Can acupuncture help you sleep?

Millions of American adults struggle to fall and stay asleep. While improving your sleep hygiene can help eliminate some of the barriers to quality sleep, 10-15% of people still experience chronic insomnia.

While being poked by needles may not be what you had in mind when you think about improving your sleep, studies show that acupuncture can decrease anxiety, stimulate melatonin production, induce sleep and reduce sleep disruption.

By inserting fine needles into the skin at specific points, acupuncture can help regulate the body's physiology, including what may keep you up at night.

The Benefits of Acupuncture for Sleep

Acupuncture can help quiet the mind, increase relaxation and decrease stress. The treatment can also help increase the release of natural melatonin in the body, which improves sleep.

Sometimes chronic pain keeps you from getting comfortable and drifting off to sleep. Resolving or lessening the pain with acupuncture may help in getting a good night's rest.

Acupuncture can also be effective for those with sleep apnea. It has been shown to help with weight loss and improve energy. And by helping a person lose weight, even by as little as 10%, sleep apnea may be reduced.

How Acupuncture Improves Sleep

We all function better after a good night's sleep — our minds work better with increased clarity. Even with the curve balls and speed bumps that life brings us, a good night's rest helps us cope and even thrive. If you have sleepless nights, you may want to give acupuncture a try.

Some believe that the pain-relieving and sleep-inducing effects may be due to the release of peptides that stimulate opioid receptors in the brain, which is a system that controls pain, reward, and addictive behavior. 

Others believe the needles stimulate neurohormonal pathways, releasing beta-endorphin hormones that can make us feel happy and euphoric. Another theory is that acupuncture decreases pro-inflammatory markers, reducing pain and inflammation.

With all this being said acupuncture serves as one of the main remedies for insomnia. 

How to Get Started

If you would like to give it a try, schedule an appointment with us today. After only a few sessions you will start to see results.

Schedule an Appointment Today