Mmm, a whole month dedicated to lovely sleep. It’s wonderful when you get it, but unfortunate that so many people have problems sleeping, and attempts to improve it can often be frustrating and slow to take effect. Why is this?

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, imbalances can be categorised as full or deficient conditions. Full conditions often come on quickly and generally have stronger symptoms, whereas deficient conditions tend to develop slowly over time so are generally more chronic, and often the symptoms are less intense (but no less annoying).

A simple example of a full condition affecting sleep would be disturbed sleep after an alcohol enhanced evening. You can feel hot, restless and sweaty - the alcohol creates hot and damp energy in the liver that keeps you awake. But although the symptoms come on quick, they can be cleared relatively easily. Similarly if someone has a lot of physical stress and tension stored in the body that is affecting sleep, this can be relieved quite quickly using acupuncture.

A common deficient condition that can affect sleep is when there is a deficiency in the body’s yin energy, that reservoir of cool and calm energy. Classic symptoms that would suggest yin energy is low include waking in the middle of the night, or waking feeling thirsty, or experiencing night sweats. In this case it generally takes longer to change the sleep patterns because yin deficiency often takes longer to build up and manifest.

We have made a few posts before on how to build yin energy, either through yin building activities such as acupuncture, deep breathing, yoga, tai ji or meditation, or through eating yin-building foods, or through being in a yin-nourishing environment. If you are having trouble sleeping and the usual remedies are not having an obvious effect, maybe your yin energy is what needs a boost.

Tags: insomnia, sleep, yin energy