 If I take a hundred of my patients that are having insomnia and I ask them what is the time you most often see on the clock they always say around 3 a.m. 255 301 303 so what is it with the 3 a.m. wake up that so many people are having within the field of traditional Chinese medicine there's a very specific cause that I thought I would share today. Hey guys I'm Dr. Alex Hein author of the health book master the day and doctor of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine so before we jump into this video there are two very important links below the video. The first is for a free guide I've put together for daily rituals that can potentially help you ideas to your life with traditional Chinese medicine and the second is if you'd like to learn about seeing me and my patient practice in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine you contact my private practice right below this video. Within the field of traditional Chinese medicine there's something called the organ clock. Now basically within the organ clock there is a two hour block dedicated to each organ function throughout the day so let's say stomach small intestine spleen kidney gallbladder etc but when it comes to 3 a.m. this is the transition from the liver time to the lung time. Now this may not seem to make any more sense thus far but within this field the liver is one of the organs that bears the brunt of a certain kind of stress and one of the ways we know that is that when our patients come in and we feel the radial artery for pulse diagnosis very often they will have either a tight pulse a wiry pulse or a fine wiry pulse and this tension that's manifesting in the pulse is a mirror of the tension in the nervous system the mirror of people living in a state of constant sympathetic dominance where stress hormones are running their life. Now I realize this is no surprise to many of us in 2023 that we feel stress more often and we feel tension more often and we feel more pressure more often but it shows up in the pulse as well and these tight pulses are often pulses of just nervous system tension in my opinion and chronic stress hormones. So we utilize acupuncture herbal formulas moxa physical therapies all kinds of interventions to help relieve the tension in this pulse but the tension is really a 3d manifestation into the pulse of this sort of pace of life right and this sort of quality that sometimes we're consciously aware of it because we feel it sometimes the body feels it the body's keeping the score but our mind is not aware that we are actually feeling that bad nonetheless this tension is sometimes called liver cheese stagnation so liver cheese very interesting you know back in the day typically it was women who are called hypochondriacs where complaining of a stuffy sensation in their chest especially in the ribs now this area of the hypochondrial below the rib side became synonymous with this idea of a woman being basically a hypochondriac making up these fake sort of illnesses but what's interesting is that within traditional Chinese medicine fullness in the ribs, distension, pressure in the ribs is a real sensation it is not it is not imagined is a real subjective sensation of diagnostic of liver cheese stagnation which is basically kind of like an emotional pressure and emotional stagnation a stress response in the body that can be physical it can be emotional it can be nervous system but we utilize formulas to treat this now the 3 a.m. time is one of the most common times people wake up when they have gallbladder, liver and triple warmer disorders within TCM gallbladder, liver most common issue that I see is upper GI reflux people are often waking up at 3 a.m. the other being the sanjiao the sanjiao the triple warmer complicated it's translate because it doesn't translate to a physical organ is more functional some people say it's a lymphatic system some people say it's the hollow spaces of the body whether it's the bowels you know some people get gas pains in the in the chest that's coming from the intestines that sort of thing but these three organs are most commonly the ones that we treat to relieve the 3 a.m. wake-up call now there are a number of ways you can treat this cheese stagnation if the cheese stagnation is due to stress in my opinion the best way to relieve this is not through meditation it's through physical exercise because physical exercise not only will help regulate the systemic stress response it increases blood flow increases the movement of lymph in your body and has so many other auxiliary benefits that will out perform meditation for the modern person and will result in people feeling more calm if it's not overdone now if this kind of cheese stagnation is due to digestion faulty digestion like I said upper GI reflux is one of the main causes I see of people who have this 3 a.m. wake-up they have a chronic upper GI issue if that is the case and this is not you know obviously environmental noise can wake people up but if their body wakes them up at 3 a.m. it is often an issue with the liver gallbladder and the triple warmer so the secondary cause if it's digestive is eating healthier meals not overeating especially later at night eating earlier in the night and for some people to blood sugar issue so eating a healthier meal that's protein and fat and is more Mediterranean in nature will benefit them as opposed to what they're currently eating so cheese stagnation due to stress more exercise cheese stagnation due to general GI upset is really staying away from alcohol eating earlier eating a smaller healthier meal so that is you know something that is eminently irrelevant I see lots of people waking up at 3 it's very easy to treat with compounded formulas from TCM and most often I just utilize my treatments as opposed to making them extensively changed our life so that is why the 3 a.m. it's not some weird demon or poltergeist it is there's something physiologically going on there and it's something that is eminently treatable with TCM so that's all I have for you today guys check out the links below the video and I'll see you soon