CAN’T SLEEP ?

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 70, 8 January 1947, Page 3

CAN’T SLEEP ?

DON’T USE SALT In treating prolonged insomnia, the use of hypnotic drugs becomes a necessary evil. All doctors recognise the drawbacks of these artificial sleep inducers; they do not produce natural, restful sleep; they often increase the patient’s excitability; and they are habit-forming. In the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Michael M. Miller, of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, Washington, D.C., describes a simple insomnia treatment which is said to establish a normal sleep routine without the use of sedatives. It is a severely restricted salt diet (not over .0.5 grams of sodium chloride a day). Dr. Miller conducted his low-salt-diet tests on a group of twenty patients suffering from pronounced insomnia, nervous tension, and anxiety. In all but three cases, relief followed. In most of the cases studied, improved natural sleep and reduced tension were accompanied by lowered blood pressure and pulse rate. Controls on thirteen patients revealed that ten had relapses following restoration of salt to their diet.

Why does the low-salt intake act in this soothing manner on the human sleep mechanism? Dr—Miller and other scientists answer the question in this way: Excess salt increase the irritability of sensitive nerve tissues and brings on painful tension and sleeplessness. On a reduced salt diet, this irritability decreases because as salt is cut down, calcium is built up in the tissues in sufficient quantity to alkalise the body fluids and quiet the nerves.