Sleep plays a vital role in our daily living. Have you ever feel waking up without energy? If yes, it’s clear that your sleep quality is not as great.
On Average, an adult needs eight hours of sleep per day. Unfortunately, 35%-45% of Canadians suffer from different degrees of insomnia, some even don’t realize that they are having insomnia.
There are different types of insomnia, such as short term insomnia which refer to temporary insomnia, and often occurs when there is a stress event, coming up exam, relationship crisis, or loss of a loved one; furthermore, there is chronic insomnia. If one has had insomnia longer than three months, we call it long-term insomnia which can be caused by mental health disorder, medication or other underlying health issues(tumor, cancer, depression etc.). Other types of insomnia can be early morning waking up insomnia(wake up early, and can not go back to sleep); sleep onset insomnia(having difficulty falling asleep); dream disturbed insomnia(constantly having dreams and waking up in the middle of the night). No matter which types of insomnia you are suffering from, poor sleep quality affects a person’s mentality, health and even lifespan. It’s never too late to start your treatment. At Pegasus Integrated health, we use alternative medicine, TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine/acupuncture) with no side effects to help you deal with your sleeping problems. Our diagnosis gives you unique approach to know how your sleep gets affected.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine model, we diagnose insomnia differently. In ancient Chinese philosophy, a healthy person consists of a balanced level of yin and yang. Yang refers to heat, energy, motivation, mobility etc, Yin refers to cold, water, preservation, sedentary etc. The pathology of insomnia is that there is too much Yang energy circulating in our body at night, and there is lack of Yin energy to constring Yang, thus our body is in a hyperactive mode during the night which leads to insomnia. We categorize insomnia from slight insomnia(deficiency type) to severe insomnia (excessive type). For example, People who have insomnia accompanied with poor appetite, bloating stomach, and belching after eating, is a deficiency type insomnia. We call it heart and spleen deficiency. It usually happen in women who is close to menopause. Another example is insomnia accompanied with constipation, bad temper, hypochondriac pain which is an excessive type of insomnia. We call it liver fire. We treat excessive types of insomnia by using acupuncture to reduce the qi, ease the stagnation. Vise versa, by treating deficiency types of insomnia, we use acupuncture to tonify the qi, and restore the original qi.
At Pegasus Integrated Health, We use a holistic approach to differentiate the patterns carefully and create an individualized treatment plan to help you to restore your sleep without side effects.
Written by
WEST GAN
B.G.S, RAc