THE specific BLOG

THE specific BLOG

The Secret for a Good Night’s Sleep

All the tossing and turning

Not feeling energized

Losing focus throughout the day

All of these are the frustrations and effects of not being able to get a good night’s sleep! There are countless things that you can try to improve your sleep. Different pillows, weighted blankets, mattress changes, medications, teas, and many many more. I do have one secret that you may have never heard of before. It involves something so simple, yet so different at the same time. It resides at the base of your skull and controls all of the life inside of our body. What we’re talking about here is the brainstem, which is the control center of the nervous system and body as a whole. 

What’s Up With Sleep Though

During our nightly sleep the body undergoes a crazy amount of changes, think of it as a reset almost. During sleep the brain forms connections within itself, helping you remember long and short term memories. It’s been said that if you sleep less than 5 hours a night you’re at an increased risk for having high blood pressure as well as it having an impact on the release of insulin in your body increasing your risk of diabetes. Cells throughout the entire body repair themselves during sleep, as well as the immune system strengthening during sleep. Seems like that may be some of the most important things in this day and age. 

What’s actually a recommended amount of sleep though.

Most experts will say that 6-8 hours of sleep is what everyone should be trying to get. 

But what if you literally are unable to sleep? Like physically can’t get your body and mind to sleep.

Then all of this becomes a little trickier and you’re missing out on health benefits that you can’t control. 

But what’s actually causing you not to be able to sleep?

Well there can be a variety of things associated with that but I believe that there is one, major underlying issue going on. 

I believe it all resides in the master control system of the body….the nervous system. 

But How??

Think of the nervous system like a fuse box or circuit board. The fuse box in a house is what controls all the individual power sources throughout. If a certain room’s lights or outlets are working what do you do? You check the fuse box. If for some reason your A/C stops working or microwave stops working, the first thing you should check is the fuse box. 

The nervous system is comprised of the brain, brainstem, spinal cord, and all the nerves that exit the spinal cord and go to all the cells, tissues and organs of the body. Now that might not sound like a big deal but hold on for a minute.

When people can’t sleep it’s usually because they say that their mind is racing or their body just doesn’t feel tired. Almost like when they lay down they start to feel more energized even though they had just felt exhausted after a long day. Does this happen because suddenly when people are laying down they have time to think about their day? Well, partly to that but it shouldn’t last for hours and hours. 

It may last for hours and hours because of a nervous system issue. The nervous system is broken down into a fight or flight side, and a resting and digesting side…or a side for hyperactivity and a side for chilling out. Both are vitally important as we need both to survive day to day events and activities. If I’m crossing the road and suddenly I feel like I might get hit by a car I want my entire body to wake up and get me across the road. At the same time if I was crossing that road to get to a restaurant I want my body to be able to relax when I sit down and order food. 

What if the body was “stuck” in one of these sides more than the other? Or what if they were switches all together? That brings us to the thought earlier of sometimes feeling tired then when you lay down you’re suddenly wired. When we’re standing up there should always be some sort of alertness going on and never be fully relaxed to the extreme of falling asleep. When we’re laying down to go to bed we shouldn’t really be feeling hyperactive….if either of those happens that’s indicative of an issue going on with the nervous system. 

What we do at The Specific Chiropractic Centers is work directly with the nervous system and help it function at 100%. A lot of the people that come into the office oftentimes are stuck in a state of fight or flight. Usually sleeping isn’t a primary complaint but during progress exams they will make mention that they are sleeping so much better. By balancing out the nervous system and making sure that the fight or flight response, and resting and digesting responses are working at the correct times, better sleep inadvertently happens. Suddenly when you lay down you no longer feel that longing of worry and not being able to shut off your brain. You can finally relax, close your eyes, and get the sleep that is so important to get. At the same time there doesn’t have to be the feeling of giving up function on the other side of things. We work to balance the system as a whole, so if you get in a situation where things are dicey, you’ll get the proper adrenaline rush and be able to get the heck out of there. 

At every single visit we measure the nervous system to determine if everything is working properly or not. If it isn’t we provide a very specific adjustment to help balance everything out. What is great is we aren’t the type of office that cracks everything in your body, rather we check to see if there’s an issue going on with the body, and if there is we provide one specific adjustment. 

Now with all of this said, if you’re sleeping on a bed made of wood or using a crappy pillow that is going to play into getting poor sleep as well. If both of those things aren’t an issue then we may be a perfect fit to help you out!

Learn more.

Here are a few more posts on how chiropractic care can help those who suffer from headaches and/or migraines.

Thanks for reading the specific blog.