1).General Description
Insomnia is characterized by inability to acquire nor-mal sleep, which results from the heart being deprived of nourishment or from mental disturbance. It is manifested as insufficient sleep, shallow sleep and failure to relieve fatigue and restore the physical and mental strength by sleep. Mild insomnia refers to difficulty to fall asleep, or broken sleep, or inability to resume sleep once waking up, while severe insomnia refers to inability to fall asleep the whole night.

The causes of insomnia include emotional disorder, improper diet, weak constitution after illness, infirmity of age, congenital insufficiency and timidness. It involves the heart and closely related to stagnation of liver qi, deficiency of the gallbladder, spleen and kidney and dysfunction of stomach qi. Its main pathogenesis associates with imbalance between yin and yang and disorder of qi and blood in the heart, gallbladder, spleen and kidney, resulting in the inadequate nourishment of the heart or mental disturbance.

The following description on the syndrome differentiation and treatment for insomnia can serve as reference for the diseases with insomnia as the chief symptom in Western medicine, such as neurosis, menopausal syndrome, sequela of brain concussion, hypertension, hepatopathy, hyperthyroidism, anemia, cerebral arteriosclerosis, chronic intoxication and schizophrenia in the early stage.

2).Essentials of Diagnosis

(1) Mild cases have difficulty to fall asleep, or liability to wake up, or inability to fall asleep again after waking up, for over 3 weeks. Severe cases cannot get to sleep all night.

(2) It is usually accompanied by headache, dizziness, palpitation, amnesia, lassitude, restlessness and dreamfulness.

(3) Some organic diseases with dyssomnia should be excluded by laboratory examinations.

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