Hi,
I have a great report on sleep that I think you will find of value;
This
report is on valerian, hops and passion flower. These are key ingredients in
Melaleuca's
RestEZ™ natural
sleep complex.
Inform your health care practitioner if you are taking any over-the-counter
medication or natural health products, as they can react adversely with some
prescription drugs. If you have a medical condition, consult with your physician
before taking these or any other herbs.
Sleep is so integral to our experience as a human that a lack of it produces
many negative side effects like an inability to concentrate, impaired memory,
mood swings, poor motor coordination, and an impaired immune system. According
to The National Institutes of Health, as many as 60 million Americans suffer
from insomnia frequently or for extended periods of time each year. Insomnia
tends to affect about 40 percent of women and 30 percent of men, and the older
we get, the more frequently insomnia is reported.(1)(2)
Restful sleep contributes to quality of life, as studies on sleep deprivation
show. Normal
sleep needs for adults range from 5 to 10 hours, depending on the person, but
on average, between 7 to 8 hours are needed nightly. Clues that you are not getting
enough sleep are daytime sleepiness, taking less than five minutes to fall asleep,
and taking ‘microsleep’ naps
during the day-often without knowing you’ve fallen asleep.(3) Prolonged
sleep loss could reduce the body's ability to regulate hormones that control
hunger, possibly resulting in an increased appetite and a preference for high-carbohydrate
foods.(4)
Doctors often prescribe a class of drugs called benzodiazepines for insomnia,
an inability to fall asleep or to stay asleep.(5) The benzodiazepines are minor
tranquilizers and they produce varying sedative, anti-anxiety and muscle relaxant
results.(6) There are common side effects to taking these medications, such
as dizziness, confusion, impaired judgment and upset stomach the day after using
the medicine. A more serious problem, however, is the potential addictive nature
of these drugs will disrupt quality of life for some users. Long term
use of the benzodiazepine family of drugs usually leads to tolerance (where you
need a higher dosage to achieve the same result) and/or dependence (where you
feel withdrawal symptoms when you stop using the medication).(7)
Non-habit forming herbal preparations are a safer alternative to pharmaceutical
sleep aids. Consider the main ingredients in Melaleuca’s RestEZ:
valerian, hops, and passionflower. The differing sedative properties of each
of these ingredients combine to help people who have problems falling asleep
as well as those who cannot stay asleep. Since each person’s sleep cycles
are different, it may take up to three weeks of continued use for herbal preparations
like RestEZ to gradually affect your sleep over time.
Valerian
The use of valerian as
a medicinal herb has been traced to Hippocrates from ancient Greece. It has
long been used as a sedative in folk medicine, however the academic studies on
its mechanism of action seem to be inconclusive because of too much conflicting
data due to small sample sizes.
A common method researchers use to assess the efficacy of valerian is to
ask for volunteers to take either a placebo or valerian preparation before bedtime
in their home. Then upon awakening, they are to fill out a questionnaire on the
quality of their sleep. The results are called "subjective sleep."
Volunteers in the valerian group rate their sleep quality improved between 10%
and 30% more than volunteers who took placebo. Better sleep quality includes
taking less time to fall asleep, and waking up less often in the night. One study
that had volunteers sleep in a sleep lab used a polysomnograph machine
to make recordings of their sleep cycles. Researchers found valerian to be effective
because it diminished the time of stages 1 and 2 in non-REM sleep while it increased
delta sleep, the deep sleep stage.(8)
A hypothesis on the mechanism of action for valerian involves studying cellular
receptor sites. During the day, a chemical
called adenosine builds up in our blood, and after time, it causes drowsiness.(9)
A 2002 study in Life Sciences found that valerian extract can fit in the cellular
receptors for adenosine, and offered a hypothesis that because valerian extract
partially mimics the action of adenosine, it can function as a sedative.(10)
Common side effects to pharmaceutical sleep aids include grogginess, impaired
motor ability, and impaired memory. With valerian, however, reaction time, alertness,
and concentration are not negatively impacted the morning after ingestion.(11)
Hops
Hops has been used as a folk
remedy for restlessness, anxiety, and sleep disorders, however studies are inconclusive
as to whether it works as an independent sedative, or as a synergist with
another sedative ingredient. The published studies on hops tend to test it in
combination with valerian, though a German study from 2006 found that hops alone
does initiate a central sedating effect.(12) An interesting side note is that
the use of hops as a sedative is attributed to the observation of european hops-pickers
getting sleepy!(13)
Hops and Valerian Together
When two agents with similar properties are combined together, they can help
each other to produce a stronger/better effect than either can alone. Each element
is known in medical terms as a synergist. A 2007 Swiss study deduced that since
valerian acts like adenosine and hops acts like melatonin (a hormone that plays
a role in sleep), the combination of the two is more beneficial than either
alone.(14)
An exciting development in sleep research has been in finding out how caffeine
keeps people awake. Research has found that caffeine fits into the adenosine
cellular receptors, but produces no action, thereby effectively blocking the
receptor site and inhibiting sleep. Because of this, caffeine is called an antagonist.
When volunteers took caffeine, and then later took a combination of valerian
and hops, the arousal induced by caffeine was reduced or reversed, depending
on the valerian/hops dose.(15) This confirms the hypothesis that valerian and/or
valerian/hops act as a partial
agonist at the adenosine receptor. Valerian and hops together can mimic
the action of adenosine and reverse the action of caffeine.
Passionflower
Passionflower has
also been used for centuries in folk medicine to treat many conditions. In regards
to its use as a sedative and sleep aid, passionflower has been endorsed by several
important European research organizations. It has
been approved by Commission E for over fifteen years for the treatment of nervous
unrest, and The European Scientific Cooperative on Phytotherapy has approved
the herb for use in people who experience tension, restlessness, and insomnia
associated with irritability.(16)
Passionflower is an anti-anxiety ingredient, so it does not necessarily help
in falling asleep faster. It improves the quality of rest. In 2001, a small scale
double-blind randomized trial on passionflower was published, and the results
were outstanding, warranting further large scale studies. Two groups of 18 patients
diagnosed with general anxiety disorder were given either passionflower
extract drops plus a placebo tablet, or placebo drops plus oxazepam tablets (a
benzodiazepine tranquilizer). The scientists found that the oxazepam started
working faster than passionflower, but there was no significant difference between
the two test groups by the end of the four week trial. So the herbal and the
chemical treated the anxiety condition the same, however the patients taking
the chemical suffered from side effects, and the passionflower group did not.(17)
It May Not Be Insomnia
If natural sleep aids do not help improve the
quality of your sleep after about three weeks of continuous use, consider seeing
your doctor. There is another condition completely different from insomnia that
also may cause one to wake many times in the night, and to rise unrefreshed in
the morning. It is sleep apnea, a condition in which breathing stops
and starts during sleep. With this condition, the brain may get insufficient
oxygen during sleep, since the breathing passages are blocked. See your doctor
for a diagnosis, because sleep apnea is treatable with a special machine.(18)
Conclusion
Valerian, hops, and passionflower are a great combination of natural herbs for
relieving the stresses of the day and promoting restful sleep without the negative
side effects so common with pharmaceutical sleep aids.
1. Brain
Basics: Understanding Sleep. Insomnia. National
Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
2. Good
Health Rests On A Good Night's Sleep AARP
3. Brain
Basics: Understanding Sleep. How Much Sleep Do We Need? National
Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
4. Good health
rests on a good night's sleep The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC/Radio
Canada) In Depth Health, June 11, 2007
5. Resource
for Sleep Disorders. Medline
Plus, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
6. Benzodiazepine. Wikipedia.
7. Medications. Sleep
Education.com, from American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
8. Polysomnographic
Evaluation of the Hypnotic Effect of Valeriana edulis Standardized Extract in
Patients Suffering from Insomnia Planta Med 2001; 67: 695-699.
9. Insomnia. MedicineNet.com.
10. Interactions
of valerian extracts and a fixed valerian–hop extract combination with adenosine
receptors Life Sciences.
Volume 71, Issue
16, 6 September 2002, Pages 1939-1949.
11. The
influence of valerian treatment on "reaction time, alertness and concentration" in
volunteers. Pharmacopsychiatry. 1999
Nov;32(6):235-41.
12. Sedating effects
of Humulus lupulus L. extracts. Phytomedicine Volume 13, Issue 8,
11 September 2006, Pages 535-541.
13. Humulus Lupus
Monograph. 
69K.
Alternative Medicine Review vol 8 num 2, 2003. Thorne Research.
14. Scientific
Evidence for a Fixed Extract Combination from Valerian and Hops traditionally
used as a Sleep-inducing Aid. WMW Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift. Volume
157, Numbers 13-14 / July, 2007.
15. The Fixed Combination
of Valerian and Hops (Ze91019) acts via a Central Adenosine Mechanism Planta
Med 2004; 70: 594-597
16. Passionflower by
Greg Annussek, Encyclopedia of Alternative Medicine.
17. Passionflower
in the treatment of generalized anxiety: a pilot double-blind randomized controlled
trial with oxazepam Journal of Clinical Pharmacy and Therapeutics, October
2001, vol 26 (5), 363–367.
18. Sleep Apnia Medline
Plus, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
If you would like more information on Melaleuca's Restez and othere natural products, Please get back to me .
Take care,
Michele
micheleuca@gmail.com