Toronto-Centre Naturopathic Medicine is a Toronto naturopathic clinic dedicated to providing safe and effective treatment of a wide variety of health conditions using natural therapies and the principles of naturopathic medicine.
Insomnia is well treated using naturopathic medicine. Insomnia includes difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, and although not life-threatening, if chronic can seriously affect quality of life, and increase risk of accidents and chronic illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes, anxiety and depression. Most adults require seven to eight hours of sleep nightly to function well during the day. Professional healthcare should be sought out if your insomnia interferes with your ability to function at work or school.
Symptoms of insomnia
Possible symptoms of insomnia include:
- Difficulty falling asleep
- Waking at night
- Waking too early
- Not feeling well rested after a nights’ sleep
- Daytime fatigue or sleepiness
- Anxiety or depression
- Irritability
- Poor concentration
- Tension headaches
- Gastrointestinal symptoms
Insomnia treatment at Toronto-Centre Naturopathic Medicine
At Toronto-Centre Naturopathic Medicine, the goals of insomnia treatment are to eliminate insomnia symptoms and prevent recurrence of insomnia episodes.
Conventional treatment for insomnia may include psychotherapy, or sleep medications which may have short- or long-term side effects. For this reason, you may choose to try natural treatment to possibly avoid use of conventional medications, or together with conventional medications in order to decrease dosages of conventional medications required to manage your insomnia symptoms.
Naturopathic treatment of any chronic health concern must be recognized as a process that involves identifying specific treatment goals, a thorough understanding by your naturopathic doctor of all factors affecting your health, including physical, psychological, emotional and lifestyle factors, development of a comprehensive treatment plan and execution of that plan through periodic monitoring and adjustment.
At Toronto-Centre Naturopathic Medicine a typical approach to treating insomnia is to first identify and address underlying factors in your lifestyle (e.g., stress, demanding work schedule, irregular sleep schedule, non-restful home environment, sedentary lifestyle, eating habits, medication use) or general health (e.g., mental health disorders). Where appropriate, a number of therapeutic options are available, to be used alone, or more often in a complementary fashion, including:
- Lifestyle counseling
- Relaxation techniques
- Botanical (herbal) medicines
- Nutritional supplements
- Homeopathic medicines
- Bowen Therapy
- Acupuncture
- Exercise prescription
- Hydrotherapy
Reference
Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. Insomnia [Online]. [cited 2009 Feb 18]; Available from: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/insomnia/DS00187