How an Auto Injury can Affect Your Sleep Quality

Auto accidents are a common occurrence. They are often associated with back pain, neck pain, emotional stress, and headaches. However, an auto injury can affect many other aspects of your life and health too. One commonly overlooked issue is how a car accident can affect your sleep quality.

Sleep and Your Health

Getting too little sleep and chronic sleep deprivation is an issue that is socially accepted in our culture. Instead, getting things done is celebrated in spite of poor sleep habits. Unfortunately, poor sleep can exacerbate or even trigger a whole plethora of health issues. Sustaining an auto accident injury can further add fuel to the fire and make getting high quality sleep extremely difficult.

How your auto accident is affecting sleep quality

There are a lot of factors that go into getting a good night’s rest. Common auto injuries can create a negative environment for getting the sleep you need. Issues that can affect this include:

• Pain from direct impact or spine misalignments that affect overall body function and mechanics
• Anxiety and other emotional distress making it hard to relax and wind down
• Secondary issues with inactivity, stress eating, and poor sleep hygiene.

What is High Quality Sleep?</h3 > Sleep is about so much more than just the number of hours we rest each night. Although a quantity of seven to nine hours is important, there are a lot of other factors to consider. This is where sleep quality comes in.

Signs that you have good sleep habits

Keep these signs in mind to both assess and brainstorm ways to improve your sleep quality.

• You can fall asleep within thirty minutes after getting into bed
• You don’t wake up more than once a night and fall back asleep within thirty minutes
• You wake up feeling rested each morning
• You feel reasonably energized and focused throughout your normal days

Chiropractic Care’s Role in Sleep

Injuries associated with a car accident can easily disrupt your sleep habits. When you aren’t sleeping well, this can perpetuate a poor cycle of pain and frustration. Chiropractic care is a great option for breaking this cycle and getting on track with your recovery. There are a number of ways that a chiropractor can help restore your sleep quality:

• Restore proper spine alignment. This is a common underlying issue that isn’t recognized until you work with a chiropractor. Starting here will help restore nerve energy and overall balance for maximizing other treatment options.
• Recommend better sleep postures to maintain spine alignment and reduce pain. This might include adjusting your mattress or pillows.
• Proper instruction in daily biomechanics that may be encouraging issues like poor spine alignment and bad movement patterns and posture.
• Pain is a common complaint that affects getting a good night’s rest. A chiropractor can provide pain management techniques to give relief and minimize wake time at night. This might include manipulation, modalities, soft tissue therapy, and more.
• Education in good sleep hygiene. This might include building a consistent bedtime routine, keeping electronics out of the bedroom, making sure your room is dark and cool enough at night, and more.

All of these techniques are ultimately focused on restoring balance to your body and spine. When the spine is in good alignment and you have a deep understanding of what your body specifically needs to properly function, you will feel in control of your recovery process. The team at North Alabama Spine and Rehab is specialized in addressing injuries associated with car accidents. A big benefit of proper treatment is that you will notice an overall improvement in your quality of life with benefits like restorative sleep and better general health.

Life Your Best Life with Chiropractic Care

Nerve flow and proper signaling is the life force that helps our body continually perform its normal life sustaining functions. It can quickly get out of sync when the spine is out of alignment. Poor nerve flow is a common issue with problems like poor posture and past injuries. These are only exacerbated with a car accident. Seeking care from a knowledgeable chiropractor is the first step in getting back on track and recovering properly.

High quality sleep is essential for a high quality of life. A good night of rest will expedite your recovery process following an auto injury. It will also promote a positive cycle of healing that improves every aspect of your life. Ultimately, the goal is to minimize pain and restore pain and spine alignment as you get back to normal life and strive for specific goals.

The North Alabama Spine and Rehab clinics in both Huntsville and Decatur, AL are expertly trained to help you in the recovery process. They will work with you to set up a personal program that fits your needs and help you recover as quickly as possible.