“As the world becomes a more complex place to live in, insomnia ultimately becomes the inevitable product from a wide variety of sources: work-related stress, mobile screen time, psychological noise resulting from the worries of one’s responsibilities, and more. Even the physical environment that is supposed to be primed for a conducive and restful night can be polluted by noise, heat, or exacerbated by poor bedding,” commented Ms Iris Sun, from IRIS Healthcare, a health and beauty organisation.
What then can one do to quickly fall asleep in this “noise-filled” environment? To become ready to easily slumber? In this webinar held on the morning of 13 November 2021 for SUSS’s Alumni as a part of the Health Talk Series in Mandarin, Ms Sun shared about the causes of insomnia, and how the application of appropriate acupuncture points can alleviate the modern “silent plague”.
Emotional wellness comes under a much larger umbrella of mental wellness – the other aspects being social wellness and psychological wellness. Mr Ong explained the benefits that come with taking care of our emotional wellbeing. These include maintaining healthy relationships, being able to enjoy and be contented with life, and building resilience to stress. Yet, Singapore was crowned the most emotionless country in the world. This is troubling because ignoring your emotions may have repercussions, such as excessive worrying, and issues with our memory, sleeping or appetite.
While most people tend to make sleeping a focus only towards the end of the day, via psychological conditioning, or drinking a glass of warm milk right before bed, the antidote should be administered in the day, or at least during the wakeful hours. Moreover, resorting to counting sheep only adds to a wakeful night because it streamlines the brain to concentrate on the subconscious, which is a form of psychological noise that affects sleep.
According to Ms Sun, insomnia is often a result of physical conditioning, with musculature tension congesting the blood flow within the nerves. That is to say, obstructed blood circulation becomes one reason for poor sleeping habits. With psychological tension added to the equation, the stress will burden the already exhausted body.
Turning to acupuncture and traditional Chinese massage can physically ameliorate insomnia, though. A quick massage fix could release all those pent-up tensions, relaxing the body by applying pressure on acupuncture points. Hence, pressure-point massage could contribute to a restful night of sleep – easily!
Ms Sun also provided tips on applying appropriate pressure on acupuncture points. The following figure shows where one can use strong pressure upon the points to remove blockages for good blood circulation.
In addition, Ms Sun recommended priming the sleep environment with music and avoiding any mind-taxing activities that could result in more brain activities. A good herbal blend of medicative purpose, to regulate the blood flow, can also be adopted.
For me, a key takeaway was to reduce the tension by considering appropriate exercise in the day and avoid drinking wine before bed as it may affect the organs. Summarily, for one to lapse into a restful slumber is to treat your body with care. I could explore ways to adopt a better sleep pattern with meditation and drinking tea.
