Insomnia means regularly struggling to fall asleep or stay asleep, often alongside daytime effects like poor concentration, low mood, or fatigue. It's the most common sleep complaint, and something like a third of Australian adults will experience it at some point in their lives. For most people it passes within a few weeks, but for some it persists for months or years.
Left unmanaged, ongoing sleep loss can affect concentration and memory, and is linked to higher rates of headaches, low mood, and accidents. It's often driven by a disrupted circadian rhythm — the internal clock that governs sleep timing, hormone release, and body temperature — though underlying medical conditions such as reflux, chronic pain, arthritis, or sleep apnoea, as well as certain medications, can also play a part.
Our approach
Your first visit starts with a thorough assessment, including questions about your sleep habits over the past month, to identify the underlying pattern behind your insomnia rather than treating it as a single condition. From there we put together a treatment and management plan combining acupuncture and, where appropriate, herbal medicine.
Herbs traditionally used to support sleep include jujube, lingzhi (reishi) mushroom, and chamomile — often taken as a tea or a light supplement alongside your acupuncture sessions, chosen for their calming and nerve-soothing properties.
What you can do in the meantime
Keeping a consistent sleep and wake time, avoiding caffeine later in the day, and steering clear of vigorous exercise close to bedtime can all help. On nights you can't sleep, a calm, low-stimulation activity like reading is generally better than lying in bed trying to force it.