Insomnia, sleep difficulty

            Acupuncture treatment can help with

·        Sleep-onset insomnia (difficulty in falling asleep)

·        Waking in the night

·        Not feeling refreshed after sleep

·        Waking early in the morning

·        Better deeper more refreshing sleep.

Insomnia is difficulty getting to sleep or staying asleep for long enough to feel refreshed the next morning. This happens despite having enough opportunity to sleep. 

Nearly everyone has problems sleeping at some point in their life, and it is thought that a third of people in the UK have bouts of insomnia. Insomnia appears to be more common in women and more likely to occur with age.

Acupuncture can and does help with insomnia.

Acupuncture by working on the meridians of energy within the body has the ability to reduce anxiety, often a catylist for insomnia. Acupuncture  has the ability to restore the natural balance of hormones and chemicals in the brain which allow  the mind to switch off and obtain deep refreshing sleep.

How it may affect you

The most common problem in young people with insomnia is difficulty falling asleep (sleep-onset insomnia). An insomniac may also experience:

• waking in the night (most common in older people)
• not feeling refreshed after sleep and not being able to function normally during the day
• feeling irritable and tired and finding it difficult to concentrate
• waking when they have been disturbed from sleep by pain or noise
• waking early in the morning

Insomnia is the result of stress and over thinking. Often people do not even notice just how much they are thinking or worrying about things and situations  but they are and it is this continual activity in the brain which produces  the insomnia.

Insomnia is not in itself  a disease or illness, but a symptom of a greater imbalance with in the body and mind. When you are worried and anxious then you will not sleep well . If you have been over adernalised by shock or concern then you will not sleep well.

Acupuncture treatment does treat insomnia directly,  as it recognises that when the 'Shen', the spirit,  of the person is agitated it will not calm down at night resulting in disturbed sleep. This is contributed to the Heart and the Heart meridian. It ihas been shown that by calming the Heart meridian, the mind will calm and so the person will be able to sleep better and relax at night time.

In my practice I have found that invariably  sleep and the quality of sleep improves with treatment even when the treatment is not solely focused on the insomnia. This is due to the fact that, when the whole of the body -mind continuum is regaining its balance and equilibrium the resulting functions of the body will re-regulate themselves automatically.

At times when the habit of bad sleep has been ingrained for many years it may take  quite a few sessions of acupuncture for the sleep pattern to return but it will. I have observed that at times it is a sub-conscious anxiety which has the disturbing effect on the mind, that the patient is consciously willing themselves to sleep but another section of their mind is blocking this withsometimes a  fear  or anxiety or agitation. A common and classical situation is when a nervous client has an important appointment the next day and that they know they must be bright and fresh in the morning. They will not sleep a wink. They arrive at the appointment the next morning tired and exhausted from worry, mainly about not sleeping!

Insomnia is tightly linked to anxiety, worry and stress. The more wound up one is the less likely it is that you will sleep well. You can try all the tricks in the book, all the herbal teas you like, but until you address the underlying fear, worry or anxiety then all else will simply be a temporary fix.