Sleep is one of our natural but most important body processes that helps our body and brain to rejuvenate, helps to boost our immune system and balances our memory and emotions. So, though sleep looks simple, it is one of the most complex and mysterious body processes. If we do not take proper sleep intentionally to accomplish the goals and targets in our life, we silently invite a bundle of diseases in our body and mind. Conversely, lack of sleep or insomnia indirectly increases many existing disease pathologies in our body.
In today’s busy world, chronic stress, depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbances are widely prevalent due to hectic lifestyles. While sleeping pills or any conventional medicines may offer temporary relief but often with side effects and do not address the root cause. That’s why without relying entirely on conventional medicines some people want natural, safe, and holistic ways like Homeopathy that offers a gentle yet effective approach and promotes calmness and improved sleep. Also, with the help of Homeopathic Treatment stress, anxiety, depression can be cured, and sleep patterns are rebalanced naturally. After successful Classical Homeopathic treatment, a person can get back his/her natural sleep pattern without dependency on the medicine.
At Good Health Homeo Clinic, we understand how stress and sleep can affect your overall life and how important it is to identify the root cause and start the treatment in order to live a peaceful life.
Need of Sleep Duration According to The Age
When you sleep your body regrows and heals itself every day. So that you need adequate sleep which varies according to your age.
Children need more hours of sleep than adults as during sleep there is much release of growth hormones which develop bones and muscles in them and boost the immune system.
Below graphical presentation of sleep hours is given:-
Importance of Sleep for The Health of a Person
Sleep and dreams are important for the growth and healing of your mind. Below the importance of sleep for the health of your mind and body are given-
- Muscles get relaxed and revitalized.
- Relaxation of blood vessel smooth muscles and arterioles which decreases diastolic and systolic blood pressure.
- Wounds get healed.
- White blood cells and other immune cells get propped up to increase immunity of your body.
- Growth hormones are released.
- Your energy is restored.
- During the dream state which occurs in the REM state of your sleep your mind copes up and tries to rebalance itself from the subconscious grief and anxiety of your mind.
- Your appetite balances itself which helps to improve your weight if you are less in appetite which was causing emaciation due to muscle wastage. Or it will balance your increased appetite which causes obesity.
- Poor sleep linked to depression and inversely depression further increased due to sleeplessness.
- Poor sleep habits are linked to drugs, tobacco or alcohol abuse. It is more common in sleep deprived individuals. Good and proper sleep can reduce the inclination towards addiction.
- Sleep disorder is a major cause of accidents.
Understanding Sleep Cycle & Its Importance in Health & Disease
Sleep is broadly divided into 2 distinct states as shown by Electro-encephalographic studies. Rapid eye movement (RAM) sleep and Non- rapid eye movement sleep (NREM)
Stage 1 NREM Sleep
It is the light stage of sleep when you just fall asleep. This stage usually lasts only a few minutes, making up 1-8 minutes of your sleep cycle. After that your sleep gets deeper and you enter into Stage-2 NREM sleep. Heartbeat and breathing slows down and brainwaves become slow.
Stage 2 NREM Sleep
-It is a deeper sleep than stage 1. During this time your brain waves slow down more than stage 1. Stage 2 NREM accounts about 45% of your sleep cycle. During this phase muscles relax, blood vessels relax and drop your blood pressure, important hormones and enzymes are released during this time.
-There is some short but powerful burst of brain waves seen in EEG which occurs as your brain organizes memories from the time you spent awake.
Stage 3 NREM Sleep
– After Stage 2 NREM sleep a person enters into Stage 3 NREM sleep. It is the deepest state of sleep when we have very slow brain waves in EEG. Your body takes advantage of this very deep stage of sleep to repair injury, tissue damage by diseases and boosting the immune system.
-This stage of sleep is very much important to fight diseases and for growth. It makes up 25% of your total sleep time. Babies and children need more stage 3 sleep, but as you grow as an adult you need less.
-A person needs Stage 3 sleep to wake up feeling rested. Without enough stage 3 sleep you feel tired and drained as though you have not taken proper sleep.
-It is the stage of sleep where it is hardest to wake up a person. If a person is awakened by force then he will experience ‘Sleep Inertia- you cannot move your body though you are awake’ or ‘Mental Fog’ which may last up to 15-30 minutes.
Rapid Eye Movement (REM) Sleep
-REM stage of sleep is the stage of sleep where most of our dreams happen. It is called REM because your eye moves behind your eyelid constantly.
– During REM sleep the EEG graph looks the same as when you are awake. REM sleep accounts about 25% of your total sleep cycle. At starting of the sleep REM sleep is about 10-15 minutes but in the later hours REM sleep lasts for longer than an hour.
– Dreams are the mirror of our subconscious mind which causes pathology in a patient. Dreams are very much necessary to balance our grief, stress, anxiety and unfulfilled desires so that they do not go deep and affect our body and mind. Thus it helps us to cope up with physical and mental pathologies.
– During taking Homeopathic case history, if it is noticed a patient is getting negative and anticipatory dreams, then it helps to diagnose that the patient is suffering some kind of anxiety or depression which is causing the pathology. After successful Classical Homeopathic treatment and improvement of the pathology patient stops to get those kind of dreams, that proves that those negative dreams were causing the pathology in him.
Different Sleep Disorders & its Treatment & Cure Through Classical Homeopathic Treatment
Sleep disorders are broadly classified into 3 broad categories-
I. Insomnia.
II. Hypersomnia ( Disorder of excessive Sleepiness).
III. Parasomnias ( Abnormal Behaviours during sleep).
I will explain different sleep disorders and its cure through the Classical Homeopathic approach.
Insomnia
Insomnia means you are not getting enough sleep as you should. Patients may complain of difficulty in getting sleep or staying asleep, intermittent wakefulness during night, early morning waking or combinations of any of these. These problems must be persistent to call it insomnia.
Causes of Insomnia
There are many psychological and physical causes of insomnia such as Psychiatric disorders are often associated with persistent insomnia.
- Depression is associated with fragmented sleep with frequent wakefulness, shift of REM stage to the first half of night. So more dreams and less N2, N3 i.e deep sleep state which causes muscle wasting, malfunctional hormonal disturbances and weakness.
- In Bipolar Disorder total sleep time is decreased with shortened REM latency and increased REM activity.
- Physical diseases can disrupt your sleep such as diabetes mellitus due to frequent nocturnal enuresis, Nose obstruction, Coughing etc.
- Chronic alcohol abuse and heavy smoking causes secondary sleeplessness.
Types of Insomnia
There are 3 types of Insomnia disorders.
1. Initial / Sleep onset insomnia– Here you have trouble falling asleep.
- Middle Insomnia– Here you wake up in the middle of night and difficulty falling back asleep or you fall asleep. It is the most common type of Insomnia.
- Late Insomnia- Here you wake up too early on the morning and aren’t able to fall back asleep.
Middle and late insomnia happens most commonly due to subconscious anxiety that wakes you up in the middle or early from the bed.
Effects & Complication From Insomnia
Insomnia causes sleep deprivation which causes many diseases and increases existing conditions. Below few conditions has been mentioned-
- Depression.
- Weakness and lethargy together with poor performance.
- Road accidents.
- Hypertension.
- Diabetes.
- Hypothyroidism.
- Obesity.
- Weight loss.
- Poor memory.
Classical Homeopathic Approach for Treatment of Insomnia
During Homeopathic Case History taking causation, duration, sleep patterns, dream types, other physical and mental/ emotional symptoms taken to explore the causation and pattern of sleep disturbance.
Correct medicine is selected on the basis of totality. So that correct medicine not only cures the subconscious depression and anxiety but also physical pathology which has occurred due to depression or anxiety. Thus along with the cure of insomnia, patients’ physical or mental/ emotional symptoms are also cured.
Hypersomnia (Excessive Sleepiness)
Sleep Apnoea
It is a kind of sleep disorder where you have interrupted breathing when you sleep. It occurs because the soft tissue at the back of your throat collapses when the muscles in your face and neck relax while you sleep
It is of two types – Obstructive Sleep apnoea and Central Sleep apnoea.
There has many adverse effects of sleep apnea, such as-
- Fatigue and unrefreshing sleep.
- Dry mouth or sore throat when you wake.
- Frequent inclination for urination at night.
- Trouble concentration and irritability.
- Restless during sleep.
- Epistaxis due to heavy snoring.
Homeopathic treatment for Sleep apnea –
Sleep apnea is a condition where there is arrested respiration during sleep causing snoring, headache and other problems. In homeopathic treatment we have medicines which can address sleep apnea whether it is obstructive or central in origin.
In Homeopathy we have medicines under specific symptoms from which we have to choose correct medicine.
Thus by Classical Homeopathic treatment it is possible to cure sleep apnea from its root naturally.
Narcolepsy
Narcolepsy is a sleep disorder that affects your brain’s ability to control sleep-wake cycle. Persons with narcolepsy have intense, uncontrolled daytime sleepiness. People with narcolepsy will go fast into REM sleep. So they have very short or absent NREM- 1,2,3 sleep.
So when they awake from sleep they become very unrefreshed & they have daytime sleepiness.
Signs & Symptoms of Narcolepsy
- Excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS)
It is the first sign of narcolepsy. Even though the person has taken enough sleep at night, he feels sleepy during the day as they have not enough NREM sleep to get relaxed and has gone through REM sleep more with vivid dreaming.
They lack energy and un-able to concentrate on their work, so their performance decreases. Their memory power is reduced, has poor performance, feel depressed and exhausted.
Sleep Apnoea
- Cataplexy
Sudden loss of muscle tone involving a specific group of muscles, any limb or total body collapse. It occurs due to lack of N2 and N3 sleep which replenish muscle tone and blood supply.
- Sleep Paralysis
You are unable to move your body or speak with full consciousness. It occurs in the transition period in sleep and waking up. It can last for a few seconds to several minutes.
- Hypnagogic & Hypnopompic Hallucinations
This kind of hallucination may be visual or auditory. These are mostly vivid and frightening. This happens during rapid transition of REM sleep. When they happen when you are falling asleep then they are called hypnagogic hallucinations and when they happen when you are waking up then it is called hypnopompic hallucinations.
Classical Homeopathic Treatment of Narcolepsy
– Causes of narcolepsy are psychological and physical in origin. Symptoms occour due to anxiety, stress and depression which causes extended REM sleep and dreams which causes less N1,2,3 sleep and deprived muscle tone and rebalancing of the body tissues and disturbed hormonal secretions.
-It has been shown above that we have medicines against every variation of Narcoleptic disturbances.
- Homeopathic medicines are chosen from taking detailed case history taking the causative anxiety or depression if the patient has any. Then if there are any physical causes of Narcolepsy then it is also ruled out by doing required tests and examinations.
- Correct Homeopathic medicine not only cures Narcolepsy but also cures subconscious anxiety and depression. So that after successful treatment the patient gets cured of his/her narcoleptic disturbances completely and after treatment the patient is not dependent on any regular medication.
Periodic Leg Movements Disorder (PLMD)
- It is a sleep disorder where a person moves limbs involuntarily during sleep and has symptoms or problems related to the movement with subsequent daytime sleepiness.
- PLMS is related to Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS). 80% of people with RMS also have PLMD.
- Causation- Most of the PLMS problems are caused by subconscious anxiety and depression. It is also associated with the problems in the brain and spinal cord. Multiple Sclerosis, Hungtinton’s Disease, Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease etc.
- Symptoms- PLMS causes insomnia, daytime sleepiness
Classical Homeopathic Treatment of PLMS.
- At first total case history of the patient is taken and causation of PLMS is diagnosed with appropriate tests such as MRI of the brain, Polysomnography etc.
- Psychological causes such as anxiety or depression are revealed through case history.
- Then appropriate Homeopathic medicine is selected taken into consideration of causation and present symptoms. We have appropriate medicines against symptoms of PLMS.
Parasomnias (Abnormal Behaviour During Sleep)
Parasomnia is an abnormal activity during sleep. These activities are common in children and less in adults. There are different types of parasomnia described below-
Sleep Terrors
- There occurs intense fear, abrupt and terrifying arousal from the sleep, cry out and even jumping out from the bed.
- The patient may experience other symptoms like increased heart rate and sweating. However, none of this is caused by bad dreams as in Nightmares.
- This kind of episode can last from a few seconds to several minutes.
- Subconscious depression or anxiety is connected with sleep terror and is the causation of it.
Homeopathic treatment can cure symptoms and subconscious anxiety and fears of sleep terror. There are medicines which can cure it from the root. We always take the whole case history including the causation, personality type and physical symptoms of the patient.
Somnumbulism/ Nightwalking
- Somnambulism occurs in the slow wave sleep. Most probably in stage 2 and 3 sleep of late sleep hours.
- It can range from activities such as waking up from the bed, going up to the bathroom etc. In some extreme cases sleep walkers can perform tasks such as getting dressed, moving furniture, eating, cutting vegetables etc.
- It mostly affects children 6-12 years of age. Sleep walking in elderly patients may be a feature of dementia.
- We have medicines which can cure Somnambulism from its root. Medicine is always selected taking the whole patient case history, causation, Mother’s pregnancy history- of any mental emotional stress of mother during pregnancy, and personality trait.
Conclusion
Classical Homeopathy for Insomnia & Sleep Disorders offers a natural and holistic way to restore healthy sleep. Unlike conventional medicines that temporarily mask symptoms, homeopathy addresses the root causes, such as stress, anxiety, depression, or physical imbalances, helping your mind and body return to a natural rhythm.
At Good Health Homeo Clinic, we take a personalized approach, studying your sleep patterns, emotional state, lifestyle, and physical health to select remedies that bring lasting relief. Patients not only overcome insomnia and other sleep disturbances but also experience improved energy, focus, and overall well-being.
With timely homeopathic care, sleepless nights can transform into peaceful, restorative sleep. Regain your natural sleep pattern and improve your quality of life with Classical Homeopathy for Insomnia & Sleep Disorders. With the improvement of your sleep disorder your lost health is also regained with the balancing of your muscle tone / Hypertension/ Immune system/ Endocrinal problems with improved memory and concentrations.
With the improvement of your sleep disorder your lost health is also regained with the balancing of your muscle tone / Hypertension/ Immune system/ Endocrinal problems with improved memory and concentration.
