Although it may be true your odds of becoming an insomniac increase as you age, one has little to do with the other. Nevertheless, it seems many of us -- both young and old -- still reach for potentially dangerous sedative hypnotic drugs like Ambien.

I found it especially troubling that taking sleeping pills increases the risk of falls, since those are the leading cause of death among seniors over age 65. The way that works is that many seniors have thin bones and they break their hip, which leads to months of immobilization that then results in a fatal blood clot. 

Insomnia is absolutely pervasive in our culture. Nearly one in four of you reading this will have problems getting a good night's sleep.

Fortunately, when you follow the Total Health Program your likelihood of insomnia dramatically declines. Going to bed early, getting bright sun exposure in the day and sleeping in pitch black at night, exercising and avoiding medications and stimulants like caffeine go a long way to a sound night's sleep. I can personally count on one hand the number of times I was challenged with falling asleep.

Part of the problem is that in industrialized countries the older you become the more likely you will be taking a prescription drug. Two out of every three visits to the doctor result in a drug being prescribed. A study done four years ago showed that more than 12 percent of Americans over 65 are taking eight or more different drugs.

How can you sleep well with eight different drugs? It is a mystery to me how anyone taking eight medications could hope to sleep well.

So the first order of business would be to start a plan to wean off your prescription drugs. I have seen many very sick patients, and it is very unusual where it wasn't possible to radically reduce, if not eliminate, all the drugs they were taking by adopting the Total Health Program.

Let me caution you, though, that this weaning should be done under the supervision of a trained health care professional who has studied pharmacology and understands all the potential risks and necessary steps to helping you wean off the medications.

After the drug issue you will want to address lifestyle issues. There are loads of great tips in the first link below. Many have benefited from using these approaches.

After you have addressed the lifestyle issues you will certainly want to address stress, as it seems to be the most common reason that people struggle with insomnia. Stress can lead to dysfunction in your adrenal glands, which tends to perpetuate the problem.

I have found three highly effective and practical solutions that address the stress component. It is important to understand that these recommendations are not mutually exclusive. In fact, it is likely that if you use them together they are highly synergistic.

Three Powerful Methods to Address Stress Causing Insomnia

Exercise. Without question this is one of my favorites. It is one of nature's best tranquilizers and most people notice an immediate improvement in their sleeping once they start a program.

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) is a gentle tapping on specific energy meridians in your body that is remarkably effective. There is no cost to this powerful technique other than time.

Brainwave Synchronization. This is a great tool that seems to consistently work for the patients that I recommend it to. It is a CD that you listen to before you go to sleep at night.

The CD plays out a phase of pleasant-sounding frequencies that resonate your brain to relaxation frequencies. It is very similar to meditation in that you achieve a deep delta wave state. The only major difference is that you achieve this state in a few sessions rather than many years of hard work.

You might call this the lazy man's solution to sleeping well. It is one of my favorites, especially when used with the approaches described above.