loving, it can even make
it more exciting when coming together again will have some of the
novelty of courting days.
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