Many of our clients report an improvement in their sleep after their treatments.
Getting good quality sleep is so important for our health and wellbeing. Quality restorative sleep has been shown to help our mood, reduces stress, supports our immune system and is associated with reduced risk to health issues such as diabetes, hypertension and heart disease. Sleep is when the ‘cleaning system’ of the brain is most active removing the toxins from the central nervous system that have built up during the day. This will be impaired if we are unable to sleep well.
Insomnia is the term used to describe the interference in normal sleeping patterns. Often the term is thought to mean a complete lack of sleep. However, it also includes:
- Finding it difficult to get to sleep.
- Waking throughout the night (even though you may eventually get back to sleep).
- Waking very early before the sleep cycle has completed.
- Still feeling tired upon waking.
- Feeling unable to nap during the day even though you are tired.
- Feeling tired and irritable during the day.
- Having trouble concentrating during the day even though you are tired.
Everyone will experience disrupted sleep at some point in their lives and sleep patterns do change naturally at different stages in our lives. However, regularly experiencing changes in sleep patterns can have a more detrimental impact upon our wellbeing than we may realise.
How does Gentle Release Therapy support sleep disturbances?
Gentle Release Therapy combines the understanding of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), with energy work and cranial release.
In TCM Insomnia can have a variety of cause’s but it is generally associated with the Liver and Heart due to the function of the organs. For example, feelings of stress or anxiety can create a block on the Liver energy. This can impact the free movement of energy around the body as well as creating an excess in Yang (heat) that irritates the body and reduces the capacity to rest and relax inhibiting the ability to sleep.
The heart is also linked to sleep disturbance as it is considered to ‘house the mind’. In TCM the ‘mind’ relates to mental activities of consciousness e.g. thought, memory and sleep. A lack of balance in the heart energy will impact upon these aspects.
Parts of the cranial system important for sleep are the Sphenoid and the Sphenobasilar Synchondrosis (SBS). The sphenoid bone sits in the centre of the base of the skull, the SBS is the joint between the Sphenoid and the base of the back of the skull (Occiput). A restriction in the function of the SBS is associated with a myriad of symptoms, including Insomnia. Due to it’s role in cranial motion restriction impacts on associated structures such as nerves, membranes and cranial suture as well as the endocrine glands that helps regulate the nervous system and hormone release throughout the body, such as the Pineal gland which releases melatonin that regulates sleep. Gentle Release Therapy also has an endocrine release that can support hormone issues.
A treatment would often start by focusing on supporting the abdomen and energy of the organs before moving onto the cranial and spine systems. With everything we’ve explored it can be seen our clients also experience an improvement in their sleep patterns after their treatment.
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