Acupuncture For Sleep

If you were to go around and ask your friends and family about what they think of acupuncture, you would likely receive a lot of mixed reviews. This is because it can be a rather polarizing subject. While some believe it is purely a placebo effect. Others absolutely swear by acupuncture and believe it can cure everything from migraines, and back pain to helping you quite smoking. We wanted to share with you all some of the potential benefits that acupuncture can have on your sleep. Stick around to learn more about how acupuncture works along with the details on how it could potentially help you get the sleep of your dreams!

Primary & Secondary Insomnia

There are two different kinds of insomnia that you can experience. The first is primary insomnia which is a lack of sleep that cannot be explained by medical, psychiatric, or environmental causes. While secondary insomnia covers sleeplessness that can be explained by said potential causes.

It is believed that acupuncture could potentially help ease insomnia and help you to get the sleep you need. This is especially true for secondary insomnia as it can be beneficial for the physical and psychiatric causes for your lack of sleep as well.

Click the link to learn more about insomnia in our Guide To Insomnia.

Pain Relief

One of the most common uses for acupuncture is to relieve pain. Pain is one of the most common disrupters of sleep. If you are experiencing pain caused by a recent injury, menstrual pain, migraines, or even chronic pain.

All of these situations can be potentially relieved with acupuncture. Once you have relief from your pain, it will become much easier to get the sleep you need and desire.

Learn more about sleep positions that can help you get to sleep in our post: Best Sleeping Positions for Pain Relief

Anxiety

Another common disrupter of sleep in anxiety. If you suffer from Anxiety, then you know how impossible it can be to get to sleep sometimes. Your energy levels can have drastic peaks and valleys. Often panic attacks include large bursts of adrenaline that then subside and leave you feeling exhausted. While general anxiety can also prevent you from falling asleep and staying asleep throughout the night.

The great news is that there are many who claim that acupuncture has helped ease their anxiety. Allowing them to get to sleep and stay asleep on a regular basis.

Click the link to learn How To Sleep Better With Anxiety

Sleep Apnea

If you have sleep apnea, then you know how disruptive it can be to your sleep. It has also been tied to a number of other more serious health conditions. Often, sleep apnea is a consistent sleep disruptor that keeps you from getting the consistent healthy sleep needed to keep your body running properly. This is especially true for Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA).

Many claim that acupuncture helps to lower their sleep apnea symptoms in order to get better sleep. While a lot of studies have been done because of these claims. There is not a sufficient amount of data to support these claims at this time.

Learn more about sleep apnea in our post: Sleep Apnea vs Snoring: How To Tell The Difference

Depression

Struggling with depression can take a toll on your sleeping habits. When you are depressed, often times a symptom of depression is insomnia. Oversleeping and feelings of exhaustion when you have had more than enough sleep are also common when you are depressed.

A 2020 study showed that when using electroacupuncture on those who had insomnia and depression, they saw improvements. The study lasted from 8 weeks and there were others with a placebo effect that did not experience the same results. Those who received the electroacupuncture reported improvements with sleep quality, sleep efficiency, total amount of sleep, as well as their depression.

Click the link to learn about sleeping with depression in our post: How to Sleep Better with Depression

Sleep Disruptions

Generally, you should only remember waking up a few times throughout the night. This is if you are healthy and do not have any outside environmental disruptions waking you up.

Which means if you are waking up frequently throughout the night and having a hard time getting back to sleep, then acupuncture could potentially help you get to sleep and stay asleep.

Restless Leg Syndrome

For those who do not already know, restless leg syndrome (RLS) is a neurological disorder that affects your sleep. In the evenings when resting, or laying down trying to get to sleep at night is typically when the symptoms of this syndrome occur. It is often described as creepy crawly feeling going up and down your legs.

RLS often feels like an uncontrollable urge to move your legs and feet. It is often described as being unpleasant but not painful except for muscle soreness from constant fidgeting that often goes along with RLS.

The great news is that many report that acupuncture has made a big improvement in their RLS symptoms and has helped them to feel more at ease and comfortable when falling asleep at night.

Click the link to learn more about how to sleep with RLS in our post: Top Tips & Products to Ease Restless Leg Syndrome

Similar Treatments to Acupuncture:

The following treatments are great options for those looking for similar treatments to acupuncture. These can often be replacements or used in tandem with acupuncture. If you love acupuncture and you are wanting to branch out to discover similar style of treatments, these are going to be great options to look into.

• Reflexology: This is a specific kind of message type treatment that focuses in on applying varying pressure to points on the hands, feet, and ears.
• Acupressure: Also applies pressure to acupuncture points along the meridian pathways. Similar pathways but with pressure vs puncture, just as the name implies.
• Cupping Therapy: Small gently heated cups create a natural sucking and placed on specific areas of the body.
• Ear Seeds: Small metal seeds (not real seeds) adhere to the ears in order to stimulate areas of the body.
• Moxibustion: Involves small cones that are burned or sticks made of ground mugwort leaves at certain points.
• Electroacupuncture: A specific kind of acupuncture which involves gentle electrical currents.

Acupuncture For Sleep – Final Thoughts:

If you are on the hunt for a way to ease your aches and pains in order to get great sleep, it seems like acupuncture is absolutely worth a try. While not all studies are inconclusive, some of them are. We would say that it is absolutely worth looking into if you are having a hard time getting good sleep. It seems that acupuncture can be used for many different sleep disruptors. We hope that we have opened your eyes to some possibilities of how acupuncture could potentially help you get the sleep you need.

If you have any lingering questions, be sure to reach out to us through our Contact Us page. We would love to help out in any way that we can.