Headaches & Insomnia
Headaches
As we fight to keep up with the demands of modern life, we impart stress on ourselves both mentally and physically.
Many people develop frequent or more stubborn headaches due to stress. They range from a tension headache to a full blown migraine with light and sound sensitivity, making it impossible to work, or do chores, causing us to fall further behind on our to do list. No matter what type of headache you have, your East Asian practitioner wants to know how you experience it. We will ask you if it is across the forehead or behind the eyes, squeezing your whole head like a crown, or throbbing at the temples.
We work with the information you are able to give us and feel your pulses to determine the Chinese Medicine imbalance happening for your exact case and help to reduce both frequency and severity of headaches. This often includes some changes in diet or lifestyle and we may offer herbs to help further between acupuncture treatments.
Insomnia
Insomnia is not only trouble falling asleep. It includes trouble staying asleep; waking frequently through the night, waking up feeling like you haven't slept, or waking and staying up for multiple hours only to fall sleep again near sunrise.
In East Asian medicine, the distinction between these different patterns, allows us to figure out the best method to getting your sleep back on track. We don't treat every version of insomnia with the same set of points. In fact, we take into account what your day looks like and other lifestyle habits that may contribute as well. Along with your acupuncture treatment, we listen and give recommendations based on what may be contributing factors from an Integrative point of view.
After an extended time, even low level stress from "adulting" can lead to short term insomnia becoming a lifelong problem. Many patients consider insomnia to be "just who I am" because they have had it since their preteen or teenage years. Even then, we have to recall what life was like in those years that started the habit.
"The Stress Hormone"
Cortisol is supposed to be higher when we wake up to get us ready for our day, and to be lower in the evening to prepare us for bed. It is NOT inherently a bad hormone. However, when thrown off, we end up with symptoms like insomnia and waking at night, yet fatigue and tiredness during the day. Some who experience this begin to rely on pick me ups such as sugar or caffeine to keep going or over the counter medicine to cause drowsiness at night. From our body's perspective, these are not fixing the problem, just patching it. Traditional East Asian Medicine aims to fix the root of the problem along with fixing the branch problems that you are experiencing.