Q My anxiety is worse than my depression, and I can't sleep at all at night. Are anxiety and insomnia also part of postpartum depression?
A Anxiety and insomnia very commonly appear together with postpartum depression. Even if anxiety feels more prominent than depression, they all fall within the same treatment category.
Detailed Answer
For a significant number of postpartum depression patients, anxiety appears more prominently than sadness. Typical examples are repeatedly checking whether the baby has stopped breathing even though the baby is sleeping well, or an unending fear that you are going to be a bad mother. When this is compounded by insomnia, with difficulty falling asleep or frequent waking even after falling asleep, a vicious cycle forms in which sleep deprivation further amplifies anxiety. Such anxiety and insomnia are within the spectrum of postpartum depression and are addressed together within the same treatment framework.
Korean Medicine Clinic Perspective
Korean medicine holds that when Heart-blood (simhyeol) is insufficient, the mind cannot be anchored in place, producing anxiety, palpitations, and insomnia. At Dongjedang, we use a spirit-calming (ansin) formula that adds sour jujube seed (sanjoin), polygala (wonji), and poria (boksin) to Guibi-tang to help with falling asleep, and use acupuncture to settle the excessively excited energy of the Heart, managing anxiety and insomnia together.
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