INSOMNIA

Causes
•    a chronic, wasting disease
•    accidents involving great blood loss
•    overwork and burn-out
•    menstruation
•    labour and childbirth
•    breast-feeding (breast milk is said to be transformed blood)
•    drugs and recreational drugs such as speed or XTC
•    drying foods such as hot spices, exotic (hot) meals, red wine, coffee, etc., see Middle Age
•    drying cooking methods see Table 2: Cooking Methods, Cooling to Warming
•    excessive mental activity, especially late at night
•    foods and substances that accelerate the kidney function such as caffeine, tobacco, chocolate, black tea
•    inappropriate food patterns including eating without chewing
•    insufficient or excessive physical exercise
•    sadness
•    stress
•    the natural aging process
•    working until bed time

Chronic insomnia is usually the result of a combination of some of these factors.

What can you do to help you fall asleep?
•    Go for a course of blood nourishing herbs from a TCM practitioner.  You take these herbs for a year at the very least, and possibly for as many years as you have had insomnia.
•    Focus on cooling foods and cooking methods, especially in the evenings. Avoid warm foods and substances such as coffee, garlic, onions, lamb and hot spices. 
•    Look at Tables 4 and 5: Food Combinations and Blood Nourishing foods.  Insomnia is often caused by a blood deficiency.  Also look at Lifestyle Factors that Weaken the Spleen-Pancreas, and do not forget something as simple as chewing well and eating in a calm atmosphere.
•    Cut back on work if you are overdoing it and take the evenings off! 
•    If you lead a sedentary life, increase your exercise regime - but not right before bedtime.  On the other hand, ease up if you are exercising too much.  Insomniacs do well with a daily half-hour, fairly strenuous walk. 
•    Avoid excessive sweating.  Sweating looses moisture and is, therefore, drying.  Insomnia is often a matter of a ‘blood deficiency’, which you could see as dry blood.
•    Reach for relaxation, deep breathing and/or meditation techniques, see Appendix 7: Resources, Jon Kabat-Zinn: mindfulness and stress reducing programmes; Yoga Nidra, The Practice of Deep Relaxation with Frances Yates; and the book Curing Insomnia Naturally by Bob Flaws.
•    Drink calming herbal evening tea or plain warm water at night.  

How to reduce on sleeping tablets
•    Invest in a small CD player or a radio timer, body scan CDs and recorded books.
•    In bed, begin with a body scan, either from Jon Kabat-Zinn or Yoga Nidra.
•    If you are not asleep yet when the body scan is finished, listen to a recorded book or set the radio timer on an hour and listen to the radio.
•    If these methods help you fall asleep, begin to reduce your sleeping tablets.  You do this by breaking open the capsules and taking ¾ of the contents for 6 weeks.  If your sleeping tablet comes in the form of tablets, take ¾ of the tablet.
•    After 6 weeks, take ½ of your sleeping capsules or tablets.
•    After 6 weeks go to your doctor and ask for lighter sleeping tablets.
•    Take these for 6 weeks, then reduce as above.
•    Go back to your doctor and ask for the lightest sleeping tablets available.  These are usually in tablet form.
•    Again, begin with a whole tablet and gradually reduce as above, going for smaller and smaller amounts.
•    In the end, you might be on 1/8th of a tablet every other day.  When this works well, you eliminate them altogether.
Note that insomnia is many years in the making and it will take several years before your are completely off the sleeping tablets.  Simply endure and start over again when you hit a bad patch.  If you follow the food-, lifestyle- and bed time relaxation advice in this book, and if you take blood-nourishing herbs, you will eventually be free of them.
•    Once you are off the sleeping tablets, continue with the deep relaxation and recorded books or radio timer for as long as you need them.

Waking at night
•    Follow the deep relaxation advice above and also use the radio timer or the recorded books.  Do this every time you wake up.
•    Note that waking at night is often related to overeating in the evenings.  So, reduce your portions in the evenings.

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Author Details: Leni Hurley