Insomnia treatment is required for many people to enjoy a standard quality of living. Up to 35% of American adults and 69% of high school students don’t get adequate sleep at night.
To find the right insomnia treatment, it’s important to find an expert who can understand the root cause of the problem. There could be an underlying condition which causes insomnia and must be treated before symptoms can resolve. Insomnia treatment calls for a personalized approach to understand all factors behind the patient’s dysfunction.
What is Insomnia?
Insomnia is excessive wakefulness of the brain. In modern sleep medicine, we view the problem as the brain feeling awake when it should not be.
Insomnia is one of six sleep conditions treated at Amen Clinics. When someone experiences insomnia, it is often diagnosed alongside other disorders. Amen Clinics also treats the following sleep disorders:
• Hypersomnia
• Sleep Apnea (Sleep Disordered Breathing)
• Parasomnias
• REM (Rapid Eye Movement) Sleep Behavior Disorder
• Circadian Rhythm Disorders
Treating your sleep disorder is essential to helping with other chronic conditions.
Types of Insomnia
Researchers are still learning more about insomnia each day. By identifying the different types of insomnia, insomnia treatment is more successful and can target the individual’s root cause.
According to the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience with research released in 2019, there are five types of insomnia:
• Type 1: Patients scored high on neuroticism and feeling down or tense.
• Type 2: Patients were less distressed and had high sensitivity to reward.
• Type 3: Patients were less distressed and had low sensitivity to reward.
• Type 4: Patients were even less distressed and responded to stressful life events with severe and long-lasting insomnia.
• Type 5: Patients were even less distressed but were unaffected by stressful life events.
Many patients who turn to Amen Clinics feel they have no hope left to find help for their illness. Our experts stay abreast on cutting edge research in each field and have the goal to give patients the best possible individualized care.
Insomnia Causes & Symptoms
Sleep disorders often overlap with psychiatric disorders and requires special attention. A common cause of insomnia is depression, and the two go hand in hand.
For example, there’s a 20% concordance between sleep apnea and major depression. Children can also be affected by sleep apnea.
It’s important to remember that depression is not just one thing. Treatment for depression relies on finding the root cause and can rely on a wide range of dysfunctions, including brain injury, bipolar disorder, childbirth, unhealthy diet, and much more. Just a few common causes of insomnia include the following:
• Environmental factors (light, noise, temperature, etc.)
• Stress (home, work, school, etc.)
• Emotional distress (financial, occupational, familial, etc.)
• Physical discomfort (Restless Legs Syndrome, chronic pain, etc.)
• Medications
• Irregular sleep schedule (shift work, jet lag, etc.)
Just as depression is not one thing, insomnia is not one thing. By identifying the types of insomnia, experts have taken a step closer to identifying the root cause for each individual’s insomnia treatment.
Natural Treatments for Insomnia: Melatonin, Hypnosis & More
Natural ways to treat insomnia help to bring balance to your life and give relief.
Melatonin can be helpful for aiding in sleep, but it is often misprescribed and wrongly dosed to treat insomnia. The correct way to use melatonin is to nudge the patient into sleep rather than “knock them out.”
Magnesium is one type of vitamin to consider to help with nutritional support for sleep. It can be effective with calming the brain before sleep due to its help with activating GABA receptors. 5-HTP can help those who struggle with sleep due to worrying as it aids with creating serotonin in the brain.
Amen Clinics only recommends medication when absolutely necessary, and always turns first to natural remedies while identifying the root cause.
Our clinic is unique in using brain SPECT imaging to inform treatment for all patients. We us a four-pronged approach to evaluate the biological, psychological, social and spiritual influences in your life and review your brain scans for any abnormalities before recommending treatment.
Ways Amen Clinics often treats insomnia may include:
• Coaching
• Hormone Replacement Therapy
• Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
• IV Nutrient Therapy
• Neurofeedback
• Nutrition Counseling
• Psychotherapy
• Supplements and Medication
• Hypnotherapy
How to Find Help for Insomnia: Insomnia Treatment Clinics
Sometimes, eight hours of sleep is not enough. Getting less than seven hours of sleep at night is associated with weight issues, hypertension, accidents, and marriage conflict.
Amen Clinics offers personalized insomnia treatment with the care of our expert sleep medicine team.
Find a clinic today and schedule your appointment. We have clinic locations in Atlanta, Chicago, Northern California, Orange County, CA, New York, Bellevue, WA, Washington D.C, and Los Angeles.
