My relationship with insomnia has had quite a few curves. Until adolescence I had no problems falling asleep, I slept without problems and even had a hard time getting up. Then I introduced a habit that, we could say, is a small pleasure that I have: the radio. I found out how much I liked listening to the radio at night, but in turn began to throw my wake-sleep cycle out of balance.
I have to say that it is a family tradition because my grandfather used to listen to it and my father also does it to this day with which he instilled this habit in both my brother and me.
At that time, I didn’t consider to have insomnia problems, but I did start to change my sleeping routine.
Before your insomnia started, did you have routines?
Yes, I would get up and wake up at the same time. Let’s say I was following fairly routine life in this regard. When I first got into the love of radio, I would schedule myself to go to sleep when the program I liked started and I would make an effort not to fall asleep to find out everything. So, instead of going to sleep at 11 at night, I would do it around 1 in the morning.
Even so, to this day, I still listen to the radio to fall asleep. Although I think my body has gotten used to it and after 15 minutes I can perfectly fall asleep.
What other factors led to insomnia?
There have been moments in my life in which things have happened that have led me insomnia. One of them was 9 years ago I had a very important accident that affected my nervous system and that is when everything precipitated. I spent almost a year to fully recover and a month admitted to the hospital, so you can imagine how it affected me on a mental and psychological level.
Still, I’ve been lucky because I’ve never had anxiety or nightmares from it.
The second key episode in my relationship with insomnia was when I started my own project. In fact, I would say that this was the defining moment and the one that marked me the most. I started a company when I was about 30 years old and I spent seven years working with this project. Of these seven years, three or four years were very stressful, I felt a lot of pressure, there was a lot of work, problems and an excessive workload. At this time my lifestyle habits were deeply affected. In addition, during that moment I also felt bad emotionally since I did not dedicate time to myself and personal wellbeing.
I started to suffer from night awakenings due to all this situation that. Since stress and anxiety are a loop, the fact of not sleeping or resting correctly causes that the next day you are worse and the symptoms increase.
Tell us about the lifestyle habits you had
Finally, another important factor that also contributed to this great imbalance was lifestyle habits. I had always played a lot of sport and I would say that I followed a healthy lifestyle. I grew up in Mora d’Ebre, a small town in Tarragona and the lifestyle is very different compared to that of a big city. When I started university I came to Barcelona and my life habits changed. I stopped practicing sports and my diet was not, by far, what I had at home.
The sleep problem is multifactorial and if you add up, the changes in habits in the sleep routine, a poor diet, lack of exercise and, worst of all, stress and anxiety, we find an explosive combo that cannot lead you to nothing good.
How did you find the solution to your problems?
For two years I was on vacation for a week in August, the rest of the year just work and more work. I lived by and to work and that is not positive for the body. We must find a balance.
To this day, I have solved practically everything (except sleeping with the radio). Two years ago my personal project ended and that stage of my life was closed. Some years ago I have returned to practicing sports, I have begun to be more aware of my diet, I have meal and rest schedules, I take care of myself inside and I cultivate my social life. All this has caused that, little by little, I have recovered my essence and I have felt myself again.
I try to dine little and light, in summer I like to have gazpacho and during the rest of the year a toast of whole wheat bread with avocado along with a yogurt or something similar. Not much and, if it can be, not too late.
About food supplements
Since I have been working at Vitae, I have discovered a world that I already knew, but of which I personally was not a part. The personal project I have been talking about was an online pharmacy, so I was used to dealing with food supplement laboratories and had a good knowledge of the market. Even so, it was by entering Vitae and starting this new stage of life that I have begun to discover the world of food supplements in depth.
From Vitae I like their multivitamin, Vibracell, and one of their supplements for the immune system, ImmunoVita. Still, my favorite product and the one that has helped improve my quality of sleep and insomnia problems is CalmTu Night Plus. I am a huge fan of melatonin, in recent years I have tried various products with melatonin, some have been very good for me and others not so well, so when I started working here I wanted to try their product with melatonin and relaxing plants.
Your opinion about CalmTu Night Plus
In Vitae there are two melatonin-based supplements, CalmTu and CalmTu Night Plus. The first has one milligram of melatonin and is made from valerian, passionflower, California poppy and lemon balm. This formula did not quite adapt to my needs, since my situation required a little more dose of melatonin. My problem was not in the moment of falling asleep, but that I suffered many awakenings at night and could not go back to sleep. In this sense, CalmTu Night Plus, thanks to its modified, constant and sustained release formula, helped me not to wake up during the night.
Obviously, all this would not have had the desired effect if it had not changed my lifestyle in a comprehensive way.
