Take a hot bath or shower, and give yourself a nightly massage on the feet with pure therapeutic grade lavender oil to
help to calm the mind and move the qi out of the head. (I stress pure lavender oil here because perfumed soaps and
lotions do not have the same medicinal properties that pure plant extracts do. Therapeutic grade oils can usually be
found at Henry’s, Whole Foods, or your local health food store. Young Living Essential Oils makes a very pure Lavender
oil which you can purchase online. Young children and folks with sensitive skin should dilute pure lavender oil with
olive oil before rubbing onto their feet.)
Avoid any caffeine, soda, green tea or chocolate after 5 pm.
Go to bed on an empty stomach!! This one is HUGE: the body’s digestive processes slow down at night, and a heavy
meal such as roast beef, gravy, french fries and cheesecake can keep your stomach busy digesting for over 8 hours. You
won't sleep as soundly during this process, and some of my patients don’t sleep at all. A low-fat meal such as fish and
veggies can be digested in a few hours, and you can facilitate this by the use of a digestive enzyme. For folks with
heartburn, hiatal hernia, or Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD), this is even more important. If scheduling is a
problem, then you might choose to make lunch your biggest meal, and eat more simply in the evenings to avoid the
“boa-constrictor-like” lump that will sit in your tummy and interfere with sleeping.
For my patients with nocturia (frequent urination at night) it is often helpful to avoid beverages after 7 PM. until we
strengthen the bladder and kidneys.
Gentle, slow moving hatha yoga or qi gong can help relax the body and calm restless mental chatter. Be careful to
maintain slow ground postures which do not induce sweat or strain. The focus should be to clear the mind and relax
the body rather than a work out or strengthening.
Go to bed a little earlier to take advantage of the Yin energy available before midnight.
Remember that we described yin as cooling, night, inert, and in TCM theory, sleep is described as falling into “the
envelope of yin,” which is at its peak before midnight. The most beneficial sleep is, in fact, that which is achieved
before midnight, with every hour before worth 2 of the hours afterwards. Whether that is literally the case remains to
be seen, but it is generally harder for the body to slip into that “cool mantle of yin” after 12 AM.
If you take all these steps and still do not have restful sleep, accept the fact that you may need to get some outside
help to restore the body’s sleep cycle. For patients with chronic disease and pain, this is even more important.
Acupuncture and oriental medicine can be extremely helpful for treating many types of insomnia, and you may want to
start there.
Remember that chronic insomnia disrupts many areas of the body’s chemistry, so it will take time and patience to see
results, sometimes several months. Don’t stop treatment before the miracle happens… most of my regular senior
patients now sleep better than I do.
This allows me to segue neatly into our next section called…Bodywork.
References
1. Plat, L., Leproult, R., L'Hermite-Baleriaux, M., Fery, F., Mockel, J., Polonsky, K.S., & Van Cauter, E. (1999). Metabolic
effects of short-term elevations of plasma cortisol are more pronounced in the evening than in the morning. Journal of
Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 84, 3082-3092, ( http://www.endocrinology.uchicago.
edu/facultypages/fac_cauter.html)
2. Spiegel, K., Leproult, R., & Van Cauter, E. (1999). Impact of sleep debt on metabolic and endocrine function. Lancet,
354, 1435-1439
3. Van Cauter, E., Leproult, R., & Plat, L. (2000). Age-related changes in slow wave sleep and REM sleep and relationship
with growth hormone and cortisol levels in healthy men. Journal of the American Medical Association, 284, 861-868.
4. Redwine, Laur, Richard L. Hauger, J. Christian Gillin and Michael Irwin. Effects of Sleep and Sleep Deprivation on
Interleukin-6, Growth Hormone, Cortisol, and Melatonin Levels in Humans The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology &
Metabolism Vol. 85, No. 10 3597-3603 (http://www.jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/full/85/10/3597)
5. Pathophysiology of the Endocrine Sysytem (http://www.arbl.cvmbs.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/endocrine/
Wholistic Acupuncture facelifts!
Incredible before and after
photos.
Fertility and Acupuncture
How acupuncture and Oriental
medicine can help you conceive
naturally.
medicine, but will interest his patients in
the care of the human body, in diet, and in
the cause and prevention of disease."
Thomas Edison
