| Herbs, hypnosis help insomniacs sleep at night
|
LOS ANGELES - Whether meditating before
bed or sipping a kava kava nightcap, more than 1.6 million Americans
use some form of alternative medicine when they have trouble
sleeping.
In analyzing data from 31,000 Americans interviewed
for the 2002 National Health Interview Survey, researchers found that
nearly one-fifth of adults reported difficulty sleeping in the
previous 12 months, and of those, about 5 percent used complementary
and alternative medicine to treat their sleeplessness. The majority
of those who tried the therapies said they helped, with nearly half
saying they helped "a great deal."
Nearly 65 percent
of people using alternative methods to help them sleep used
"biological therapies," such as herbs or supplements, and
39 percent used "mind-body therapies," such as
self-hypnosis, guided imagery or other relaxation techniques.
