Successful treatment of insomnia can be an elusive goal, especially in patients who have a chronic condition (more then 5 years) or in later life (after age 50). The difficult cases tend to be those based in deficiency, rather than excess. Cases of excess respond quite quickly with herbal intervention.
Modern TCM literature describes four types of insomnia[i]: “Difficult to sleep” indicates inability to fall asleep; “early awake” indicates those who fall asleep but then awake later; “light sleep” describes those unable to obtain a deep sleep, or who are disturbed by dreams or nightmares; and “awake all night”, the most serious type, indicates patients who lie awake throughout the night.
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