Sleep is a physiological phenomenon. Good sleep can make the brain and body rest and recovery, sleep dreams also have a positive psychological significance. Chronic “bad sleep” and “insomnia” can have a serious negative impact on normal work and life. Clinical insomnia is usually a subjective experience of unsatisfactory sleep duration and/or quality that affects the patient’s ability to perform daily tasks. Many outpatients come to the clinic with “poor sleep” and think they “just can’t sleep well, just prescribe some sleep medication! . However, is “poor sleep” really just a sleep problem? Is it possible to solve the problem by simply taking sleep medication? For insomnia patients in psychiatric clinics, we must first rule out whether the insomnia is caused by psychiatric disorders. For example, the most common reason for patients with depression is “poor sleep”, with early awakening, difficulty falling asleep, poor sleep, and excessive dreaming. Patients with anxiety disorders may also have sleep problems such as easy awakening, difficulty falling asleep after waking, and nightmares. Other severe mental illnesses may also have poor sleep as an initial symptom or insomnia as a signal of fluctuation or relapse of illness. Patients with bipolar disorder commonly have a reduced need for sleep during mild manic or manic episodes, sleeping only 3-4 hours per day, and still have high energy and increased activity during the day. However, there are also some patients whose sleep shows periodic cyclic fluctuations with the high and low moods, so they need to be highly alert to whether they are suffering from “bipolar disorder”. In some elderly patients, sleep rhythm disturbances after surgery – sleeping during the day and moving at night, along with significant confusion and inattention – should be alerted to the development of post-operative disorders of consciousness, and it is recommended to consult a psychiatrist promptly. In other patients, repeated visits for examination due to poor sleep have not revealed a clear cause. The presence of sleep apnea was later detected by sleep monitoring. There are many other causes of insomnia, such as traumatic brain injury, tumor, infection, etc., which can cause insomnia after damaging specific parts of the brain; patients with alcohol or drug abuse may also suffer from insomnia. As you can see, “bad sleep” is not really just a sleep problem, but needs to be judged by a specialist and treated accordingly in a timely manner. Of course, there is one type of insomnia that is truly a “sleep problem”. When the various causes of insomnia have been eliminated or cured, but the symptoms of insomnia remain, it may be considered as “primary insomnia”. In addition to focusing on sleep hygiene, you can also receive medication or sleep behavior therapy under the guidance of a doctor, and assist with massage to improve the quality of life.