What is Insomnia?
Insomnia is far more than simply the inability to go to sleep or stay asleep. Realistically speaking, we all have nights when we just cannot maintain a solid night’s slumber. When those sleepless nights happen more often than not however, perhaps three or more times a week, there is a chance that indeed, a problem exists.
Acute insomnia, the type that keeps you up for a night or two, whether due to eustress or negative stress, is often remedied quickly. Resolved sleeping patterns most often follow the ability to deal with and accept whatever the stressor may be. In turn this allows you to move on with your life and enjoy some solid shuteye. Chronic insomnia on the other hand, can disrupt not only your sleep cycle, but your ability to function. Relationships, employment, and financial independence can all suffer as a result of this form of sleeplessness.
What Causes Insomnia?
There are several causes that can be identified when chronic insomnia strikes. These reasons include poor habits that include sleeping with your cell phone or laptop in hand. The light emitted from these devices disorients and disallows your mind from getting prepared to fall asleep. Shift work that requires individuals to be awake during typical sleeping hours, as well as changes in your surroundings, moving to a new house for example, can disorient most people.
In addition to trouble falling asleep or not being able to sleep at all, is sleep that is frequently interrupted. Whether trips to the bathroom, dogs barking, or loud televisions keep you up, it is important for you to limit these and other sisruptions to the best of your ability.
Treating Insomnia
There are several preventive and treatment options available for individuals who cannot get a good night’s sleep. Adjusting your sleep cycle so that you go to bed and wake up at the same times, reducing the amount of noise and light in your sleeping environment, decreasing exposure to electronics closer to bed time, and designating your bed as a place to sleep and not say, a place for your children to play games, are just a few of the things you can do to treat insomnia.
Medication
There are sleep aids your doctor can prescribe that can be both effective and alternately, quite addicting. In fact, most people are encouraged not to take these sedatives or sleeping aids for longer than just a few days because the chances of addiction are just that high.
Other, more natural medications, such as melatonin, can help to regulate your sleep cycle and the circadian rhythm upon which we rely. That said, there are those who report feeling more out of sorts and disoriented when they use this medication, causing them yet more sleep problems.
Acupuncture
Acupuncture for insomnia in Miami, has the unique ability to non invasively remedy the imbalances in one’s chi that directly affect the ability to go to sleep and stay there. The placement of acupuncture needles in key, sleep- related meridians stimulates the production of naturally occurring melatonin, which plays a significant part in restoring sound sleep habits.
Acupuncture also interfaces with the parasympathetic nervous system, which encourages the body to slow down, rest, digest, and process. Acupuncture along sleep- related meridians is also able to access and alleviate blocked chi in order to treat the various types of insomnia. In this way, acupuncture serves as an inherently personal, customized method of care that is geared towards what ails you and more importantly, what heals.
