Insomnia, Anxiety, and Autonomic Nervous System Symptoms

Even if your mind wants to sleep, if you are clenching your jaw and there is residual tension in your neck, shoulders, chest, solar plexus, and abdomen, your body may interpret this as a situation where it must remain awake.

At this time, in addition to difficulty falling asleep, you may also experience palpitations, sighing, a feeling of breathlessness, upper body heat, cold sweats, digestive discomfort, and morning fatigue. Soian Korean Medicine Clinic does not view insomnia and anxiety simply as issues of a sensitive personality or a lack of willpower.

During treatment, we specifically assess where the body maintains tension, whether daytime tension carries over into the night, and whether actual recovery occurs during sleep. The goal of treatment is not merely to induce temporary drowsiness, but to restore the natural flow of the body relaxing and recovering after falling asleep.

Sleep-onset insomnia, which takes a long time to fall asleep; sleep-maintenance insomnia, characterized by frequent awakenings; and early-morning awakening, where one wakes up early and cannot fall back asleep, may reflect different physical states.

For patients who clench their jaw after stress, feel a blockage in the chest and epigastrium, and cannot stop their thoughts, tension and stagnation must be resolved first. For patients who tire easily, experience palpitations, and have shallow sleep with many dreams, depleted qi and blood as well as recovery capacity must be supplemented together.

There are also cases where heat rises to the face and chest while the hands and feet feel cold, where the abdomen feels cold and digestion is weak, or where pain prevents sleep. Even when the condition is named insomnia, the treatment direction varies depending on constitution and accompanying symptoms.

Soian Korean Medicine Clinic does not prescribe based solely on sleep duration. We comprehensively assess jaw and neck-shoulder tension, rib cage movement, breathing depth, tenderness in the chest and abdomen, pulse and cold-heat patterns, digestion and bowel/bladder habits, as well as daytime fatigue and concentration.

Before and after treatment, we compare the following changes.

• Whether tension in the jaw and neck-shoulder area decreases
• Whether breathing becomes deeper and more comfortable
• Whether chest and epigastric tightness is relieved
• Whether abdominal tenderness and whole-body tension change
• Whether palpitations and anxiety subside

When the body's response changes clearly, we reflect that response in the treatment direction. The core of Soian's care is observing both the comfort felt by the patient and the changes in tension confirmed during examination.

Constitution-based acupuncture regulates whole-body tension, cold and heat, and the response of the rib cage and abdomen according to the current constitution and symptoms. If tenderness and tension in the target area are distinct, we directly treat the jaw, neck, shoulders, rib cage, and abdomen with acupoint injection.

Herbal medicine does not repeat a single prescription that merely induces sleep. We distinguish whether to release blocked tension, reduce upper heat and palpitations, or supplement digestion and qi-blood to promote deep recovery, and prescribe accordingly. If insomnia and anxiety recur and frequent visits are difficult, herbal medicine can become the center of treatment.

We apply temporomandibular joint balance therapy to patients whose bodies quickly stiffen again after general treatment and whose breathing, abdominal tension, and palpitations change together when the balance of the temporomandibular joint and upper cervical spine is adjusted. This is not a definitive claim that insomnia is directly treated from the jaw, but a treatment selected after confirming the response of the nervous system coming down from excessive tension.

For patients who have difficulty falling asleep, we assess the time it takes to fall asleep; for those who wake up frequently, we examine nighttime awakenings and the process of falling back asleep. If palpitations and a feeling of stuffiness are the main issues, we look at frequency and recovery speed; if fatigue is the main issue, we assess morning condition and the energy available during the day.

For chronic insomnia, we can also utilize the sleep rhythm principles of CBT-I and lifestyle habit correction. However, we do not emphasize lifestyle management alone to demand more effort from the patient. Sleep habits can only become stable when we treat the body's tension, constitution, digestion, and pain together.

We do not judge treatment progress by sleep duration alone. We assess whether fear of sleep has decreased, whether the body lies comfortably, whether the patient can fall back asleep after nighttime awakenings, and whether next-day daily functioning has recovered.