Good sleep is very important to the human life. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine theory, a human body is considered as a mini nature. When the sun descends, the night is coming; meanwhile the Qi (vital energy ) and blood slip into the interior and human fall into sleep. This is a well balanced status for person. Now, you can get a conclusion that if Qi and blood can not enter into the body in the evening because of any reasons, you will get into insomnia.

There are numerous of reasons that cause vital energy and blood can not go into the inside, such as disharmony between the heart and kidney, deficiency of Qi and blood of the heart and spleen, lack of yin of liver and eat too much or starvation. A person can not sleep peacefully, manifesting the difficulty in going into sleep, easy to wake after sleep and not easy to sleep again and so on. It is just a Traditional Chinese Medicine theory-"yang can not enter into yin".

Moreover, it is should be realized that Qi and blood go into the interior in the night in order to exert the function of nourishing visceral. "Not to sleep in the night, not to energetic in day time", so the concomitant symptoms must be distractibility, irritation, stress, listlessness and dizziness in the daytime.

The main treating principle of insomnia in Traditional Chinese Medicine include communicating heart and kidney, nourishing Qi and blood of heart and spleen, promoting digestion and removing retention of food .The representative formulae are "Harmony-Preserving diets, with Herbs, legumes and Teas that can assist the natural balance. Acupuncture, meditation and massage have a fine effect on insomnia too. Foot massage can also help the energy that flows in the body to a good night sleep. Another technique is to do "breathing exercise". Try to inhale very, slowly and deep through the nose, and exhale slowly, at least thirty times. It is almost guaranteed you will not get to thirty, if you do it deep enough.

Perhaps the most important point to realize about insomnia is that it is not a disease, but rather a symptom. This symptom can occur with many different types of illnesses or conditions. In the majority of cases, underlying causes exist for the insomnia is physical, although in the stressful life the everyday worries may also affect the sleep.

At last, do not fight it. If you cannot feel sleepy, get out of bed, go for a walk, and eat something sweet and light .... Read a book or listen to music.

Have a Good Night.

Dr Wei

In Nature
healthcare@in-nature.com