Insomnia, Blue Light and the Yin of the Yin

This article in Psychology Today entitled "Blue Light and Sleepless Nights" (Insomnia is no match for the sun) by Sarah Korones reinforces a classic teaching in Chinese Medicine. The balance of Yin and Yang. We are in deepest winter, or the Yin of the Yin when it comes to seasons. So to provide balance, we need to receive the Yang of the Yang. The Yang is the day, and when the sun is at its peak, that is the Yang of the Yang. So for better sleep, it is important to get out in the sun, if possible, at midday for maximum benefit. This applies the whole year, but now it's especially important to be mindful since daylight is more limited, so you have to plan. This same principle pertains to people with S.A.D. (Seasonal Depressive Disorder) also. They need to get out in the middle of the day and take in those light rays.This article spells out the science behind this yin and yang balance. Nice.

Insomnia-a common and difficult-to-treat condition-is estimated to cost the American economy $63.2 billion each year in lost productivity. A new body of research suggests that a cure might be as simple as soaking up some sun.
Blue light, a part of the visitble spectrum in solar rays, keeps us perky during th day, by suppresing the release of melatonin, the hormone that causes sleepiness. But when we spend our time cooped up indoors, our eyes fail to take in the proper amount of light, and we never get an internal signal to sleep at night.
"If you don't have a change in melatonin levels during the wr hours of the day, your body doesn't know when to rest and when to stay awake,.."

Suggestions include
-Take your lunch outside or walk to sowrk, when the sun is at its brightes
-Read a book before bedrtime rather than watching TV. The light might turn off your melatonin and impede sleep.
-Take off your sunglasses, at least for awhile during the day to get that blue light

Insomnia in Menopausal Women Treated with Auricular Acupuncture:HRV correlation

(Warning, this post is only for those interested in the tiny niche of acupuncture and HRV.)
Gotta love this study since it correlates HRV with treatment outcomes. Yay! Though there has been quite a bit of research on HRV and acupuncture, there has been precious little looking at whether HRV response correlates with clinical outcomes. In this study they found nLF to go down and nHF to go up in patients who had effective treatment (i.e. less insomnia) and for nLF to go up in the nonresponders. Progress! Some researchers insist that one needs to look only at non-normalized values and that HF is more predictive than LF, but we'll take what we can get.

Menopause. 2011 Jun;18(6):638-45.

The relationship of subjective sleep quality and cardiac autonomic nervous system in postmenopausal women with insomnia under auricular acupressure.

Kung YY, Yang CC, Chiu JH, Kuo TB.

Source

Institute of Traditional Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between the changes in self-reported sleep symptoms and cardiac sympathovagal activity among women with postmenopausal insomnia (PI) who received auricular acupressure (AA) therapy.

METHODS:

A pretest/posttest study design was conducted at Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taiwan, from August 2008 to July 2009. Forty-five women (mean ± SD age, 56.2 ± 5.4 years) with PI (4.9 ± 3.5 years of insomnia) received an AA therapy course on five auricular points every night before going to sleep for 4 weeks. Heart rate variability (HRV), the Chinese version of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, and the Menopause Rating Scale were measured before and after AA treatment.

RESULTS:

The total sleep duration and sleep efficiency were increased, and the sleep latency was shortened significantly (P < 0.01) after AA therapy. The total Menopause Rating Scale and somatovegetative subscale scores were reduced significantly (P < 0.05) after the intervention. A greater percentage change in Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index was moderately correlated with both a lower percentage change in high-frequency power of HRV (r = -0.660, P < 0.001) and a greater percentage change in normalized low-frequency power (nLF) of HRV (r = 0.599, P < 0.001). An elevation of high-frequency power and a reduction of nLF of HRV were observed in the responder group, whereas a raise in nLF of HRV was noted in the nonresponder group.

CONCLUSIONS:

This study suggests that AA intervention leads to more cardiac parasympathetic and less cardiac sympathetic activity, which contributes to the improvement of PI.

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Autonomic activation in insomnia: the case for acupuncture.

I hope I'll be able to get a copy of this article. If I do, I'll post again on the details. Here are the money quotes: "Acupuncture may represent a unique avenue of treatment for poor sleep by virtue of its direct effects on peripheral nerves and muscles, which, in turn, modulate autonomic tone and central activation. In this review, we summarize both basic and clinical research indicating that acupuncture exerts profound influences via a wide variety of potential neural and/or hormonal mechanisms that have great relevance for the modulation of sleep and wakefulness."
I would add that acupuncture is often helpful for a wide variety of psychological conditions because it provides that link between the physical and the mental through augmentation of the autonomic nervous system, hence decreasing stress and its related maladies.

(To read further about acupuncture, HRV, and my practice please click here.)

Autonomic activation in insomnia: the case for acupuncture.

Huang W, Kutner N, Bliwise DL. J Clin Sleep Med 2011;7(1):95-102.
Current conceptualizations of the biological basis for insomnia typically invoke central nervous system and/or autonomic nervous system arousal. Acupuncture may represent a unique avenue of treatment for poor sleep by virtue of its direct effects on peripheral nerves and muscles, which, in turn, modulate autonomic tone and central activation. In this review, we summarize both basic and clinical research indicating that acupuncture exerts profound influences via a wide variety of potential neural and/or hormonal mechanisms that have great relevance for the modulation of sleep and wakefulness. We illustrate principles of acupuncture intervention applied to cases of otherwise intractable insomnia that document successful application of this component of Traditional Chinese Medicine to the treatment of poor sleep. Our review indicates the necessity for further research in the relationship between the effects of acupuncture on insomnia and autonomic regulation, which might guide better selective use of this treatment modality for insomnia. CITATION: Huang W; Kutner N; Bliwise DL. Autonomic activation in insomnia: the case for acupuncture. J Clin Sleep Med 2011;7(1):95-102.