Sleep disorders effect many people. This leaves many looking for a natural sleep aid. Sleep is as essential to health as diet and exercise. When you are unable to get a good, uninterrupted night's sleep it effects all aspects of your life.
There are many types of sleep disorders and massage can help treat a few of them. Let's take a look at some of the most common sleep problems and find out if massage can be used as a complimentary treatment for them.
Insomnia
Insomnia is the inability to get good quality sleep. This is one of the most common of all the sleep disorders.
Insomnia can have a variety of causes. Often times it results from stress and anxiety. It can also be triggered by an irregular sleep schedule, too much caffeine, chronic pain, or jet lag.
In most cases insomnia can be treated with self-help techniques, such as relaxation exercises. Massage can help people with insomnia by decreasing stress hormones, relieving chronic pain, and balancing your nervous system. This helps you to release and get a better night's sleep.
Restless leg syndrome is a burning or tingling sensation in the legs that gives you a strong urge to move them. Moving the legs makes the sensation go away for a little while. Doctors are unsure about what causes this syndrome.
Massage helps relieve the tingling or burning sensation this syndrome causes. You can even massage the symptoms away yourself using various massage techniques. Simply squeezing and releasing the calf muscle a few times will help relieve symptoms.
Find out more about restless leg syndrome.
Sleep apnea
Sleep apnea is another one of the common sleep disorders. It occurs when you stop breathing during the night. This is characterized by shallow breathes and loud snoring with pauses between breathes that last 10 seconds or more. If you have this condition, you wake up frequently during the night to breathe. Some symptoms of sleep apnea are long gaps in breathing, very loud snoring, gasping or choking and not feeling rested in the morning.
This condition usually occurs because of some sort of obstruction in the air passage.
Massage cannot be used to treat sleep apnea. There are some things you can do to help your sleep apnea though. It usually occurs in people who are overweight. So losing weight can help. Some people find relief by sleep with their head propped up on several pillows. Sleeping on your side can also help. It is a dangerous condition so if you think you have sleep apnea you should see your doctor.
Narcolepsy
Narcolepsy is a brain disorder that makes you very sleepy and even makes you fall asleep suddenly. People with narcolepsy are lacking hypocretin. Hypocretin is a chemical in the brain that regulates sleep.
This condition is also very dangerous. It disrupts normal life because sufferers could fall to sleep while walking, driving, or doing any other daily activity. If you fall asleep in the middle of activities, are extremely tired during the day and have short periods of time where you lose your motor control, you could have narcolepsy.
Narcolepsy is genetic. Massage cannot help treat it. Medication is often used to treat people suffering from this disorder.
