Chinese medicine does not stress diagnosis as much as pattern differentiation. Pattern differentiation is similar to syndromes in modern medicine. One syndrome could have different symptoms. In the same way, pattern differentiation can have different complaints. Fatigue, insomnia, stress, and being easily distracted can show up in one pattern differentiation; they are connected. On the other hand, they could be isolated individual problems with different pattern differentiation. Insomnia could be associated with a stomach problem, meaning if you eat too much or if you have food poisoning, etc. then you could have insomnia. Or if something bothers you too much, say having a relationship problem, that will make you sleepless for a while.
Stomach Related Insomnia
For stomach related insomnia, you may also experience stomachaches, appetite problems, bowel movement problems, etc. When people suffer from this type of insomnia, they don’t realize that the main problem is the stomach. As soon as the stomach problem is resolved, insomnia will be resolved too. For insomnia due to serious emotional reasons, you need to deal with those emotional problems. Of course, there are many types of insomnia. The difficult one is one that is unexplained. It could be more or less associated with psychological issues. We also associate insomnia with other different organs. It could be associated with the heart, spleen, liver, etc. The names of the organs here that we mentioned are in Traditional Chinese Medicine’s conceptual idea, not modern Western medicine’s conceptual idea. That means that some patients with insomnia have to be treated by regulating the other organs’ functions (as in TCM). There are also many specific Chinese herbal formulas and acupuncture points that are very good for insomnia, depending on specific differentiation.
The basics of treating fatigue are like treating insomnia but there are some unique parts to it, which are the physical factors also involved. Physical fatigue, mental fatigue, and unexplained fatigue such as CFS are the 3 main branches of this problem. In either case, lifestyle and diet changes play a large role in the treatment for good results besides Chinese herbs and acupuncture.