5 Proven Benefits of Honey for Insomnia Relief (Natural Remedy)

Honey is a liquid like syrup produced by bees. Sometimes it tastes sweet, but sometimes it tastes bitter. There are many types of honey, but all honey have the same benefits of maintaining health and curing diseases. Not only that, it is also believed that honey is beneficial to eliminate acne, and treat dust allergies. Research by doctors prove that honey has many benefits in treating various other diseases.

Benefits of Honey for Insomnia

Due to it’s various benefits, many people sell it as medicine, including as a remedy for insomnia. Insomnia? Is it true that honey can cure insomnia? How come? The following passages will review the efficacy of honey to cure insomnia.

1. Relaxing the Body

Researchers prove that to get some quality sleep, our body must consume foods that have tryptophan or nutrients and also foods that can produce natural tryptophan in the body, serotonin and also hormones that can stimulate relaxation signals to the brain when the body is asleep. Honey is one of those food containing tryptophan.

2. More Sleep Quality

Honey has amino acid tryptophan which is able to cure sleep disorders, so that quality sleep can be achieved. In addition, according to Michael McInnes of the Pharmaceutical Society, consuming one or two tablespoons of honey before bedtime can improve sleep quality without making the person gaining weight.

3. Increase Melatonin Production

What is melatonin? Melatonin is an hormone made by the pineal gland located in the brain. Melatonin works to maintain the sleep and wake cycle in the body. Why does honey increase melatonin production? Honey like other sweet foods has a calming effect, but honey is more beneficial because honey only increases a little sugar level in the body.

This is certainly beneficial because the increment of insulin in the body becomes controlled, so that the amino acid tryptophan can be controlled into the brain. In the brain, tryptophan compounds are converted into serotonin, a substance that can increase relaxation. 

And in dark conditions, serotonin is converted to melatonin by the pineal gland. Today, many melatonin are sold in the form of supplements which are believed to be able to overcome sleep difficulties in elderly and depressed patients, while also being believed to improve sleep quality.

4. Honey Reduces Hormone that Causes Stress

What’s the benefits of honey for insomnia? Stress is one of many reasons why someone is having trouble sleeping. But other than that, there are many common causes why someone can’t sleep properly at night. So, consuming honey before bed will cause the production of stress-causing hormones to decrease and that sleep will be more restful.

Honey is the best food for glycogen storage. Storage of glycogen is sufficiently needed by the body, because when the liver runs out of glycogen the brain will stimulate stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline to convert muscle protein to glucose which ultimately disrupts sleep quality and ultimately makes it difficult to sleep. 

But this opinion is still a bit controversial. In the meantime, you should probably work on finding helpful ways to get good sleep when stressed.

5. Creating Energy

Based on research, we tend to have difficulty sleeping when our stomach is empty. So, eating a small portion at night can improve the quality of sleep. The natural sugar content in honey can create energy and fill the stomach, sugar can also create energy at night.

How to Consume Honey to Overcome Insomnia

There are many ways to consume honey as a medicine. Some consume it directly or mix it with warm water, some drink it with apple cider vinegar. But there are better ways to consume it. 

Dr. Brillianto M. Soenarwo explained that the best way to consume honey is to suck it until it melts. Most of us consume honey by mixing it with warm water, since there are so many surprising benefits of warm water, and drinking it, but it turns out the best way to consume it is to suck it. 

Sucking honey to melt it with saliva will help the stomach to easily digest fructose. This will help someone with ulcer. In the morning when the stomach is empty, consume a proper amount of honey. Honey is also able to coat the stomach wall to avoid ulcer. The followings are steps to consume honey properly and correctly:

• Make sure that the honey you consume is pure honey and does not mixed with anything. Because honey that contains other substances will reduce the quality of honey itself.
• The best time to consume honey is in the morning before breakfast and at night before bed. Even so, honey can still be consumed at any time, because honey has many advantages for health.
• Consume it by sucking it and let it digested by saliva to make the stomach easily digest the fructose contained in honey.
• Honey can also be consumed by mixing it with water. But use water that is not hot and also not cold, because hot and cold water can damage the content in honey.
• Drink it in a sitting position, this is to help kidney’s function by drinking in a sitting position to avoid kidney disease.
• Pray before drinking honey, to optimize the benefits of this beneficial food.

Those are some information about the efficacy of honey for insomniacs and how it’s best to consume honey. Besides overcoming insomnia, honey also contains many other benefits, ranging from health to beauty. 

Honey is full of benefits that it is recommended to consume honey every day. We hope you could find this article beneficial for your health.