Doctor Yu’s Clinical Notes XI: Sleep and Hair Loss | 睡出一头秀发

Sleep plays an important role in the treatment of hair loss. There are two factors of good sleep: the first factor is the time of sleep---one must sleep before 11 pm so that one can fall asleep more quickly and get into deep sleep stage more easily so the body can store enough energy for the next day; the second factor is the length of sleep---for a healthy adult, 7 hours of sleep per day is necessary to restore the body function. In practice, we see that many hair loss patients also have symptoms of insomnia. Some of them have difficulties get into sleep. Some of them can get into sleep but may wake up easily. If there are problems of sleep during treatment of hair loss, dealing with the sleep problem should be have priority because it ensures better result healing hair loss. We also find that using Traditional Chinese Medicine theory and acupuncture in treating hair loss can usually produce good results.

In my clinical practice, it turns out sleep problems usually happen on these people:

1. Chronic Late Sleepers: these people are used to go to bed really late, usually after 12am, or even later;

2. Those who have weak or deficient body constitution: these people always feel something is wrong with their body, and they get sick frequently. Some of them may have diagnosis of certain illness, and some of them are just have semi-health problems. They may also have problems of anxiety, depression, and irritability;

3. People suffering from depression: these people may feel sleepy and get into sleep quickly, but can also wake up easily during sleep and have many dreams so they still feel fatigue the second day. These conditions vary from time to time and may get worse when hair loss becomes a problem because they worry about it so much;

4.People who use eyes too much: these people uses eyes (for example, looking at a computer screen) for long time every day, so their body continuously concentrates energy at the eyes and their brain can get active easily. Therefore they usually have sleep problems. Furthermore, according to the Traditional Chinese Medicine theory, because these energy used by the eyes come from liver and kidney, over draining of these energy can result in fatigue and neck or back pain. If these situations become chronic, they may also have problems such as joint pain, cold limbs, frequent urination and frequent sport injuries.

Furthermore, the above conditions can influence and enhance each other. Therefore, if you are suffering from hair loss, you need to know that better sleep is the first step to heal hair loss. Of course, sleep is only one factor that may cause hair loss, and there are other factors we need to know. Let us talk about it next time.

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在脱发的治疗过程中，睡眠扮演着非常重要的角色。这由两方面组成：

1.入睡的时间：必须在晚上11点前入睡。因为在11点之前入睡，才能较容易的入睡并且进入深度睡眠。这样身体能量才可以得到充分的贮备，第二天的精力才会充沛。

2.睡眠时间：一般要保证7小时左右的充分睡眠才能较好的恢复身体机能。脱发病人如果有失眠症状，有的病人入睡较难，有的病人入睡中易睡醒，醒后不易入睡。

如果睡眠出现问题，在治疗脱发的过程，改善睡眠是重中之重——使用中医和针灸的办法改善睡眠往往可见奇效。

在我的临床实践中，睡眠差的状况常常出现在以下几类人身上：

长期熬夜的人：这类人大多睡眠时间较晚，常常工作到午夜12点以后，甚至凌晨1点至2点还没有上床睡觉。
身体体质较弱的人：这类人士有一个特点就是长期身体不适，体弱多病。有的可能有诊断，有的可能就是长期亚健康的状态。时或伴随一些易焦虑，易抑郁，易发脾气的特点。

忧郁症的人：这类人的睡眠有些特点，就是常常易困，打哈欠，入睡可能较快，但睡中易醒，睡中常常多梦，以至于第二天精神疲倦。这种状况时轻时重，当有脱发出现时，又可因脱发而发生焦虑，担心，心烦，易哭等症状。
长期用眼的人：这类人也容易失眠，是因为长期用眼（例如长期看电脑屏幕）时，身体不断地把能量集中于脑部，使脑部较容易兴奋。同时由于过度使用身体的能量（这些能量中医认为是从肝，肾而来），这些人也常常伴随疲劳、乏力、颈、腰、背痛等症状。日久可出现易受运动损伤，关节痛，四肢发凉，小便频等现象。