What Can TCM Treat? Insomnia

by leojmelsrub (My dog, Maggie, who easily sleeps at least 12-14 hours per day...)

A good night's sleep is a coveted time of rest and restoration. Often times you don't know how much you missed it until you start to lose it. I'm one of those people who can function on a few hours, but not very well or for very long! Sleep is the essential time where your body repairs itself and prepares you for the next day. It is vital for normal body and brain function, and just can't be replaced by caffeine, no matter how much we try.

Waking easily, not being able to fall asleep, or being a "very light sleeper" can all constitute insomnia, and Traditional Chinese Medicine has so many great remedies for it. There are several acupoints to help sleep quality and also some great herbal formulas.

The two most common formulas we use in the OCOM clinic are An Mian Pian and Suan Zao Ren Wan. While they both help with sleep problems, they are used for different diagnoses, so check in with a practitioner before trying them.

Here are a few other informative sites to check out: *Chinese Medicine News discusses research on the use of elecro-acupuncture and it's effect on insomnia. Don't worry- electroacupuncture on the scalp is actually quite comfortable!

*Eric Grey from Deepest Health has also handed down three simple tips one dealing with insomnia, not to mention a really nice herbal formula.

*Kevin Doherty, LAc, MS, wrote a good article about TCM and insomnia and suggests some great single herbs and naturopathic remedies to try.

*tcmpages.com is a site I recently stumbled across, and they also have a nice TCM breakdown of the different types of insomnia.

Hope this post finds you all sleeping well :)

Chinese Medicine Blogs

Carved Buddha leojmelsrub

I wanted to share a few sites with my favorite local and international bloggers with you this week, as there are lot of great people doing great work out there, including practitioners and students.

Yael is an LAc who writes chinesemedicinenotes.com has some great posts, including an interview with Dr. Leon Hammer, who made and interesting statement about Chinese Medicine in their interview.

• "Chinese Medicine cannot survive as a complement to Western medicine. Chinese Medicine has to be an alternative to Western Medicine. They can collaborate but not merge." -Dr. Leon Hammer

Yael also wrote a post with a list of TCM blogs to visit and note. Chinese Medicine Notes a great site with a lot of good information.

Another blogger is Eric Gray from deepesthealth.com. Eric is a student here in Portland at NCNM, and the Deepest Health blog has a lot of information on balancing your life in different ways, including the community project, "Year of Sagely Living." One of my favorite posts from Eric is "7 simple ways to be a great student AND not kill yourself during finals week."

• # 1 " Realize you can’t do it all. It’s hard, I know. This is probably the one thing I have done this term that has saved me despite some setbacks outside of my control. I want to be the best student in the universe. I want to do this while being a great father, partner, small business owner AND save the world while I’m at it."

I think this can apply to all of our lives at some point! It's just nice to see it in a blog.

Both of these fellow bloggers have a lot of important information for students, practitioners, and people who are genuinely interested learning more about Chinese Medicine. I recommend you check out their blogs as regularly as I do.