Obviously the risks around not getting enough sleep are serious, and so getting the proper healthcare treatment is essential. Luckily, acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) have now been treating sleep issues for tens of thousands of years. Sleep concerns which are often treated with TCM include (note that the word ‘insomnia’ could relate genuinely to several these symptoms):
In TCM, it is your Spirit (capitalized here to differentiate from other definitions), also called your Mind, or in Mandarin, your ‘Shen’, which your quality of sleep is determined by (note that this can be a simplification: other sources may distinguish involving the Spirit and the Mind as two separate entities). The organ system responsible for nourishing your Spirit is the Heart, and specifically the Yin portion (each of your 5 major organs in TCM have both a Yin and a Yang side to them). If your Heart Yin has been nourished properly your sleep is likely to be okay, but when it is deficient or agitated, you’ll have problems with sleep concerns.
Deficiencies in your Heart organ system generally result from genetic predisposition, poor diet, childbirth, and the after-effects of external pathogens. Agitating factors usually involve emotional disturbances such as stress, anger or depression, but may also involve natural 塵蟎皮膚炎 TCM elemental disturbances, such as Fire or Wind. Essentially, emotional issues as well as Fire and Wind tend to be linked to your Liver, and so Liver Yin deficiency can also affect your sleep.
Dream-disturbed sleep (i.e. dreams which are so intense or disturbing that the sleep is affected), while usually indicative of a deficiency, may sometimes be the reason for an excess as well. Like, it is said in ancient TCM texts that dreaming about flying while seeing strange objects made of gold or iron indicates a Lung deficiency (your Lungs govern your breathing and immune system). Dreaming about crying however, can mean an excess in your Lung organ system (the emotion associated together with your Lungs is sadness or grief). Incidentally, it can be believed that the sleeping position, i.e. if you prefer to sleep on your stomach, your back or one side, this may indicate a specific deficiency or excess pattern. Snoring affecting your sleep is often correlated to an excess pattern.
When pursuing acupuncture as remedy for sleep issues, it is important to find the help of someone who is a qualified TCM practitioner, as a suitable diagnosis is essential to getting adequate results. Proper diagnosis of your sleep issue will first determine whether your condition is among deficiency or excess, and furthermore what kind thereof. Like, difficulty in dropping off to sleep usually indicates one form of deficiency, whereas dropping off to sleep easily but waking up frequently during the night may indicate an alternative form of deficiency altogether. By asking several questions, taking your pulse and possibly even looking at your tongue, a TCM practitioner can diagnose you quite accurately, and therefore choose the right span of treatment specific to your needs.