Sleep Deep with acupressure

Getting good quality sleep is essential for health and wellbeing. Without quality sleep the body cannot rest and repair, balance hormone levels, and bed down learning and memories from the day.

Acupressure and acupuncture have been used to successfully treat insomnia for thousands of years. Acupressure uses pressure, or deep touch, on areas of the skin that are particularly sensitive to bioelectrical impulses and in Traditional Chinese Medicine, activating these points helps to enhance the flow of human energy, or qi (pronounced chi) for health and vitality.

The points below are used to help you get to sleep. You can stimulate the points by holding them with a firm finger pressure for a couple of minutes each. We recommend using the thumb or two other adjacent fingers together, as each finger has a positive or negative polarity and the thumb is neutral. Whenever you are ‘holding’ points, you want to use a neutral touch.

For a good night’s sleep, try holding each of the points below, on each side of the body, for 1-2 minutes just before bed.

1. Lie on a firm surface, like the floor, and roll a tennis ball between your shoulder blades and spine at heart level. This will stimulate Bl 38.
2. Sitting up, hold just below the inside of the anklebone to activate K 6, and just below the outer anklebone for Bl 62.
3. Give yourself a neck massage by holding Bl 10, 1/2 inch below the base of the skull and a ½ inch out from the spine, then GB 20, at the base of the skull, and GV 16, in the centre of the back of the skull.
4. Hold Ht 7 on the inside wrist crease, in line with the little finger and then Pc 6, between the tendons in the middle of the inner side of the forearm, 2 1/2 finger widths down from the wrist crease. Do this for both arms.
5. Lie down somewhere comfortable and hold GV 24.5, between the eyebrows and CV 17, on the chest, 3 finger widths up from the bottom of the sternum. Spend a couple of minutes doing some slow, deep breathing while holding these points. You can also combine this with a heart breath for deep relaxation.

Don’t forget to let me know how you go. Sleep well and Sleep deep.