For the current #naturalmedicine contest, I share my favourite and most accessible natural medicine: sleep. In ancient China, physicians saw this as the most important medicine to preventing illness and promoting longevity. And it looks like modern medicine is agreeing with this notion nowadays.
Photo by Kinga Cichewicz on Unsplash
Background
In 1973 a Han Dynasty tomb was unearthed in Hunan Province, China. It belonged to a local Marquis and his wife and son. Within Tomb 3 were found a number of important silk scrolls which covered a variety of topics, including calendrical astrology, philosophy, history, and medicine.
One of the medical texts is titled Ten Questions and is constructed as a dialogue, following the same narrative format as the foundational medical text from this period, the 黃帝内經 Huáng Dì Nèi Jīng - Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic [of Medicine].
For the purposes of this article, I will be referring to the translation by Thomas Cleary, from his book Sex, Health, and Long Life
I'm gonna go to sleep
Let this wash all over me
— Radiohead
"Sleeping is first and foremost"
The 9th chapter is a dialogue between Wen Zhi who we are told is a sage "versed in the Tao", and King Wei of the state of Qi. The king states he is busy being the king to have a lengthy conversation, but enquires about what are the essentials of "the Way (Tao) in regards to good health and longevity. Wen Zhi gives him a number of pointers around diet, and also goes on to explain the importance os sleeping as "first and foremost".
The sage explains it (Cleary 2003: 426):
Sleep is not only a human activity. All birds, reptiles, fish, amphibians, and insects need food in order to live, and food needs sleep to work. Sleep enables food to be digested and dispenses medicine to circulate through the body.
Sleep is to food as fire is to gold. Therefore, if you do not sleep for one night, you will not recover for a hundred days. If food is not digested, it will be like having a ball in your gut. This produces listlessness and constipation, degeneration and debility. Therefore Taoists respect sleep.
Early chinese medical texts emphasise the importance of a moderate, balanced diet of quality nutritional foods and drinks, and even throughout this text mention is made explicitly of certain foods, and the best times and seasons to eat them.
With this text, and others from around this period, the importance of allowing the body to rest was the yin, interdependent on the yang of appropriate physical activity such as work and exercise.
It seems clear that sleeping was understood to be important for much deep physiological processes.
Please, don't wake me, no, don't shake me
Leave me where I am, I'm only sleeping
— The Beatles
Modern understanding
Modern research confirms the importance of sleep on the digestive system. It plays a role in the regulation of your appetite: ghrelin is the hormone released that tells you you’re hungry, and increases on lack of sleep. On the other hand, when you’re well rested, leptin is released to tell you that you are full.
However sleep also plays a role in the immune system, and inflammation linked to certain GIT disorders. Here is an overview of some of what scientific research has shown us:
Sleep, immunity and inflammation in gastrointestinal disorders
The quality of your sleep has also been shown to have effects on many other aspects of health and physiological functioning, such as the nervous system and cognitive functioning, and the repair of heart and blood vessels. Sleep disorders are now understood to be linked to increased risks of heart and kidney diseases, hypertension, diabetes, strokes, and obesity.
Sleep Deprivation and Deficiency
Sleep will not come to this tired body now
Peace will not come to this lonely heart
— Smashing Pumpkins
Case Study: Monica
Many years ago, Monica was referred to me by someone who knew me. She had been suffering from incessant headaches for six months with no reprieve. Medications and pain-killers were bringing no relief whatsoever. She was not 'into' natural medicines and had never tried acupuncture or herbal medicine before, and always turned to modern, western medicine when she was ill. But with no success so far, she figured she had nothing else to lose.
I treated her using standard, text-book TCM approaches: pain is a blockage of Qi, so use powerful, "invigorating" herbs to punch through the blockage. She got some relief for the rest of that day, but when I checked on her a couple of days later, nothing had changed significantly.
As per my policy, I saw her immediately for no charge. I decided to take a different approach for her herbs, and instead of using invigorating herbs, I decided instead to tackle her "Blood/Yin depletion". She had a better result and had a day or two of reduced headache, nothing more.
I saw her the next week and knew that treating the 'depletion' was the better approach than attacking pain. But I still wasn't satisfied with the result - the herbs should have worked better than they had.
It was in that session that she revealed that she was unable to sleep or eat anything. Instantly I realised this was the problem. So my approach changed to helping her get to sleep and increasing her appetite.
I gave her a herbal formula that would essentially help her get to sleep and bring back some appetite, and told she needed to eat something, no matter how small.
She came back the following week and reported she'd had her first headache-free period of time. The night after our previous session, the herbs had knocked her out and she had the most restful sleep in months. Waking up the next morning, she realised the headache was gone, and she had a very slight twinge of appetite, so she ate an apple. Things continued from day to day, and although the headaches returned by the end of the day, not as bad, and were gone again by the time she woke up. Each day, this improved until after a few weeks she was regularly and consistently sleeping soundly, and managing to eat small meals throughout the day.
This was the first time I realised how important sleeping is to good health. And that sometimes, medicine just is not the answer (pharmaceutical or natural).
Sleep is something that is completely in our control - we don't need to buy it or bring it from elsewhere. But it can elude us very easily, especially in a modern society that rewards and emphasises the hustle-and-bustle (yang).
Sleepy-time substances
If you're having trouble getting to sleep, there are many herbs that have a sedating effect; I'm sure many of the writers in the #naturalmedicine community on Steem have and will continue to share their knowledge of such herbs.
There are two herbs which are my go-to for such things.
Albizia julibrissin - Persian Silk-Tree Flower
This is probably harder to find, but you may well be able to source it from Chinese grocers and herbalists. I know that it can be found growing wild in some places in the USA and other parts of the world.
I simply use a teaspoon with some boiling water to make a pleasant tea, with a teaspoon of honey. Guaranteed to knock you out, so drink it at bedtime.
The other is a bit more common.
You can find these in herbal stores, and also can be drank as a tea. These flowers are potent, its mostly the sticky resin on the flowers that send you to sleep, so the fresher they are, the more potent they are.
Of course, Hops are also one of the main ingredients in beer, giving it the distinct bitter taste. So one of the easiest ways to use Hops to get to sleep is to drink beer!
But not any old beer. Most brews from big commercial breweries are rubbish. In order to get the sedative effects fro beer, look for a decent craft-brewed India Pale Ale (IPA) or Extra Special Bitter (ESB), or even an authentic Czech Pilsner. The key is to look for a beer with a very high IBU (International Bitterness Unit) - 40 or above is good, anything over 80 will guarantee one full drink will probably knock you out.
But be careful with Hops, as if you have too much, you can wake feeling a bit woolly-headed - this is where the term "groggy" comes from, as it the Alpha Acids in the Hops which can create this feeling the following day.
So sleeping is probably the best and most important 'natural' remedy that we all have access to. Sometimes, there are issues that get in the way of having good quality sleep, but we would best serve ourselves and our continued good health by ensuring we make this vital part of physiological process a priority in our lives.
Good night, y'all!
😊🙏🏽☯️
MADE FOR STEEMIT
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