Homeopathy for insomnia
Insomnia, Or Sleeplessness, Is A Sleep Disorder In Which There Is An Inability To Fall Asleep Or To Stay Asleep As Long As Desired
Types of insomnia:
Insomnia can be classified as transient, acute, or chronic.
- Transient insomnialasts for less than a week. It can be caused by another disorder, by changes in the sleep environment, by the timing of sleep, severe depression, or by stress.
- Acuteinsomnia is the inability to consistently sleep well for a period of less than a month. Insomnia is present when there is difficulty initiating or maintaining sleep or when the sleep that is obtained is non-refreshing or of poor quality. These problems occur despite adequate opportunity and circumstances for sleep and they must result in problems with daytime function.[14] Acute insomnia is also known as short term insomnia or stress related insomnia.[15]
- Chronicinsomnia lasts for longer than a month. It can be caused by another disorder, or it can be a primary disorder. People with high levels of stress hormones or shifts in the levels of cytokines are more likely than others to have chronic insomnia. Here mucular fatigue. Mental fatigue, sometimes double vision is also seen in patients
Symptoms of insomnia:
- Difficulty falling asleep, including difficulty finding a comfortable sleeping position
- waking during the night and being unable to return to sleep
- feeling unrefreshed upon waking
- daytime sleepiness, irritabilityor anxiety
Sleep-onset insomnia is difficulty falling asleep at the beginning of the night, often a symptom of anxiety disorders. Delayed sleep phase disorder can be misdiagnosed as insomnia, as sleep onset is delayed to much later than normal while awakening spills over into daylight hours.[18]
It is common for patients who have difficulty falling asleep to also have nocturnal awakenings with difficulty returning to sleep. Two thirds of these patients wake up in middle of the night, with more than half having trouble falling back to sleep after a middle of the night awakening.[19]
Early morning awakening is an awakening occurring earlier (more than 30 minutes) than desired with an inability to go back to sleep, and before total sleep time reaches 6.5 hours. Early morning awakening is often a characteristic of depression
Symptoms of insomnia can be caused by or be co-morbid with:
- Drugs, Herbs, Caffine, Nicotine, Cocaine, Tea.
- Withdrawal from anti-anxiety drugs such as benzodiazepinesor pain-relievers such as opioids.
- Any chest surgery, Heart Disease.
- Deviated nasal septumand nocturnal breathing disorders.[25]
- Restless legs syndrome, which can cause sleep onset insomnia due to the discomforting sensations felt and the need to move the legs or other body parts to relieve these sensations.[26]
- Periodic limb movement disorder: (PLMD), which occurs during sleep and can cause arousals of which the sleeper is unaware.
- Pain:an injury or condition that causes pain can preclude an individual from finding a comfortable position in which to fall asleep, and can in addition cause awakening.
- Menstruation, menopause.
- Life events such as fear, stress, anxiety, emotional or mental tension, work problems, financial stress, birth of a child and bereavement
- Gastrointestinal issues such as heartburn or constipation.
- Mental disorderssuch as bipolar disorder, clinical depression, generalized anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder, dementia, and ADHD.
- Jet lag, working in Call centres, Doing Night shift.
- Chest or heart surgery
- Hypothyroid, RA
- Too much of noise or light disturbances.
Steroid hormones and insomnia:
- Female: changes in cortisol, progestron in menses,
- Estrogen during menopause….cause short term insomnia.
Estrogen: Levels Decreases In Menopause, Which Leads To Hot Flushes, Changes In Stress Pattern Thus Leading To Insomnia.
Progestron: During The End Phase Of Menstruation, Low Levels Of It Causes Mood Swings, Irritability And Anger In Females Leading To Insomnia.
Precaution:
- Habits like medicines, alcohol, caffeine, tea should be changed.
- Sleep diary should be maintained to know sleep patterns
- Check on obesity.
- Avoid on the counters medicines to curl your sleeplessness
- Avoid too much of gadgets ½ hour before going to sleep.
- Try distracting your mind before sleep or do breathing exercise just before sleep which in turn increases oxygen levels in the brain leading to good sleep.
Homoeopathic medicines for Sleeplessness.
Gelsemium:
- Given to children who gets tensed easily before final exams, vivas leading to blankness in mind. Trembling with tension.
- Person of nervous, anticipatory and anxious.
- Too much of future planning due to which less efforts in today.
- Too much mental exertion leads to exhaustion.
- Less sleep leads to frequent headache, and increased urination in the daytime.
- With headache feels very weak.
Kali phos:
- Females who gets tensed very easily, tension of future, tension of children, tension of family, tension of disease suffering.
- Tension something wrong will happen leading to insomnia.
- Lots of thinking leading to physical and mental weakness.
- Negative minded, cannot think positive due to worries.
- Quarrelsome, cannot forget or forgive easily, thus exhausting herself and insomnia.
- Frequent backache and urine infection due to lack of sleep.
Coffea:
- Sleeplessness due to sudden excitability, sudden news good or bad.
- Sleeps till 3 am after which doesn’t gets sleep at all
- Impressionable gets affected easily.
- Sleep disturbed sue to dreams
- Cannot sleep due to continuous itching in the anus.
Lachesis:
- Cannot sleep as mind is continuously working
- Sexual dreams doesn’t allow sound sleep.
- Revenge taking doesn’t him to sleep. Continuous planning to take revenge.
- In morning, headache, severe body pain, feels lethargic, brain doesn’t work efficiently.
- Cannot sleep as the bedsheets and clothes irritate. Sensitiveness of skin increased.
