Acupuncture and herbal treatments are effective for insomnia or restless sleep. Not only can acupuncture help a patient return to a more normal sleep pattern, but many patients report their quality of sleep is deeper and more restorative. Acupuncture treatments for insomnia have no side effects.

How Does Acupuncture Work with Insomnia

In Chinese Medicine, insomnia is a common symptom of other pathologies. Being unable to rest can be upsetting and frustrating, and can be a hard pattern to break. Unlike in Western medicine which uses sedative-like substances to induce a sleep-like state that many report as unrestful, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) identifies the root cause of insomnia and uses acupuncture to quiet the mind, nourish the blood, clear heat, and deliver a deep sense of rest and relaxation.

The patterns for insomnia in Chinese Medicine can be rooted in a concept called “Heat,” which means there is restlessness in the head, thoughts, and spirit. It can also be caused by disharmony or deficiency of “Blood” and “Yin”. Not enough Blood (or poor quality blood) means your Heart cannot house the “Shen” or “Spirit”, especially at night.

Acupuncture quiets the mind and helps the body's endocrine system reset a balance between the sympathetic (fight or flight) and parasympathetic (relaxed) systems. Acupuncture also slowly resets your “circles and cycles”, helping you to return to normal sleeping hours. Acupuncture points stimulate Qi in the body to flow smoothly, allowing the mind to soften. Herbs are used to build the blood, clean the blood, settle the spirit and the mind, and nourish the Heart.

Diagnosis

Because insomnia is usually a symptom of other pathologies, we will use traditional diagnostics – your tongue, your radial pulses, and your history – to assess what other organ or meridian systems are involved. Generally, we discern whether there is stagnation, fire, deficiency, or other extenuating circumstances, such as drug interactions or side effects.

Treatment Course

Gentle acupuncture needling is used to deliver you into a relaxed state. Specific points are used that have been shown to quiet the mind and induce a parasympathetic state. For mild sleeplessness, 1 to 5 treatments usually recalibrate the body back to normal.

For chronic or severe insomnia, our goal is to build normalcy consistently. Based on your sleep patterns, our first goal is to have three nights of sleep in a row. For the first two weeks, regular treatments for three days a week are encouraged to reach this goal. Thereafter, we continue with regular treatments once or twice a week, but taper their frequency to cement a pattern of restful sleep. Generally, over a three month period of regular treatment of once to twice a week (after the initial two weeks), most patients report a return to a peaceful slumber and calmer mind.

Treatment modalities include acupuncture, herbal medicines, herbal teas for nighttime consumption, and suggestions for new habits to promote sleep.

Western Medical Treatment for Insomnia

The most common Western Medical treatment for insomnia is sleeping pills. While these pills can be helpful in fighting sleeplessness, they generally do not lead to a habit of restful and restorative sleep in the long or short-term. Additionally, the side effects for Zolipiden (Ambien®), the most commonly prescribed sleeping pill, would fill this page, and include diarrhea, dizziness, daytime drowsiness, "drugged" feeling, dry mouth, headache, nausea, nose or throat irritation, sluggishness, stomach upset or in some cases hallucinations, memory loss, aggression, agitation, anxiety, depression, severe dizziness, shortness of breath suicidal thoughts or actions and vision changes. For patients who want to restore a sleep pattern, reduce dependency on sleeping pills, and avoid side effects, acupuncture can be an effective and ideal alternative.