There are many herbal medicines that can be used to treat the insomnia phenomenon. One of my favourites is a plant called Anemone pulsatilla. However, before we talk about this specific herbal medicine, we need to look at insomnia in general. As a practitioner, I see a lot of patients suffering from insomnia. Sleep is a natural process and should not be the struggle that is has become. The fact that getting a good night’s sleep is a problem for so many has forced me to ponder the insomnia problem.

My conclusion is that living in the modern world overworks the nervous system. The end result of this nerve exhaustion is insomnia. We spend our days thinking, coping, adapting, adjusting, dealing, worrying, and responding. Will the train get us to work on time? Will our company survive the economic slump? How can we get our children into the best schools? Will the National Health Service provide for us? Thinking your way through the modern day is extremely hard on the mind and spirit.

Pasque flower can be ideal for the modern person suffering from nerve exhaustion-based insomnia.

To make matters worse, we heap more work onto the nervous system. For example, a patient came to me complaining of insomnia. She worked a full time job and had a house full of children. When she got home from work, she spent her "free time" hauling kids to lessons and sports activities, volunteering for charitable organisations, and attending adult education classes. After all this came the household chores. The patient described herself as being mentally exhausted. With this "Super Woman" schedule, is it any wonder?

This raises an important and little understood point. People who spend their days working physically tend to sleep like the dead. On the other hand, people who spend their days working mentally often suffer from insomnia. In a state of nervous exhaustion, as one lays down to sleep, rather than drifting into slumber, the mind starts churning, rushing from one thought to the next. After an hour of tossing and turning, the fatal thought enters the mind: "Oh no, I only have six hours to sleep!" Then it becomes "Oh no, I only have five hours to sleep!" Panic sets in. Why nervous exhaustion makes it difficult to sleep is unknown, but the fact that it causes sleeplessness is well noted. I have had more than one patient say they were too tired to sleep. The fatigue is never of the physical variety.

The situation sounds rather dire and it is, when you are too tired to sleep. However, there is a solution and there is hope. You may have to change the way you live life, but that in my opinion is a small price to pay for a good night’s sleep. In my experience, a combination of life style change and herbal medicine is a winner.

In my opinion, the first step to ending the insomnia problem is to slow down. The modern world encourages us to move faster, faster, and still faster. The pace at which we are living makes sleep difficult. Make the decision to slow your life down to a human pace. Rather than planning action filled evenings, plan evenings without motion. When you get home from work, do not turn on the television or the radio. Unplug the phone. Spend the evening listening to soft music and reading a good book. Make a list of the activities you must undertake and those that are optional. Eliminate the non-essential activities from your list. The message is simple, take control of your life and slow things down to the point that you can sleep.

In addition, there are a number of herbal medicines that can help a person in this process. One such plant is Anemone pulsatilla, commonly known as pasque flower. It was a popular nerve remedy in the last century and one that doctors of that day relied upon. It was specifically used when nervous exhaustion was causing all kinds of problems, including insomnia. Here is a quote from a medical textbook written in1898, "King’s Dispensatory,"