How to cure insomnia and irritability

The incidence of insomnia and irritability is becoming higher and higher. Many insomnia patients always force themselves to fall asleep at night, but always feel unable to sleep. At this time, they will become very irritable. Therefore, they must clarify the cause of their illness as soon as possible, so that they can improve their sleep quality and reduce the harm of insomnia.

1. Overall Objectives

To identify the cause as much as possible, in order to achieve the following goals:

(1) Improve sleep quality and/or increase effective sleep time;

(2) Restore social functions and improve the patient's quality of life;

(3) Reduce or eliminate the risk of physical illness associated with insomnia or comorbid physical illness;

(4) Avoid the negative effects of drug intervention.

2. Intervention methods

Intervention measures for insomnia mainly include drug treatment and non-drug treatment. For patients with acute insomnia, early drug treatment is recommended. For patients with subacute or chronic insomnia, whether primary or secondary, psychological and behavioral treatment should be used in addition to drug treatment, even for those insomnia patients who have been taking sedatives and hypnotics for a long time. The effective psychological and behavioral treatment methods for insomnia are mainly cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT-I).

At present, there is a relative shortage of professional resources in China capable of engaging in psychological behavioral therapy, and there are not many people with professional certification in this area. The use of CBT-I alone will also face compliance issues, so drug intervention still dominates the treatment of insomnia. Other non-drug treatments other than psychological and behavioral therapy, such as diet therapy, aromatherapy, massage, homeopathy, light therapy, etc., lack convincing large-sample controlled studies.

Traditional Chinese medicine has a long history of treating insomnia, but due to its unique individualized medical model, it is difficult to evaluate using the modern evidence-based medicine model. The importance of sleep health education should be emphasized, that is, psychological behavioral therapy, drug therapy and traditional medicine treatment should be carried out on the basis of establishing good sleep hygiene habits.

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation is a new non-drug treatment for insomnia. Transcranial magnetic stimulation is a new technology that provides magnetic stimulation to specific parts of the human skull. It refers to the process of repeatedly stimulating a specific part of the cortex. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation can affect the local and functionally related remote cortical functions, achieving regional reconstruction of cortical functions

It also has a significant impact on neurotransmitters and their transmission in the brain, multiple receptors in different brain regions including 5-hydroxytryptamine receptors, and gene expression that regulates neuronal excitability. It can be combined with drug treatment to quickly block the occurrence of insomnia. It is particularly suitable for the treatment of insomnia in women during breastfeeding, especially insomnia caused by postpartum depression.