Whether patients come in with concerns about dream-disturbed sleep, difficulty falling asleep, waking up easily or waking up at a specific time every night, everyone hopes for the same thing: to get a good night’s sleep. At TCM Health Center our goal is to help not just in the short-term, but also in the long-term. If you suffer from insomnia or have problems with sleeping in general, you might ask how we can help.
In traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), symptoms like insomnia are considered to be the branch of an imbalance of the fundamental substances or an imbalance of the major organ systems (most commonly the heart and the liver). For example, dream-disturbed sleep is associated with a spleen/heart imbalance while difficulty falling sleep is related to an excess condition of the liver or liver and gallbladder. At TCM Health Center we approach these conditions in a holistic manner. Acupuncture, often paired with the use of Chinese herbal formulas, is used to help patients achieve the most effective and timely results. To help illustrate this form of holistic treatment, often times when patients seek treatment for back pain, headaches, stress, etc., they often report that their quality of sleep improves as a “side effect”.
A 2004 study conducted by Spence et al. examining adults with insomnia gave individuals acupuncture treatment for five weeks. The results of the acupuncture treatment were associated with an increase in melatonin secretion, total sleep time, sleep onset latency, as well as a reduction in anxiety correlating with clinical reports discussing acupuncture’s relaxant effects.
If you have any further questions about acupuncture treatment for insomnia, please feel free to give any one of our locations a call to schedule an initial consultation. We look forward to hearing from you!
“For me there was nothing worse than not getting in a good night’s sleep. But then I began to consistently have continuous nights of poor sleep the effects were instantaneous: I became moody and irritable. I could barely function in my work setting let alone with my family. I couldn’t even trust myself to drive after nearly causing more than one car accident. After a friend recommended me to seek acupuncture, I decided to try it. I came in three times a week for about a month and a half though I began to see instantaneous results after the first week. It was amazing. My sleep has never been so sound. I can’t say how thankful I am for TCM Health Center and how much they have helped me.”
“I owned an insurance company and I was reaching the point where I had to sell the company since I could only get two hours of sleep a night. My quality of life and work were completely disrupted. I had basically been in a state of irritation and fogginess for the last four years and it was finally catching up to me. I tried all the sleeping pills you could imagine but the side effects I experienced made me even more groggy. With 8 treatments I was able to sleep 4 hours. After 16 treatments I was able to hit about 6 to 7 hours. It was at that I decided to not sell my company- a decision I couldn’t have made without acupuncture.”