Life and Spirituality

  T here is an older article in this blog on the Neem tree and its medicinal benefits but it does not mention its effects on sleep. For years now what was happening to my sleep is that after sleeping well for a few hours, sometime in the middle of the night I used to get up and feel completely awake. If   I stayed awake after that, I would feel tired the next day. Therefore I would just take a cup of tea, sit out in the patio for about half an hour, or work on a computer when after an hour or so a second round of deep sleep came. However, this also delayed the morning hour to get up. Four days ago, due to some unrelated reasons, I took a bunch of Neem leaves from a tree nearby and chewed them in the evening at around 5 pm. That night, I woke up again in the middle of the night for a visit to toilet and from old habit decided to check emails for an hour or so. But the moment I turned on the computer, I was sleepy again and began to doze off on the keyboard so I shut off t

Sometimes, some persons, especially aging persons, have difficulty in getting a good night's sleep. Here is what this author has learned about improving the situation. Some of this is widely known and some is not, Ensure that your daily activities include physical exercise. If not, introduce regular morning or evening walks in your routine Eat as early as possible in the evening, preferably not much after dusk. Have a home cooked meal prepared from basics to avoid the crap that is being dished out in the market today and described in the earlier posts of this blog. Follow it up with a glass of milk or milk and water, half and half just before, or just after you move to bed, especially if you are a vegetarian. You can add spoon of coco powder to the drink and a spoon of sugar if you are not obese. A pinch of saffron, a pinch of ground green cardamom,   a table spoon of ground almonds may also be added, all of these or just one