light sleeper?
Many people who suffer from insomnia feel like their sleep is shallow and interrupted by awakenings throughout the night. This is shown to be true with recordings of the electrical activity in the brain during sleep.
Everyone
wakes up many times during the night, but the awakenings are different in those with chronic insomnia. There are many more of them. Instead of moments of awakening, it might be hours before you drift back to sleep, if at all. In essence, you spend more of your night in light sleep, instead of the deep, restorative kind.
ces, or cranial electro-stimulation, can help with this.
CES is simple to use and you can do it yourself at home. You attach an electrode clip to each earlobe, which connects to a small device you can put into your pocket. The device sends a tiny amount of current between the clips, such that you may not even notice that it’s on. It safely calms the brain (for anxiety and PTSD), increases the brain’s production of serotonin (deficient in depression) and endorphins (for pain relief and feelings of well-being), and extends the amount of time you spend in Stages 3 and 4, deep, restorative sleep. It’s also helpful for cravings and cognitive functioning. Some people have described it as a type of “TENS” unit for the brain.
over 200 ces studies
have been completed, including many randomized, double-blind trials, beginning with research in France in 1902. It’s FDA approved as a treatment for insomnia, depression, and anxiety. The Michael Debakey VA Medical Center in Houston (where I trained) has been using CES in their Pain Management/Complementary and Alternative Medicine Program for over a decade. It has an excellent safety record, and when veterans at the Houston VA were polled for their preference among a variety of complementary medicine devices, over 70% opted for CES.
These devices are expensive. In an effort to make CES TECHNOLOGY MORE affOrdable, I’ll leasE a device To you during your cbt-i treatment.
In the research literature on CES and insomnia, CES was used daily by patients for a period up to 3 weeks, with benefits holding up nicely for at least 18 months afterwards (the longest duration follow-up study).
Want to read more about CES? Click below for a deeper dive.
