What's New About Sleep?

What's New About Sleep?

The Journal of the American Chiropractic Association-article

Without the daily restorative of sleep, life takes on a raw edge -a feeling that millions know all too well. Chiropractic, in combination with complementary and alternative therapies, has proven effective in diagnosing sleep disorders and delivering treatments that offer the promise of a better night's sleep.

"Sleep disorders are prevalent and often disabling, but most are diagnosable and effectively treatable using chiropractic applications," says Frederick R. Carrick, DC, PhD, DACAN, DABCN, DACNB, FACCN, and president of the ACA Council on Neurology. "Sleep is one of the most important functions of the brain. The ability of the nervous system to regulate sensory input is considered a prerequisite to sleep. Specific areas of the brain change in their function to prevent transmission of sensory information that might keep us awake. Patients suffering from pain or other sensory conditions that contribute to a continual activation of the brain may have difficulty sleeping."

Because sleep disturbances are a nervous system-modulated event, the whole system needs to be considered. "Insomnia, for example, includes looking at blood glucose levels and oxygen delivery systems that affect the central state of all nerve cell functions, especially the brain," says neurology specialist Gail Henry, DC, DABCN, DACNB. "We need to determine whether the brain is hyper-excitable and cannot settle down to sleep. Or perhaps the person has poor fuel delivery to where the brain is more depressed, and he or she cannot get enough sleep. We need to address anything that will affect the central state of the brain." Research into the nature of sleep has helped doctors see that it is more than the passive absence of wakefulness, as once perceived. "Today, we understand that we live in three completely different states of being: wakefulness, non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep," Dr. Carrick explains. "The control and expression of these states of being are complex, with no single specific area in the nervous system in control of all aspects. Rather, they are the result of dynamic interactions among multiple neurological networks and environmental factors. Almost all portions of the nervous system are active across all three states of being at different levels -so that an individual with a neurological problem has a high probability of suffering from a sleep disorder." continue reading here