Can Chiropractic Care Improve Your Sleep?
Getting a good night’s sleep seems easy and is important to your overall health, but many Americans struggle with sleep. If you have a hard time falling asleep, staying asleep, and waking up feeling rested, then you may be willing to go to great lengths to improve your sleep quality and feel better. A new pillow, a darker room, and other changes to diet and lifestyle can all help, but can chiropractic care improve your sleep?
Yes!
Chronic pain is both a cause and a result of poor sleep, so it’s worth investigating the root cause of what’s hurting you. When you hurt, you don’t sleep as well, and when you’re sleeping poorly, you experience a lower tolerance for pain, so the cycle continues. Chronic pain in your back, neck, hips, legs, or elsewhere can make it hard to get comfortable, affecting, in turn, your ability to fall asleep and stay asleep. When you have subluxations, or misalignments of your spinal bones, your body can’t operate at its best - and may send you painful signals. If pain is keeping you awake at night, chiropractic care may address the underlying cause.
Misalignment in your neck can also be a factor that leads to poor sleep. When your neck isn’t aligned, it tends to tighten your jaw and masseter muscles (muscles in your face that help with chewing), leading to lower oxygen intake, snoring, and a harder time getting deep REM sleep. Regularly addressing misalignments in your neck with chiropractic adjustments may help you sleep better.
If you suspect you have sleep apnea or narcolepsy, seek medical care. Those conditions are typically caused by medical issues not related to your skeletal system and may require other medical interventions.
Another way chiropractic care may improve your sleep quality is by lowering levels of cortisone, the stress hormone. Each time you get a chiropractic adjustment and improve your body’s function, you lower your cortisone levels. This can not only help you sleep better at night, but also help you better cope with the stress of daily life.
Related: Helping Your Kids “Spring Ahead”
What else can you do to sleep better?
In addition to seeking chiropractic care, these are some things that might improve your sleep quality:
Exercise.
Eat a healthy diet. (Avoid caffeine and spicy foods in the afternoon/evening, and don’t eat right before bed.
Adjust the thermostat. A cooler, darker room is more conducive to restful sleep.
Cut the cords. Blue light from televisions and other screens can stimulate your brain and interfere with your body’s production of melatonin, the hormone that controls your sleep/wake cycle. Turn off those screens an hour before bed.
Establish a routine before bed, like taking a bath, turning off screens, and turning on white noise.
Go to bed and wake up at the same times every day.
If you’d like to try chiropractic care to improve your sleep, please contact us.