Reflexology and Insomnia

Foot reflexology is effective in the improvement of many health conditions but is it useful for insomnia?

First what is insomnia? Well, if you are reading this article at 3 am instead of sleeping, you could be suffering from insomnia!
In fact, there are many types of insomnia and therefore various symptoms such as difficulty to fall asleep, not staying asleep, waking up frequently during the night, waking up early in the morning feeling exhausted...

Our sleep is divided in cycles. The REM cycle corresponds to active sleep, it's the period during which we make those strange vivid dreams. Sufficient REM sleep is crucial for memory storage, retention, learning and emotional balance. Therefore sleep deprivation can have devastating effects for the sufferer as insomnia reduces concentration, coordination, creates fatigue, irritability, stress and headaches.

Insomnia can occur in children as well as adults. Since sleep patterns changes with age, old people tend to need less sleep at night so they might believe that they suffer from insomnia when actually they don't.

Insomnia is not a disease but a symptom which can be due to stress, anxiety, physical problems, medication. Depression is actually recognised as one of the main causes of insomnia. In fact counseling would be the most effective treatment for depression in addition to or instead of medication. The same applies to stress related insomnia, the cause of stress needs to be addressed in order to cure insomnia.

Also insomnia can be caused by too much drinking, high caffeine intake, drug use, irregular sleep-wake cycle, shift working, jet lag, partner's snoring, financial or emotional problems. If this is to be temporary, eliminating the causes via a re-adjustment in one's life would solve the problem although this is not always easy to achieve. Many sufferers don't want to rely solely on drugs to deal with insomnia so they turn to alternative holistics treatments such as reflexology.

As far as I know there are no proven scientific link between reflexology treatment and insomnia improvement. Studies have been carried out on this topic but they don't always follow the scientific study rules to be recognised. However any reflexologist can vouch for the benefits of reflexology treatment in case of insomnia and will have many cases to back this.

Reflexology treatment on patients suffering from temporary or chronic insomnia can help them relax and cope better with stress. Reflexology cannot get rid of external causes but it can help the patient get a better rest at night. Most patients will find the treatment useful in improving their sleep patterns with longer sleep cycles, less interrupted sleep and deeper sleep. Since reflexology aims at restoring balance in the body and mind and freeing the flow of energy, it can have a beneficial impact on insomnia sufferers who suffer from imbalance in this area.

The treatment should last at least 6 sessions to see if it has any impact. The reflexes to be specifically worked on are the brain, solar plexus, spine, respiratory and circulatory systems.

When applying pressure to the solar plexus, use breathing exercice to enhance the relaxation effect. As you press on the reflex point, ask the patient to breathe in and as you release the pressure, tell him to exhale.

Each reflex point or zones should be worked on several times to help with relaxation and sleep disorders.

If you have any further information regarding this topic, leave a comment.