Insomnia can be treated through our Acupuncture and Naturopathy clinic here on the Gold Coast. Insomnia is a sleep disorder where individuals may struggle to fall asleep, stay asleep or both. Insomnia can come in many different forms which could include difficulty falling asleep, waking up (frequently) during the night, waking up too early, not feeling well-rested, daytime tiredness, difficulty staying focused and paying attention, irritability, depression or anxiety.

Insomnia can really affect your day to day life, impacting work life, family life, social life and other commitments. In general, it often has a negative impact on your quality of life.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine insomnia is referred to as ‘Bu Mei’ and is critical to maintain the body’s Qi (pronounced “Chee”). Lack of sleep often leads the body to overproduce certain hormones and in particular stress hormones which can often make you feel irritable and aggressive.

Recent studies have proven that acupuncture is an effective treatment for insomnia. In current research, there are lots of different measures for how researchers record insomnia. Some of these include:

Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI)
Insomnia Severity Index (ISI)
Total sleep time
Sleep-onset latency
Wake after sleep onset
Sleep efficiency

In a systematic analysis published in the journal Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, the findings found that real acupuncture was superior in treating insomnia patients than sham/placebo acupuncture on all of these measurements.

Previously research has found that Acupuncture is a strong form of treatment for those suffering with insomnia, however the findings were debated over whether or not it was the placebo effect that caused improvements. This new research distinguishes that real acupuncture is a highly effective treatment method.

References –

Acupuncture and Sleep Disorders Article
Zhang, J., He, Y., Huang, X., Liu, Y. and Yu, H. (2020). The effects of acupuncture versus sham/placebo acupuncture for insomnia: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, p.101253.