Search Results for 'acupuncture'

[Martin Reed]

A forum search for acupuncture shows it’s something a lot of people have tried — but it doesn’t seem to be an effective way to solve the insomnia struggle (which is often kept alive by all our attempts to get rid of it).

—

If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.

The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.

[SRK]

Has anyone tried acupuncture to help with insomnia?

[Martin Reed]

Hello Anariel and welcome to the forum!

Let me start by saying that there’s nothing unique or unusual in your experience. And, the fact you’ve been dealing with this for a month rather than 3 month or your whole life doesn’t make it any less difficult.

Your experience with insomnia has followed a typical pattern — sleep didn’t happen as expected, so you responded by (understandably!) trying to fix it.

You took herbal sleeping pills, you tried prescription medication, you tried acupuncture, you tried staying home.

Some of those things offered varying degrees of relief, but none got to the root of the problem — you were still (understandably) putting pressure on yourself to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen. And, trying to control sleep only makes it more difficult.

Many people find CBT-I helpful — but not everyone. One reason for that might be because CBT-I techniques themselves can easily become sleep efforts. We are still trying to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen. (We might also try to control what we are thinking and feeling.)

All these attempts draw us into more struggle. So we try harder. We struggle more. We try harder. And, round and round we go, seemingly trapped in a vicious cycle.

Not only that, the more we try, the more we can find ourselves getting pulled away from the life we want to live. We might do less. We might withdraw from life. We might act in ways that don’t reflect who we are or who we want to be. That makes our situation even more difficult.

There is no way to “not think” about something. Not thinking about something requires you to think of that very thing to see if you are thinking about it or not! For as long as that’s your strategy, you might be setting yourself up for an ongoing and exhausting struggle.

Perhaps the solution then, is to move away from trying to control what your experience tells you is beyond your control? How much energy might you free up if you were able to refocus your attention (and effort) on actions that move you toward the life you want to live, independently of sleep?

You might like my podcast episode with Irina — as I share in the intro to that episode, she gave sleep the opportunity to take care of itself while she took care of doing things that helped her live the life she wanted to live. And, that’s exactly what happened.

I hope there’s something useful here and I wish you all the best. You are not alone.

—

If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.

The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.

[Anariel]

Hi, I wouldn’t say my insomnia is so so bad yet. Maybe most of you had this for 3 months or for your whole life, but my only insomnia started 1 month ago. Yet it took a toll on my daily life.

It started exactly a month ago. The time I usually went to bed had already passed, but I decided to still be awake because of my teeth pain and searching a doctor for it. Thus, I stayed up for around 1 and a half hour more. Afterwards I closed my eyes and decided to sleep. It didn’t happen. So I took my herbal sleeping pill which I saved for bad nights such as this. 3 hours went and I still couldn’t sleep. The pill only makes me sleepy but it did nothing to make me sleep. Maybe it was exhaustion but eventually, I fell asleep. I expected it was only a one time thing.

No, it wasn’t. The next day, sleep evaded me again. It was not as severe as last night, but it was still frustrating. I reached my breaking point a week later when I couldn’t even get a blink of sleep. I went to visit a neurologist and seeing my extremely high blood pressure, she decided to give me a benzo. At this point, I was so exhausted, I didn’t care anymore. Imagine not sleeping at all for 34 hours. I didn’t immediately take the pill because of my work, but after that, I was finally able to sleep.

The next day comes and I was finally able to sleep immediately without sleeping pills. But I woke up in the midnight, not finding sleep again. I decided to take benzo again and that’s when I discovered: pills didn’t help me much. It still took 1-2 hours for me to sleep after taking benzos but I do sleep. That’s all that matters right now.

Hearing my condition, my mom desperately asked me to come home. So I did. I went to acupuncture and psychologist. That’s when I discovered that I’m a perfectionist and that’s what makes insomnia happens to me. I may not consciously thinking about sleep but deep inside, I am afraid of sleep. So he started giving me CBT-I therapy and it did help. For some times. It didn’t help all the time. But staying at home most of all helps me I think. I only require an hour to finally fall asleep.

But then, I have to leave my home again and that fear made sleep evaded me once more, and I took benzos again to sleep. When I left home, sleep wasn’t actually a challenge to me for the first few days, until today where I find myself in bed for 3 hours and still not getting sleep without benzos. That’s when I realized: All the time I immediately fell asleep is always the 2 days after I took benzos. I didn’t know what to do anymore. I want to sleep but being a pharmacist myself, I know that these pills will only make you dependant to it. I made it my goal to only took 2 every week so I tried to adhere to it. But it’s so hard when sleep keeps evading you.

It’s only been 1 month and I already found myself thinking ‘what if I’m like this all the time’ which exactly fuels my struggle to sleep. I know the key is to not think about sleep at all, but it’s honestly so hard.

Do you have the same problem? I didn’t know what to do anymore. Right now, I’m desperate to find any solution to this problem without meds.

It’s frustrating speaking to people in real life that didn’t have insomnia. They keep saying “don’t overthink it”. The question is “how?? How can I stop thinking about it??”. Then “try this herbal sleeping pill”. The answer is “no. No. And no. I’ve tried and it didn’t help”.

So can I just find the solution already? I’m so tired of this sleeping problem. Thank you for listening 🙂

[Paciencia]

Good day Everybody.
I’m new in this forum. I just recently found the insomnia coach website and so far I have been reading trying to find help. Any people here with Tinnitus struggling with Insomnia? how you manage the doble suffering, pain and all those low feelings ? The anxiety level is huge, in the past I have tried some holistic therapies, acupuncture, massage therapy, aromatherapy. Meditation, affirmations, visualization is part of my routine day.
Thank you .

[tamimendonca]

I am 65 years old and developed insomnia in my late thirties after a partial hysterectomy. I have done every kind of therapy, alternative medicine, medications (those more recently) possible. I am a retired nurse, but worked as a nurse until a few years ago and have managed fairly utilizing all these different approaches. I had the most success with CBT which lasted for several years, then I would forget all I learned and go on to try something different, like acupuncture, hypnotherapy (I even got certified as a hypnotherapist so I could utilize this on myself), herbs from a naturopath, Chinese herbs from a Chinese medical practitioner, etc. Now I am taking melatonin, trazodone and occasionally Lunesta as well as tryptohan. I feel like this combination is helping most of the time (though still have struggles more than I would like), but I don’t like being on medication so am hoping this course will help me sleep naturally. I am embarrassed when I need to ask my doctor for refills and I feel like a failure. I don’t want to rely on medication as I want to enhance my own agency and deal with this without a crutch. I know I need to practice more self-kindness as this likely is one of my deep seated issues.

[E Marie]

I need help! I have chronic insomnia for over four years. I have tried several prescription medications (including Ambien, Seroquel, Mirtazapine, several Benzodiazepines, Lunesta), THC, CBD, Acupuncture, Hypnosis, Tinctures from Naturopathic Doctors and everything that was recommended or suggested. For the longest time I believed by insomnia was linked to some medical condition, therefore tried to get help from my medical doctors, but all the meds that I was given made me feel worse than not sleeping. I have not slept more that two hours each night over the past three weeks. My head space is off, I am dizzy, lightheaded and just feel crappy with no energy to do any thing. I am current out of work (as a public school teacher) on FMLA and I know that I cannot return to work in my physical condition. I came across your Podcast two weeks ago while I was watching some from The Sleep Coach School. I pray that there is still hope for me.
EMarie

[Sosleepless]

Hey everyone, this is my first post. I’ve been dealing with insomnia for the past 8 months after I had a stroke. It started with one night, then two, then three consecutive nights where I could not fall asleep. Nothing! not even one hour. I tried multiple otc meds and some would only work for few hours. The lack of so many days without sleep caused me to be so anxious around night time. I reached out to my specialist and all had different ideas; some thought it was due to the location of the stroke (Thalamus,) others due to anxiety. I started with different type of treatments with the hope to put an end to this. I’ve done CBT, Hypnosis, Talk Therapy, meditation, tapping , white lamp therapy, night goggles, sleep hygiene, acupuncture… ect. and multiple different medications. None have really made a significant difference. The cocktail of medicines that seem to work very intermittently is Magnesium L Threonate, L thiamine and 0.5 Clonazepam. Recently my sleep specialist started me on a new medication (Quviviq) . I’ve only taken one dose of this medication combined with the above cocktail. It did help, but i woke up exhausted. I miss my previous life where I was able to fall asleep whenever, wherever and without any restrictions. I have felt very down and anxious during the past 8 months. My GP rx me with Lexapro, but I could not tolerated plus it interacted with my anticoagulant levels. I find my life revolving about sleep! some days I get one to two hours, some others more. I feel like I can’t shake it off regardless of how many therapies I’ve done. I guess my body and mind has gotten so accustomed to being exhausted, sad and anxious. Is there hope? I miss living!
Looking forward to getting any feedback
Thanks!

[Elkie]

EFT tapping is a method of tapping acupuncture points and using positive affirmations to let go of certain feelings. I find it quite helpful.

[Kiki]

Hello everyone! I have Insomnia for 3 and a half years now. In it’s worst phase I couldn’t sleep for a month! I thought I’m going to die but nothing happened. Now I have acupuncture since April and I sleep 3 days then not for a week then I sleep 3 days and so on. In June I’ve slept 5 days and thought this is it but then I didn’t sleep again. I have very strange, as I call them ‘Thinkingdreams’. When I sleep it’s till 5 o’clock in the morning and then it fades into this Thinkingdream who starts intense and then it get’s drowsy and I’m almost awake and then it get’s further and I’m almost awake again but I can’t interrupt it. Sometimes when I don’t sleep I also get those annoying dreams in the middle of the night. I never thought I could have these very light dreams, never heard of them, and it’s hard to tell if I’ve slept when all in the morning I can think about is this dream I had. But I always think it’ couldn’t last the whole night so I must have slept before it started in the morning. Does somebody here also have these weird dreams? And I wish I would sleep every day, as I said I have 5 days where I don’t sleep and then most of the time 3 days sleep. These dreams are so light, like half sleep but my doctor says it has nothing to do with sleep – why can’t my sleep go deeper?! And I’m worried because over years and month I have not deep sleep, or very little of it. I don’t look like 51 anymore and my skin all over my body became very weird. And I’m afraid of dementia, which can develope of sleep disorders.

[Gnonto]

18M. Moved house 2 years ago. At first there were no curtains so I wasn’t sleeping well and the tiredness began. Then i added some to block out light, but the waking up tired continued. I always sleep 9 hrs, not waking up at night. My room is dark and quiet. Good sleep routine, environment, and hygiene. Blood tests, examinations, and sleep study done. No caffeine, drugs or alcohol. Tried CBT, melatonin, magnesium, acupuncture, meditation (not all at the same time). I’ve been away from home for periods up to 2 weeks and sleep has been the same there, never feel refreshed. My diet is good and I exercise regularly, and my mental health is good. I’ve tried everything, doctors don’t know what to do, any ideas greatly appreciated.

[Megatron7]

Hello! I had this a few years ago, and I got thru it with Xanax and the melatonin. Weaned myself off that and uses acupuncture and magensium instead. I experience not quite the jerks just the adrenaline rush/heart pounding just as I’m drifting off. What is this? Why does it occur? It’s been three years and not looking forward to going thru this again

[Sara]

Hello,
I found insomnia coach recently I am a month out from having my second child, my sleep issues came to ahead after delivering. I was finding myself awake when the baby was sleeping at night. Pursuing lots of sleeping support with supplements consulting a doc, working with a naturopath and getting acupuncture. My anxiety about sleep and my mental health was on the rise.
I am grateful for finding this resource as as the stories and concepts have quickly alleviated a lot of anxiety. I am currently implementing the bed association recommendations and catching my anxious thoughts about sleep. Thanks for the support.

[Marc]

I am presently in my early 70s. About 7 years ago I stopped sleeping. Just shut down completely without warning. I’ve come to learn the cause is probably a lifetime of depression. Early on I was found to need CPAP but that only brought my SpO2 back up into normal range. beginning of the third yr I developed a constant and debilitating heachache diagnosed as NDPH – unkown cause, no cure and difficult to treat. Same yr developed cardiac issues resulting in 2 ablations a yr apart. I have found no help: acupuncture, CBT, I’m not compatible per a genetic test with any but one anti-depressant (and that was not tolerated), a light therapy device to be used within the first hour out of bed, the Alpha-Stim AID device, a D.O. clinic for far out stuff, psychotherapy, about 70 treatments of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation during which a couple times I could actually experience my brain trying to respond, all insomnia Rxs failed except Lunesta (after several years getting the 4 hr sleep up front this last Spring started to fail), Melatonin, Ashwagandha, Magnesium, combinations of, Lavender scent, CBN, CBD (high enough dose left me too drowsy next day), combinations. Even had a small deviated septum and Turbanectomy done. I recently underwent Ketamine Infusion Therapy for the headache which didn’t help, but the anaesthesiologist was so concerned about my lack of sleep that he had me begin experimenting with Delta 9, Delta 8, different doses, brands and combinations. That experiment is about finished. The Delta 9 gave me a full night’s sleep but unbearably drowsy each following day. Currently back on the Lunesta having given the tolerance I had built up enough time to adjust back. First night with the combo was wondrous, then NOT. So 4 nights in with the Lunesta in the mix with different doses of Delta 8 I’m awake all night. Why the Lunesta Isn’t helping anymore I don’t understand. The only benefit thus far is these nights are comfortable using the 8. If the Lunesta has to be chucked, the only other sleep med that works is Halcion but it’s meant for only a couple weeks. I had hoped the Delta would be enough because I understand any Rx does not provide “restorative” sleep. My sleep hygiene is perfect. Any help would be appreciated.

• This topic was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by Marc. Reason: added info

[Samcansleep]

Hey there,

I just wanted to share my debilitating insomnia and depression story to let you guys know that it will get better. Last year around late August, I started to experience a very very tough cannabis induced insomnia episode. Strange right?! Weed usually help me sleep, but one night I smoked a small amount with a gravity bong and I couldn’t sleep for 5 weeks straight. It was as if the weed ignited something in my brain that didn’t allow me to fall asleep at all, no matter how tired I was. During the 5 weeks, I tried countless supplements and techniques, hyperbaric chamber, hypnotic therapy, energy work, infrared sauna, exercising, acupuncture, and much more. Non worked, at the ended my condition was so bad that I was admitted to a dual diagnosis treatment center in malibu. I started to take prescription medications for both depression and insomnia. What ended up working for me was serequol extended release, i was finally able to sleep a good 8 hours under 200 mg. But depression was still very obvious, It took me a few more months and a trip back home to China to fully recover. During that 5 weeks of insomnia, I actually thought I was dying. Just wanted to share my story to provide some hope. Although I am stuck in a post psychosis depression episode currently:/