Insomnia Treated by Chinese Herbal Prescriptions
Sleep is necessary to life like breathing and heart pumping. It occurs repeatedly as an automatic restorative function of the body. People with good sleep quality has below features:
- falling asleep easily;
- staying asleep through the night and able to fall asleep again when waking up;
- the amount of sleeping hours is appropriate to age group;
- make dreams occasionally but no nightmare;
- feel rested and refreshed when waking up in the morning.
Insomnia has become commonplace in modern life, causing damages to the body, mind, mood, health, productivity and quality of life. For those who constantly have difficulty sleeping, professional help is needed.
During an insomnia consultation, doctors go through the sleep and related issues in details, for example asking about how difficult in sleeping, how frequent occurring, bedtime routine, and interruptions in daytime; they also try to find out the triggers such as mental, disease, medication and lifestyle factors. Different insomnia condition will be managed differently, only a customized treatment plan can get the best outcome, achieving a real balance in the body and mind. Therefore, not all insomnia cases need to take medications, lifestyle modifications, changing in sleep habits and addressing any issues associated with insomnia is generally recommended as the first line of management for insomnia individuals. If these measures do not work, then doctors may recommend cognitive behavioral therapy, medications or both. 
Keeping a sleep diary is very helpful. You will know your sleep habits and identifying sleeping problems easily by tracking records for one or two weeks. All sleep aids or medications must be used carefully, talk to professionals before trying any products for insomnia.
From a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) viewpoint, insomnia situation is greatly various among individuals. For general cases, sleeping difficulties are the main complaint; for serious cases, individuals often accompany with symptoms like headache, dizziness, palpitations, forgetfulness, and absent-mindedness. TCM has unique interpretations about sleep and insomnia development. Insomnia is a spirit disorder resulted from various internal disharmonies, interrupting the body’s natural rhythm and making the spirit restless. The internal disharmonies can be due to blood or qi disturbances, organ dysfunction, external pathogen attacking, or biological waste accumulation. More often, individuals may already develop organ dysfunction in the heart, spleen, liver and kidney, or blood and yin deficiencies inside the body, which become foundation for insomnia development. When they further encounter emotional or physical distress, insomnia will then be triggered.
TCM management for insomnia follows a holistic approach, physicians identify the overall unbalance of the body and then design the remedy to rectify it. The therapeutic principles aim at calming spirit, restoring internal balance, and rebuilding communication between the body and the mind again. Physicians will not use one remedy to fix the problem, but multiples and various methods to adjust the condition changings during the course.
Treatment based on syndrome differentiation (identifying a disharmony pattern) is the premise and foundation for TCM. It is a clinical routine for all physicians, and includes looking for manifestations, deciding pathogenesis, considering treatment plan, and then prescribing remedies. Physicians recognize diseases or body imbalances through the four examination skills, the identified syndrome is able to express the disease nature, developmental stage, involved parts, and the degree of struggling between the body resistance and the pathogenic factors, otherwise known as the evils. Syndrome differentiation is a extremely detailed work, as changes in the symptoms reflect changes in disease condition, sometimes a seemly unrelated or subtle difference in clinical manifestations is precisely a critical factor for disease judgement. Every physician makes effort to master the skill during clinical diagnosis. Below are insomnia protocols that show how TCM prescribe herbs for the individuals:
- Fire syndrome caused by liver stagnation
- Phlegm heat harassment
- Fire syndrome caused by yin deficiency
- Deficiencies of heart and spleen
- Qi deficiency of heart and gallbladder
It should be noted that patient compliance is very important in ensuring a good outcome, especially for those who are suffering from chronic conditions and needs prolonged medical attention. Also, cognitive behavioral therapy may recommend to control or eliminate negative thoughts and worries affecting sleep.
