Issue link: https://www.balharbourdigital.com/i/468853
ou know the saying, "You snooze, you lose?" Nothing could be further from the truth. That Type A co-worker bragging about getting by with little or no sleep could be setting himself up as a prime candidate for a variety of ailments later in life, including diabetes, obesity, depression and a host of cardiovascular issues. That's not all; according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), "Insufficient sleep is responsible for motor-vehicle and machinery-related crashes... Drowsy driving can be as dangerous—and preventable—as driving while intoxicated." While the CDC recommends adults get seven to eight hours of sleep each night, many do not, with as many as 40 percent of Americans reporting some type of insomnia, including the inability to fall asleep or to stay asleep. Thankfully, there are alternatives to cure insomnia—other than the quick fix pills that flood the marketplace—without the side effects. When jewelry designer Alexis Bittar found himself waking up at 3:30 a.m. night after night, he turned not to pills, but to acupuncture. "After my first session, I went home and slept for 12 hours," he recalls. "It helped put me on more of a sleep schedule. Without a doubt, it was beneficial." Unlike pills, which mask the symptoms but don't necessarily cure insomnia, traditional Chinese medicine treats the root of the problem. A first visit with a practitioner will include answering a host of questions about your physical and, often, mental state. The practitioner might also check your pulse on both wrists, as well as examine your tongue and identify key trigger points in your musculature as part of the information gathering process. From there, he or she will determine how to proceed. "Many people come in, not necessarily with specific insomnia issues, but with issues that are linked to it in some way," explains Randolph Ask, a Taoist medicine acupuncturist whose clients have included a number of Broadway stars, including Matthew Broderick. "From a Chinese medicine perspective, I look at whether a person has trouble falling asleep, staying asleep or are dream disturbed. There are different ways of looking at insomnia; we look at it as a deeper disturbance of a relationship with themselves." "The good thing about Chinese medicine is that we diagnose by the constellation of symptoms a patient presents us with—that's called a pattern of disharmony," explains Adele Reising, who has treated Julian Schnabel and Gwyneth Paltrow in her New York City practice. "There are five or six different types of insomnia, and the practitioner will ask questions to figure out which pattern you fit into." Circadian rhythms also provide clues. If a patient is waking up at a specific time every night, there are often corresponding physical and emotional symptoms. Within Chinese medicine, each two-hour period in the day corresponds to a specific organ meridian (i.e., the liver, lungs, large intestines, stomach or gallbladder). But practitioners are quick to point out that just because you wake up repeatedly between 1 and 3 a.m., which corresponds to the liver meridian, it doesn't mean something is wrong with your liver. "While that can be part of it, we're not looking at the organ, we are looking at what that channel represents," explains Ask. "Liver issues often correspond with inflammation and "itis" issues—bursitis, tendonitis—and also repressed anger issues." "When we say there's a 'kidney yin deficiency,' sometimes it just means you're stressed out and producing too much cortisol and adrenalin; you're waking up with panic attacks, you can't sleep. It doesn't mean there's actually something wrong with your kidneys," adds Reising. 118 BAL HARBOUR There's a growing number of people turning to acupuncture to treat insomnia. With 40 percent of Americans being effected by this ailment, Rima Suqi set out to see if this could be the cure we've been waiting for. PINS AND NEEDLES Y