Insomnia is an ailment where the affected person suffers from lack of proper rest or sleep. Normally, an individual affected with insomnia would show the symptoms of not being able to fall asleep easily, having troubled and uncomfortable sleep, incomplete sleep or a non-refreshing sleep. It may be initiated due to a lot of factors such as stress, anxiety, excessive alcohol consumption or irregular or improper time schedules. Insomnia may be short termed, where the disorder lasts only for a few days, intermittent, where the ailment comes and goes in differing intervals or chronic, which is generally long lasting and may last for as long as a month or more. Chronic insomnia can again be either primary or secondary. Secondary chronic insomnia is caused due to other health or external factors.

Insomnia, if left untreated can become the route cause of other health and psychological problems. Hence, care must be taken to treat it in an efficient manner as soon as it is diagnosed. The fast-spreading treatment of Acupuncture is now proved to fight against insomnia too, by bringing about a balance in the nervous system. On an average, the success rate of acupuncture against insomnia is found to be 90 percent.

The treatment is carried out by piercing acupuncture pins on specific points on the human body. The points may vary depending on the patient and in this case, according to the Traditional Chinese Medicine’s (TCM) theory, the points must communicate with the heart and kidney. The extrapoint and HT7 point, known as Anmien and Shenmen respectively are the usual acupuncture points for treatment of insomnia.