Do you have difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or both? Do these poor sleep patterns continue on a fairly regular basis? Then you may have insomnia. The average adult needs at least eight hours of good sleep to maintain their basic health and attention during that day, and if you’re rest is being disrupted due to insomnia, the effects may bleed into aspect of your everyday life, from work to personal relationships.
Western Treatments & Side Effects
There are any number of prescription and over the counter (OTC) medications on the market today which boast their efficiency in helping with insomnia, with varying ranges of success; however, if you have either exhausted many of these options to no avail, or perhaps you are seeking a treatment for your insomnia that does not involved drugs/medications (and any side effects they may cause), acupuncture may be the ticket.
Acupuncture
Acupuncture is a Chinese medical practice that dates back thousands of years whereby thin pins (best to think of them as pins versus needles, which conjures up painful pricks – acupuncture is anything but!) are inserted into specific points on the body in hopes of treating any number of disorders, diseases, pain points, and the like. Different acupuncture points correlate to different parts of the body, remedying the flow of ‘qi’ throughout the body.
Acupuncture & Insomnia: Relief Without the Side Effects
Minimally invasive, acupuncture has proven to be immensely effective in treating insomnia, typically within the span of about six to ten treatments and without any troublesome side effects. In Chinese medicine and acupuncture specifically, insomnia is thought to be caused by a disharmony in the body’s energies (‘qi’) by which the body is unable to cool itself down, and when one is overheated, sleep can become impossible. Acupuncture as a treatment for insomnia helps to remedy this imbalance.
There is no ‘one treatment fits all’ in terms of treating insomnia with acupuncture as each patient is assessed on a case by case basis; to that end, the points selected during each of your sessions may vary from time to time as the ‘qi’ is attempted to settle.
If you’re seeking to regulate your sleep, and hopefully relieve your insomniac tendencies for good, all without the worry of side effects from sleep aid medications, acupuncture would be a great option to explore further.