This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Neighbor News

Natural Treatment for Insomnia

Dr. Stephanie Gilfoy, Naturopathic physician, explains the complexity of treating insomnia and ways to approach treatment without medication

Anyone who has ever had insomnia knows how frustrating it can be. Sleepless nights lead to being tired all day, possibly with irritability, mood swings, crying spells, inability to concentrate, or possibly falling asleep on the job. Aside from these more obvious consequences, lack of sleep also increases fasting blood sugar, inflammation, and cortisol, while lowering thyroid hormone. With all of these outcomes from not getting enough hours of sleep, it’s no wonder that sleeping medications are some of the most popular medications prescribed to patients. However, these medications can have serious side effects and don’t address the underlying cause of why someone cannot sleep. Treating insomnia naturally does exactly that.

First of all, the pattern of sleep versus insomnia is important to know before discussing treatment options. These patterns typically range from not being able to fall asleep at a reasonable desired bed time despite fatigue, to waking up in the middle of the night, often between 2 and 4 am, to waking up very early and not being able to fall back to sleep. Often times, insomnia is accompanied by racing thoughts, night sweats, or hot flashes. The more information you can gather about the pattern and quality of your sleep and the accompanying symptoms, the better the natural treatment outcome will be. This is because, unlike taking a pharmaceutical drug, the natural treatment is targeting different biochemical reactions going on unique to each pattern and symptoms.

To read the entire article, please visit http://madisonctnaturopath.com/natural-treatment-for-insomnia/

Find out what's happening in Madisonfor free with the latest updates from Patch.

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?