Insomnia

Sleep is one of the most important things we need for basic life. Our bodies need that time to recover from the day and recharge our brain. A healthy night's sleep also benefits our mental health as well as our physical health. A couple of bad nights of sleep does not impact us too much however, when it becomes a more frequent disturbance, this is when we call it insomnia. 1 in 10 people suffer from chronic insomnia and 1 in 3 people have brief experiences of sleeplessness. In Chinese Medicine, we put a lot of emphasis on sleep, the quality of sleep, how easy it is for us to fall asleep and how well we stay asleep.

Insomnia can affect anyone at any time of their life. There are studies linking insomnia to your genetics and can often come from your family history. It is more likely to affect females and can be a precursor to alcohol abuse, depression, anxiety and migraines. Medication can help you get to sleep in the short term, however, it is not a cure for insomnia and can be accompanied by some other side effects.

In Chinese Medicine, there are two main organs that influence sleep. The spleen and the heart. The heart controls the mind and the thoughts, it is in control of settling down when we have too many thoughts and can not calm our mind to get off to sleep and our spleen is known as the governor of sleep. Our spleens, when functioning properly, keep us asleep until we are refreshed. If we take care of our spleens and our heart from a TCM point of view, our sleep will not be disturbed.

By improving our sleep hygiene we can help improve our sleep without any need for treatment or medication. Sleep hygiene is similar to our body hygiene, we clean our bodies, wash our hands frequently, brush our teeth, and so on and so forth. If we think about sleep in this way, we look at what time we are going to bed, what we are doing before we go to sleep, how we sleep, and the environment we sleep in. Most of these techniques have been talked about for many years now and have proven to be quite beneficial.

Controlling the amount of blue light we receive at night time. Blue light is emitted by our devices and is influential at producing the hormone that keeps us awake. If we turn off our phones and TV an hour before going to bed, this can help tell our brain it is time for sleep and start producing the correct hormones to start the process.

Keeping a sleep diary. Tracking how well you’re sleeping and what is influencing your sleep may just be able to be able to pinpoint where the issue is and rectify that. Writing down what time you are going to sleep, if you were kept up by your phone or device, how long you think it took you to get to sleep, how often you woke up during the night and how you are feeling in the morning are all good places to start.

The temperature in the room. What the temperature is in the room can have a huge impact on how well you sleep. 15.6 to 19.4 degrees Celsius is the perfect room temperature to sleep in. Our bodies' genetic make up has been functioning for thousands of years and if we can find the perfect environment for it to strive in, we can provide the best results.

Incorporating acupuncture and herbal medicine into your daily life can also help regulate your hormones and improve your sleep hygiene to provide you with better sleep, which results in a better lifestyle because you feel more refreshed and happier.

• Dr. Nicholas Watson.