Sitting here up after tossing and turning for an hour, I find that I have a fair degree of clarity concerning a topic on many people’s minds – sleep. Or, more properly, the lack of it. Insomnia, anyone? Insomnia and other sleep disorders are a growing problem, particularly in Western nations. Because insomnia makes me rather negative – I’ll point out seven things that people do wrong to keep themselves awake and indicate what Chinese medicine has to say about them.
1. Work too late: Trust me on this one, it’s my specialty. Work, especially knowledge work, burns blood. Blood is necessary to house the Shen. This will be a repetitive theme in this post. You may not understand what Blood or Shen are – I will surely blog about them sometime in the near future. To keep it simple, let’s say that Blood is the heavier, more Yin sister to Qi. It’s a nourishing fluid in your body and the concept is closely associated with what Western medicine talks about when they talk about blood. Shen is, roughly, the Spirit. But it’s a nuanced concept – it includes Western ideas about Mind, consciousness, soul and purpose. The “big fish” with sleeping is that your Shen, which is awake when you are and interacting with the world, needs to nestle into something cool and protecting while you’re asleep. That’s where Blood comes in. If your blood is damaged by overwork or is otherwise compromised, you won’t sleep well – if at all.
Solution: Set a bed time and promise yourself to stop any work at least an hour before that time. Your work can wait.
2. Eat too late: In this situation, it is as if you’ve got construction going on next to your bedroom. Your Shen is trying to get some rest after a long day of work but the Stomach (adjacent to the Heart) is busy grinding away, doing its work, making a racket and generally making it impossible for anyone to settle down.
Solution: Eat earlier. If you must eat late, eat a simple nourishing meal and eat until you’re only about 3/4 full.
3. Think too much/worry: A leading cause of sleeping problems. This activity can be harmful whether you do it during the day, right before you go to sleep, or as you try to fall asleep. Aside from burning up your blood (see #1) you’re also agitating your Heart and impacting the movement of Heart Qi. This poor movement can result in stagnation Heat or a number of other scenarios that have one end result: difficulty sleeping.
Solution: This is going to require a general lifestyle change – moving away from thinking/worrying so much in general. But in an acute situation, knowing that you need to change your lifestyle isn’t going to help. Instead, sit up in bed – relax your muscles – and breathe deeply into your belly. Let your belly expand completely as you fill your lungs with air, but try not to strain too much. Then let it relax. Do this while focusing on a space maybe 3-5 inches into your abdomen, below your bellybutton an inch or two. Do a cycle of ten breaths then let yourself breathe normally for ten breaths and repeat. Think as little as possible while you do this. This almost always puts me to sleep if I let it.
4. Sleep in uncomfortable situations, especially in the heat: If you are uncomfortable, you can’t sleep. What about your sleeping situation isn’t working for you? Maybe you need a new pillow? A firmer or softer mattress? Windows open or closed? Some white noise? Darker curtains? This isn’t so much a Chinese medicine issue, but it is common sense. You could do some evaluation of your space using Feng Shui principles, but as I don’t know much about it – I’ll stick with the common sense approach.
Solution: Lie quietly in your sleeping space and try to figure out what is distracting you from what you need – calm, uninterrupted shut-eye. Mentally resolve to fix the situation as soon as possible and use one of the techniques listed here to get you to sleep for now. Sometimes just figuring out what’s bothering you is enough to render it impotent.
5. Eat poorly: If you’re not eating plenty of whole foods, providing your body with the nutrition it needs to have good Qi and Blood you will not be able to do much of anything, including sleep. In particular, the big blood building foods: dark, leafy greens, seaweeds, some meats, whole grains, will assist in creating a rich and thick blood-filled space that your Shen will be more than happy to hang out in. As unappetizing as that just sounded, it works.
Solution: Eat your spinach. Really! Any of the foods listed above will be helpful. Avoid the usual suspects – refined carbohydrates, overly sweet foods, etc…
6. Neglect cultivation/practice: Whatever it is that you do to soothe your soul, if you don’t do it on a regular basis your soul will fail to be soothed. Make sense? Maybe you do yoga, or nightly walks, or play with your dog, or go to church, or all of these. Maybe you have an extremely eclectic practice involving howling at the moon and eating yogurt with a fork. Chances are, if you are having sleeping problems you have been neglecting the things that make you feel the most complete. Even if your favored activities don’t seem to be “cultivation” or “spiritual practice” in the way the media defines those terms, if they bring you a sense of peace and joy, if they don’t violate any of the other rules on this page – they’re cultivation for you.
Solution: Whatever it is that you have found that gives you that feeling of well-being and connectedness, you need to do it regularly. It may seem unrelated to your sleeping patterns, but I guarantee you if you do your practice on a regular basis, so long as there is no other major deficiency in your life routine, you will sleep.
7. Drink caffeine/alcohol in large amounts: We know why these interrupt sleep from a Western perspective – but what about the Chinese medicine perspective? These substances are almost invariably hot in nature. What this means is that they introduce heat into the body, which can accumulate easily in organs susceptible to heat-borne insult. The Liver and Heart are both easily irritated by heat. The Heart, via its association with the Shen and the Liver, via its association with the Hun spirits, are both important in healthy sleep. We’ve already briefly discussed Shen. The Hun spirits are sometimes associated with the human subconscious, and they are responsible for our dreaming life. If your Liver or Heart (whether via Blood or through direct insult) are damaged by heat, the Hun and Shen will fail to rest – possibly causing insomnia.
Solution: Drink these things in moderation, or not at all if you tend towards heat conditions. You could also try to keep balance by being sure to take plenty of cooling food and drink throughout your day – though I haven’t had much luck with this strategy.
What has helped you to get to sleep? Leave your ideas in the comments.
Eric Grey
Tags: insomnia, Home remedies, Theory
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
I suffer from insomnia, so I was interested in this list.
I was doing really well up till number five. My food selection is very poor. I’ve just become aware of this, even though I’ve had my suspicions for a long time.
And caffeine, I know I drink too much. I just recently enacted a rule that says I can’t drink caffeine after lunch. So far it seems to be having the right effect, and sleep has come a little quicker.
Great list of surefire ways to get insomnia. Stress is the killer for me and it’s easier to talk about getting rid of it than it actually is.
Josh West
Insomnia is such a debilitating disease. I suffered from it for 20 years. I finally beat it though without the help of my doctor who just kept feeding me pills.
Bill Hillside
And how in the world do you “not think so much”?
I am continuously told this by my TCM practicioners and it just doesn’t make any sense to me. Any further insight? Thanks
Hey Holly,
In the end, that road is different for everyone. However, I’ve found a few things to be helpful. First among them is a solid spiritual practice in any tradition. All of those have time for reflection and relaxation of the mind, whether through prayer, meditation, or repetitive action (or all three!). I also take walks sometimes and do my best to really just pay attention to what’s going on around me. I see how many kinds of trees I can find, or how many birds. I don’t think about what it means and I don’t let my mind stray, I just observe color and motion and the feeling of the air on my skin. I also give myself a break sometime in the week where I simply do not deal with anything heavy, difficult, or mentally strenuous. It’s very hard to do this, but rewarding.
I think, probably, meditation is the strongest way to teach yourself to stop thinking. It’s a valuable skill and it’s not that difficult to master the basics.
Good luck!
e
Point 3 is my main problem. Sometimes I find myself avoiding to go to bed just because I don’t want to start ‘thinking/analyzing’ – and end up just going to sleep only when I feel that I can’t go on anymore. Taht’s not healthy, I know – and it’s a very difficult pattern to change.
Hi, I’m particularly interested in the way holistic healing methods and ancient wisdom can relate to modern knowledge about the human body and I’d like to add in my two bits, I’ve also suffered from insomnia since I was a child and have found many coping methods. I think the working late and eating late ones are really the most important parts here, but on the flip side I think its almost more important to start working and eating early, but all of these just really mess up your body’s clock. A lot of people I know, with less healthy lifestyles that complain about poor sleep, do two things, they don’t have breakfast, or if they do its usually all liquid (coffee, water, milk) which basically lets them stay half asleep for the first half of the day, which prevents their clock from deciding its fully in awake mode. A study by harvard recently showed evidence that suggested how important what times you eat are to your circadian rhythm. The second unhealthy habit I see in lots of people I know with sleeping problems has to do with working too late, but that should be extended beyond just working to anything intellectually stimulating, these people will stay up late on the computer, watching TV, even though often they think what they are doing is relaxing it is keeping their brain stimulated, try to avoid anything even remotely intellectually stimulating for at least an hour before bed.
Oh, I meant to put this in my last post, here’s a link about that harvard med school study:
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2252042720080522?sp=true
Corey,
Great comment! I agree that those two elements are often a big part of what prevents people from getting a good night’s sleep. Now the question is how do we help people understand this and work within the natural limits to achieve better sleep… it’s a tough road… Thanks for the link to the Harvard study!
Eric
It was interesting to see the common causes of insomnia explained from a Chinese medicine perspective. Thank you for informing me!
I have also found that if you exercise too late at night then it is difficult to get to sleep as endorphins are still circulating in your body. Therefore, it is probably best to exercise in the morning in order to wake up your body so you are feeling refreshed for the rest of the day.
For me,alcohol is the worst thing to take if trying to get a sound sleep.It knocks you out for a while but you end up waking at 2 or 3 in the morning unable to fall back to sleep.Yes,i’ve read that exercise prior to bed time is a definite no-no.
I try to make it a habit to go to bed at 10:00 AM before that second wind hits around 10:30.
Has anyone heard that certain foods are ok to eat before going to bed, like broccoli? I find it difficult to sleep if I’m very hungry, but I don’t want to be full either.
I also avoid caffeine and stimulants.
I’m a bit of an insomniac so I went through your list with a fine comb. Thank you for sharing ‘coz I learned a lot. Next time, I won’t drink hot milk or hot chocolate before bedtime. It’s just a myth. Drinking a glass of milk at night will help you sleep well. Maybe, it’s a glass of cold milk. Hmm, I think I’ll try that tonight. I wouldn’t know how to stop worrying–yet. Before I read this blog, I tried covering my eyes with a dark cloth to help induce sleep. It helps sometimes when I’m not too tired. :)
Point 1 is one of my major issues as well. But I can’t stop myself from working long hours. That one is a really though one to beat…
One of my brothers has been suffering from a lack of sleep ever since he was fired from his job. But after reading your list above I was able to suggest a number of improvements he could make to help hiom sleep better. And in particular he has adopted the breathing exercises and cut down on caffeine which he was drinking way to much of since losing his job.
And how in the world do you “not think so much”?
It takes a good deal of practice to quiet the mind. In fact, there is no EFFORT that can bring inner silence. It’s about relaxing and detaching from the constant thought machine that runs on in our heads. I’ve heard so many people say, “I’ve tried meditation but I just can’t do it.” They are the people who need it the most. Our society teaches us to have a running commentary and it’s only when we try to allow silence that we discover just how noisy it is inside.
These are great suggestions. Some of them are mainstream and others were new to me. Some of the patients I work with at the specific chiropractic center suffer from insomnia and we suggest to get their nervous systems working at an optimal rate and lifestyle changes…I am going to add meditation and not working late to the list.
Thanks for the suggestions – I have tried all of the above and still find myself waking thru the night! It is driving me and my family insane – has anyone actually tried accupuncture for insomnia?