What is Insomnia?

The best explanation of insomnia is, struggling to get to sleep leading to insufficient rest. Some people fall asleep quickly, then suddenly awaken during the night and cannot fall asleep again, while others struggle to fall asleep at all. There are a few different types of insomnia. Transient insomnia is when you have stress or travels a lot and upsets the body’s regular wake-sleep pattern. However, if it continues for up to three weeks, it is short-term insomnia. Typical causes include higher levels of the stress hormone Cortisol in the body. Lastly, there is long-term insomnia, which lasts longer than three weeks caused by chronic pain, noise, psychological issues, drugs, and more.

Treating the ailment depends on the nature of the problem. There are different ways to help induce sleep using a Western Medicine approach such as psychotherapy for emotional stress and barbiturates such as benzodiazepines to help you sleep. The problem is using medication is dangerous and can become addictive. Another important note is that it can lead to depression, anxiety, and even cause weight gain. Your body repairs itself during sleep, but if you are not sleeping then your body is not repairing properly. Acupuncture is an Eastern approach to curing sleep disturbances that doesn’t add in outside chemicals to help, but rather balances the body from the inside out using meridians located on your body.

How Does Insomnia Affect Your Health?

No matter what the cause is, it can affect your health. Sleep deprivation will make you feel as if you are made of glass as everything in the body hurts. You will see everything through a haze from mental distortions to minor hallucinations. First comes the delusions and eventually it makes you sick. Some sicknesses caused are poor fitness, obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. Furthermore, your mood changes and a fact is that the cause could only be a bad habit.

What can we do about insomnia?

Acupuncture is an amazing tool used for treating insomnia all over the world. There are various points found along meridians in the body that can directly help with sleep disturbances. Here at YFC we tend to treat points in the ear as well as the head, arms and legs for insomnia. Our patients typically report sleeping better than they have in weeks after 2-5 acupuncture sessions that focus on stress relief and insomnia. Chiropractic is also helpful in overcoming insomnia by removing the interference on the nervous system which allows the body to re-enter its normal sleep-wake cycle. Often patients report sleeping better after around 12 visits however everybody responds differently and at their own pace. Once we do a consultation and full examination, we can give you our best recommendations at that time. If you or your loved ones are suffering from insomnia please reach out to us at 515-278-9678. We would love to help you get back to enjoying your sleep each night!