Why can’t I sleep well?

Insomnia is one of the common clinical conditions. Although it is not a critical illness, it often interferes with people's normal life, work, study, and health, and can aggravate or induce symptoms such as palpitations, chest pain, dizziness, and headaches.

Mainly manifested as insufficient sleep time and depth, inability to eliminate fatigue, and restore physical strength and energy. Mild cases have difficulty falling asleep, or sleep is not deep, with intermittent sleep and wakefulness, or inability to fall back asleep after waking up; severe cases involve sleeplessness throughout the night.

Traditional Chinese medicine believes that insomnia is mainly related to the following causes:

1. Emotional injury or frustration leads to liver qi stagnation, liver qi turning into fire, the pathogenic fire disturbing the mind, causing restlessness and insomnia. 

2. Irregular diet damages the spleen and stomach, causing food stagnation and obstruction in the middle, leading to disharmony of stomach qi, with yang qi floating outward, resulting in restless sleep.

3. After illness, in old age with chronic blood deficiency, postpartum hemorrhage, and reduced blood in old age, leading to insufficient heart blood, the heart is not nourished, causing restlessness and insomnia.

4. Insufficient endowment, timidity and cowardice, inherent excess of yin in the body, combined with excessive sexual labor, leading to depletion of kidney yin, unable to nourish the heart, imbalance of water and fire, with heart fire being excessively active; or deficiency of liver and kidney yin, with relatively excessive liver yang, abundant fire causing restlessness, resulting in disharmony between heart and kidney and disturbed mental state.

【If you want to know more, please consult our Chinese medicine team】