Client of the Month: Putting 10 Years of Insomnia and Anxiety to Rest
Most insomnia methods that don’t simply prescribe hypnotic sleeping pills focus on managing behaviors that affect sleep such as keeping a regular sleep schedule, limiting caffeine, and getting regular exercise. Most also suggest some form of relaxation technique to manage current stress. While these are all important steps toward overcoming insomnia, I believe the real key is to neutralize the stressors that caused the insomnia in the first place… even if the stressful events happened years or decades ago and seemingly have no relation to a person’s current life. Unresolved stressful and traumatic events get stored in the brain stem and in the tissues and can continue to wreak havoc on the nervous system until they are neutralized. A good example of this is my client of the month, “Jennie.”
This cartoon brought up memories of what it was like to have chronic, debilitating insomnia. Several years ago I belonged to a musical group I really enjoyed, but it was almost an hour away. The rehearsals ended at 9:00 p.m. and on the drive home, I would catch myself falling asleep, and there were actually times where I think I did fall asleep for a second or two at the wheel. I would jerk awake in terror and the rush of adrenaline would usually sustain me for the rest of the drive, but it was scary and painful.