Progress in the Use of Time-based Medicine for the Treatment of Insomnia

Insomnia is one of the common medical disorders in the elderly. Prolonged insomnia may lead to anxiety, depression and other psychiatric disorders. At present, western medicine mostly adopts benzodiazepines and barbiturates to inhibit the central nervous system, so as to achieve the effect of sedation and sleep, however, this kind of drugs will not only lead to headache, dry mouth, sleepwalking, constipation and other common side effects, but also produce dependence and addiction in the long term. The treatment of functional insomnia with Chinese medicine has the advantages of taking both the symptoms and the root cause into account and having few side effects. In this paper, we review the theoretical basis of Chinese medicine and its application in the treatment of insomnia through the introduction of time-based medicine, in order to provide a more systematic and comprehensive diagnosis and treatment of this disease, and to broaden the ideas for the clinical diagnosis and treatment of this disease.