Chinese Medicine

Herbal remedy for insomnia is not a new idea. However, according to the feedback from a lot of insomnia patients, the effects of insomnia herbs seemed not so satisfactory. So what happened to the natural remedies for insomnia? Or is it the problem of herbal insomnia remedy itself or other reasons?

Causes of insomnia

Insomnia is a kind of sleep disorder, the main symptoms of which is an inability to sleep or chronic sleeplessness. This kind of disturbance of the normal sleep pattern is widely believed closed associated with mood disorders such as anxiety and depression. Therefore, to some extent, many people believes that remedy for insomnia is the remedy for anxiety as well.

It also makes sense from the point of view of Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Chinese medicine believes that insomnia is related to several internal organs like heart, liver, spleen, lung and kidney etc. However, the direct cause is the heart and the calmness of the heart spirit. Shen, or spirit, inhabits in the heart. If heart spirit is in peace, people can sleep well. If the heart spirit is disturbed, people will suffer from insomnia.

No matter disorder from heart channel itself, or from liver channel, spleen channel and stomach channel, they all can affect heart spirit, thus cause insomnia. Among all those causes of insomnia, the most common causes are from anxiety, overwork and deficiency of both heart and spleen due to injuries to heart and spleen.

Herbal treatment for insomnia and Suan Zao Ren Tang

In my practice, Suan Zao Ren Tang is a formula I use very often for insomnia treatments. Suan Zao Ren (Sour Jujube Seed) is the kernel of a small red date that grows wild in remote areas of northern China. It is an extremely effective sleep inducer, which is used in many natural sleep remedy formulas to deal with insomnia caused by stress and anxiety in ancient China. Comparing with antidepressants and sedatives, herbal insomnia remedies have no side effect of addiction and light-headed caused by sleeping pills. What’s more, insomnia herbs can regulate your body imbalance to eliminate the conditions from the root.

Suan Zao Ren Tang – Jin gui yao lue

OK, let’s take a look at what herbs are included in this famous natural insomnia formula?

Ingredient
Suan Zao Ren (semen zizyphi spinosae)…15~30g
Fu Ling (sclerotium poriae cocos)…10~20g
Zhi Mu (radix anemarrhenae asphodeloidis)…6~12g
Chuan Xiong (radix lifustici chuanxiong)…6~12g
Gan Cao (radix glycyrrhizae uralensis)…3~6g

Applications
-nourish heart yin, tonify liver blood, calm down spirit
-irritability, insomnia, palpitations, anxiety due to deficiency
-prevents abnormal sweating

Use herbal remedy for insomnia based on TCM theory

Now we have to go back to our questions raised in the first paragraph of this article. As we know that all those natural remedies for insomnia were not invented suddenly. They were found through all those years’ error and trial. The same is true to the theory of Traditional Chinese medicine. Simply, when using herbs for insomnia, the foremost rule is that you have to stick to guide of this theory. Or it seldom works.

As the most famous herbal remedy for insomnia, Suan Zao Ren Tang works well not only for insomnia, but also excessive sleeping symptoms. But once again, please always keep it on mind that these herbal insomnia remedies should be used only based on Traditional Chinese Medicine theory. This herbal remedy can not treat all conditions and symptoms of insomnia. It is not an all-heal medicine at all. This natural cure for insomnia of Suan Zao Ren Tang works only in the scale of diagnosis for deficiency of liver yin, especially signs and symptoms like lean, squamous and dry skin, pale lip and weary easily etc.