Optimising Sleep
This blog post is going to teach you how optimise your sleep according to your individual chronotype from a Chinese medicine perspective.
THE 5 TYPES:
Jueyin/Shao Yang (JySY)- this person finds it hard to fall asleep because they’re tense. They hold on to past events and cannot let fo to relax. If they dream it’s often about the past.
Jueyin/Yang Ming (JyYM)- this person falls asleep, but its startled or awakened easily. They’re a light sleeper and they often require an eye mask and ear plugs to get to sleep. They often worry about future events causing them unable to sleep deeply.
Shaoyin/Shao Yang (SySY)- a) Hypersomnia. This person is always sleepy, awakes tired, hits the snooze often. Has none-regenerative sleep.
b) “Tired but wired”. This person lies down to sleep because they’re tired, but cannot sleep as they feel wired. In their dreams they may often feel powerless- for e.g they throw a punch and it doesn’t do anything.
Spleen/Heat/Shao Yang (SHSY)- This is related to the hormone cycle- can be menopause, menstrual cycle, and andropause. Often includes over-planning and thinking.
Heat- Restless sleep, toss and turn, often feel hot, sweats often, dreams nightmares.
HOW TO HELP:
The good news is, if you’re experiencing any type of sleep disharmony Chinese Medicine understands you and you’re likely to find relief through acupuncture! It can be quite common to be a mix of patterns too. This theory of knowledge is based on the Si Yuan Balance Method developed by Dr. Tan.
For all the above patterns I recommend acupuncture treatments to rectify the disharmony occurring between the channels. Inconjunction to this, below are some lifestyle suggestions to help harmonise the body and create a restful environment for sleep.
JySY Disharmony- stretch for 10 minutes before bed each night. Focus on the inner and outside areas of your leg. Some poses that do this include pigeon pose, low lunge, and forward fold. If you don’t know these google it. Mantra “I let go of the past and relax easily”, as you say this feel your shoulders relax.
JyYM Disharmony- meditate for 10 minutes before bed. Find home within yourself. Remove electronics 1 hr before bed, and have dim lighting and candles to create a relaxing atmosphere. The focus here is to minimise potential for overwhelm and decision. Mantra “I am in the right place at the right time doing the right thing”.
SySY Disharmony- Practice expansive breathing techniques where you imagine breathing in the universe, life and air deep down to your feet. Deep down into all your cells and the molecules of your being, and then breathing out and expanding that breath to reach first the opposite side of the room, then the other side of the house/town/state/country/world. Then breath the other side of the house/town/state/country/world into your cells, down your arms and legs.. repeat. Mantra “I am one with myself and the universe”.
SHSY- Write all your thoughts out on an A4 piece of paper before bed. Don’t worry about it making sense, just write everything that is on your mind. Google the practice “Morning Pages” (can also be done before bed too!). It is particularly important that this person seeks help to balance their hormonal state. Mantra “I am balanced and healed”
HEAT- Be kind to yourself. This is a stronger deficiency pattern and will require the help of a Chinese medicine practitioner to help combat. If you have nightmares focus on returning to your breath and bringing yourself back into the present moment. Massaging your feet before bed (especially with Magnesium cream) will help ground the Shen (your mind), while the magnesium can promote sleep. Mantra “I am grounded, I am Calm, I am enough”.
Hopefully you’ve found this post helpful.
The most important thing to do when you’re having trouble sleeping is to allow yourself to just rest without the pressure to need to sleep i.e stop checking the time.
If this is a chronic situation please contact a health care professional to get expert advice.