Chinese Medicine for Sleep

Recently, I had the opportunity to experience another side of the local culture. My girlfriend took me to see a Chinese Medicine pharmacy. My sleep schedule had been messed up and we had tried several things already. This was one more method we tried to help me get to sleep and wake up as before.

The pharmacists told us to first go round the corner to see a Chinese medical doctor. The doctor touched my arm to sense what elements were out of balance. He didn't talk to us about that aspect of it but he talked to us about everything else. In fact, his diagnosis took only a few minutes but we were in the clinic for half an hour chatting with him about all kinds of things. I tried to enjoy it even though I hadn't slept the night before. 

Then we came back to the pharmacy with his prescription. The pharmacists began picking out various herbs, roots, and spices to put into the mix.

This photo was taken at some point but the pharmacist would continue adding more and more ingredients into the mixture. Each ingredient was chosen to help rebalance the elements within my body for this particular case.

It was my first time experiencing Chinese Medicine. I had always taken an interest in natural remedies so I was eager to try it out.

At home, Ying boiled the mixture for me to drink twice daily. It was a bitter brown mix of grainy elements. I secretly enjoyed drinking it. However, I'm not happy to say that it failed to bring about the desired results. Since then, I've been going to sleep at 4 or 5am as it has been for the last little while. I am reevaluating the sleep situation by no longer thinking of it as a problem. I am just accepting it and where I am with it.