All of us, at least once in our lives, have been victims of anxiety states due to which, perhaps, we have also lost sleep: anxiety, stress, and insomnia often feed off each other in a vicious circle that is difficult to break.
Almost 3 million Italians suffer from anxiety, a disorder to which sleep disorders are often also connected. However, these problems are even more widespread - they affect as many as 1 in 4 Italians - because they can also depend on causes unrelated to anxiety, e.g., physical disorders, hormonal changes, excessive consumption of stimulants, etc.
Anxiety and stress increasingly affect different age groups. They are growing disorders in adolescents - among whom, unfortunately, the use of anti-anxiety drugs is also on the rise - and, in working age, they depend on professional difficulties. According to an Ipsos research of 2024, in Italy, as in the rest of the world, 76 percent of workers experience at least one work-related disorder, including fatigue, loss of energy and interest, sleep disorders, and stress and anxiety.
The increasing use of self-diagnosis and self-management of anxiety disorders without recourse to doctors, specialists, and therapists is significant. Therefore, it is no coincidence that in Italy, the sale of food supplements for mental well-being and sleep-related problems has also increased by 155% in the last 10 years. When dealing with occasional issues related to anxiety and sleep disorders, many Italians prefer to try gentle remedies before consulting a specialist or resorting to medication. These solutions certainly have fewer and milder side effects.
Anxiety: causes, symptoms, and characteristics
Anxiety, a physical and mental sensation that arises from fear and situations of alertness, is a positive response of the organism because it warns us of danger. In front of external threats, our brain activates fight or flight behavior, depending on the situation. This response involves specific physical changes, such as increased blood flow to the heart, which beats faster, and to the muscles, which prepare for the dangerous condition. However, when anxiety tends to become chronic, occurring excessively often, even in situations that would not require an alert response or with an intensity that is disproportionate to the stimulus, in some cases leading to panic attacks and interfering with one's daily activities, it is classified as an anxiety disorder.
In some cases, anxiety is not due to external stressful events - a bereavement, problems at work, a relationship crisis - but to actual illnesses, which require specific diagnoses and targeted medical intervention, including heart disease, thyroid malfunctioning or hormonal alterations, asthma, and respiratory disorders, or to the abuse of alcoholic, excitatory or psychotropic substances. Specific investigations and diagnoses carried out by doctors and specialists will ascertain the physical reasons for the symptoms associated with this kind of anxiety manifestation.
In most cases, however, the triggers for stress and anxiety are emotional and psychic. The most frequent symptoms, varying in intensity and frequency from person to person, are an initial feeling of tightness in the chest, tachycardia, shortness of breath, intense sweating, uncontrolled trembling, stomach ache, and gastritis, nausea, and, in the most severe cases, even dizziness and a feeling of fainting or even a lack of air, as happens to those suffering from panic attacks. This symptomatology is associated with an acute sensation of lack of control over one's reactions, disproportionate to the stimulus that provoked them.
Frequently, when anxiety occurs, one of its most direct and immediate consequences is insomnia. Let’s see how to counteract it.
Insomnia, Anxiety's Best Friend: Strategies for Better Sleep
Before falling asleep, it is essential to prepare for a good night's rest:
- No dinners burdening digestion. It is better to stay light, but never go to bed hungry, and do not lie down immediately after eating.
- Make sure that the temperature and humidity of the bedroom are ideal, neither too hot nor too dry;
- Treat yourself to a lukewarm shower before wrapping in the duvet if you find it relaxing;
- Turn off your mobile phone to reduce the stimuli to your brain. It is better to read a good book to reconcile sleep;
- Never fall asleep on the sofa while watching TV: waking up to drag yourself back to bed would interrupt your sleep and make it difficult to fall back asleep and even wake up in the morning.
First and foremost, turn off the bedside lamp but also your thoughts! Taking your problems to bed and obsessing over them is a guaranteed way to experience insomnia. When, in fact, due to disturbing thoughts, anxiety accompanies us even during the night hours, during which we should instead be able to sleep peacefully to rest and recharge our organism with positive energy, difficulties in falling asleep emerge, or frequent awakenings, disturbed sleep, and nightmares. When, in fact, due to disturbing thoughts, anxiety persists even during the night, during which we should instead be able to sleep peacefully to rest and recharge our bodies with positive energy, difficulties in falling asleep emerge, or frequent awakenings, disturbed sleep, and nightmares. As a result, we may wake up - or don't fall asleep - already tired and groggy, making it hard to engage in normal daily activities and concentrate on work.
Are we born anxious, or do we become anxious?
When in potentially anxiety-provoking situations, the first and most banal piece of advice is to remain calm.
However, it is not always easy to do so. Moreover, some of us seem naturally inclined to react anxiously to any external stimulus, even a positive one. This tendency is defined as pathological anxious temperament. These individuals are more likely to experience anxious responses due to their excessive sensitivity to external stimuli.
Are we born anxious, or do we become anxious? It seems that DNA transmits a predisposition to anxiety but not anxiety itself. Education, emotional and family experiences, and events will make this predisposition emerge, or not.
The opportunity to face daily situations positively and constant expressions of appreciation and trust from others help increase self-confidence and self-esteem, two factors that can keep a possible genetic predisposition to anxiety latent for most of one's life, thus contributing to the development of a balanced, solid, decisive and confident personality.
Combat anxiety, stress, and insomnia naturally
Beyond pathological anxiety, difficult periods that test character and undermine self-confidence can happen to anyone. In the case of occasional anxiety disorders, or when one prefers to treat symptoms related to anxiety and/or insomnia without resorting to drug therapies, certain plants with recognized anxiolytic and relaxing properties may be of help.
Always a treasure trove, nature provides us with numerous species with recognized calming and anti-stress qualities, including Hawthorn, Eschscholzia, Hypericum, Lemon Balm, Passionflower, Linden and Valerian, which are a valuable aid when we need more serenity.
In particular, Lemon balm has a sedative effect acting on anxiety and anxiety-depression syndromes and sleep disorders of nervous origin, as well as on various manifestations of nervous origin such as palpitations, extrasystoles, tachycardia, vertigo, stress tinnitus, and migraines of nervous origin. Due to its antispasmodic action, it is also useful in anxiety-related visceral somatizations (gastritis, irritable bowel syndrome).
Linden combats states of anxiety causing muscle tension, thanks to its myorelaxant action, and induces sleep without altering dreams (REM phase), allowing a more physiological and restful sleep.
Hawthorn, on the other hand, exhibits cardiotonic and anti-arrhythmic, hypotensive and antispastic properties and is beneficial in cases of tachycardia and stress-related palpitations.
Eschscholzia has a balancing activity. It is sedative, hypnoinductive, analgesic, relaxing, antineuralgic and spasmolytic without narcotic effects, and is useful in cases of insomnia, nervousness, anxiety, stress and depression.
Some plants with adaptogenic properties can also help our body to better react to anxiety attacks. Ashwagandha (Whitania somifera), for example, is a medicinal plant from the Ayurvedic tradition used to relieve stress and improve hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis dysfunction. A very recent study concludes with surprising results showing that consumption of the leaf and root extract of Withania somnifera safely and effectively reduces stress, anxiety, and depression in subjects with chronic stress within eight weeks.
Melatonin, on the other hand, can be effective in alleviating sleep disorders. It is a hormone commonly secreted by our body during the night hours. However, the production of this natural regulator of the circadian rhythm decreases in case of insomnia. Some studies suggest that taking a dose of 1 mg before bedtime can help reduce the time it takes to fall asleep.
Then, there is the essential amino acid L-TRIPTOPHAN, a neurotransmitter primarily synthesized in the brain. It is involved in regulating mood and sleep-wake rhythms and, thanks to its conversion into melatonin, may prove effective against insomnia.
Exosomes: benefits in case of anxiety and insomnia
Recently, in the field of nutraceuticals, some supplements designed to alleviate anxiety and insomnia appear to be more effective due to their formulation enriched with plant exosomes.
They are nanovesicles naturally produced by plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, and living beings to facilitate and accelerate intercellular communication. They consist of a lipid membrane that encloses genetic material (including DNA, RNA, mRNA), lipids, cholesterol, and proteins.
When we are very stressed or cannot rest well, our body produces high levels of free radicals, which require an efficient antioxidant system to be removed properly. In these situations, some formulation enriched with fruit-derived exosomes, which have a marked antioxidant action against free radicals, may prove useful in synergy with phytoextracts that can promote relaxation and mental well-being, such as Lemon balm, or substance that improve sleep quality, such as Melatonin.
