Tea and sleep

Those nights of having problems falling asleep and/or staying asleep must have traumatized me quite a bit because, after getting back to NYC, I can't stop rethinking about them things I tried out to shut my head down.

Surely, many things could have contributed to them endless sleepless nights....

For me, it might have something to do with the fact that, for those year or two, I had to cut the dosage of Seroquel down from 500-600 mg of Seroquel to 25 mg..... till today's dosage of roughly 25/4 mg...  Since Seroquel used to knock me down like a charm at bed time, the decrease, surely, would have caused some turmoils to the activities of neurotransmitters in my beautiful head.  

My shrink had prescribed sleeping pills but, unfortunately, I am one of those who would get the sleeping pill hangover- not to mention the risk of developing dependence on the pills. 

That was the reason why-- in addition to drastically cut down the consumption of Coffee, I started to try out all alternatives possible to put myself to sleep. 

This is the time when I started exploring the potential of herbal tea.... starting from Lavender and Chamomile.  

For Chamomile tea along, I had tried out most of the common brands that you can find in the supermarkets or pharmacies such Bigelow, Stash, Celestial, Yogi etc.  One conclusion I have after testing them out is that... just as all animals are equeal... Though all chamomile tea should be equal, some seems to do a better job helping me falling asleep than the others.

Guess, sort of like... although all froggies might be da prince, sometimes you might have to kiss a few en route in order to find da prince... 8-O lol

One kind of tea that I found most potent in knocking me down is the Yogi Bedtime tea... perhaps, it has something to do with the fact that the Valerian has been used for sleep disorders although, if you check the info provided in MedlinePlus, you might get the feeling that scientifically based studies don't seem to provide too much support for its effect.

Regardless what the experts say, the only thing I know is that... something worked for me and it could be the addition of Valerian.

Of course, each person is different and you might have to test it out to see whether the Yogi Bedtime tea might work for you.

One thing I noticed, though, was that, during the time when I have to drink this tea religiously at bedtime, I often wake up in the morning feeling more thirsty than usual.   Although I have to remind you that I was not sure whether it was really the doing of the tea since there were many other things I tried out before bed time during that period for one and only one pursuit-- to sleep.

Just a hunch... I guess...  

Sleep well!