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Compared with placebo acupuncture, electroacupuncture and minimal acupuncture resulted in greater improvement in subjective sleep measures at 1 week and 4 week post-treatment. No significant difference was found between electroacupuncture and minimal acupuncture, suggesting that the observed differences could be due to nonspecific effects of needling, regardless of whether it is done according to traditional Chinese medicine theory.

Objectives. To evaluate the effectiveness of Baduanjin Qigong exercise on sleep, fatigue, anxiety, and depressive symptoms in chronic fatigue syndrome- (CFS-) like illness and to determine the dose-response relationship. Methods. One hundred fifty participants with CFS-like illness (mean age = 39.0, SD = 7.9) were randomly assigned to Qigong and waitlist. Sixteen 1.5-hour Qigong lessons were arranged over 9 consecutive weeks. Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Chalder Fatigue Scale (ChFS), and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) were assessed at baseline, immediate posttreatment, and 3-month posttreatment. The amount of Qigong self-practice was assessed by self-report. Results. Repeated measures analyses of covariance showed a marginally nonsignificant (P = 0.064) group by time interaction in the PSQI total score, but it was significant for the “subjective sleep quality” and “sleep latency” items, favoring Qigong exercise. Improvement in “subjective sleep quality” was maintained at 3-month posttreatment. Significant group by time interaction was also detected for the ChFS and HADS anxiety and depression scores. The number of Qigong lessons attended and the amount of Qigong self-practice were significantly associated with sleep, fatigue, anxiety, and depressive symptom improvement. Conclusion. Baduanjin Qigong was an efficacious and acceptable treatment for sleep disturbance in CFS-like illness. This trial is registered with Hong Kong Clinical Trial Register: HKCTR-1380.

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Previous randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have shown that acupuncture may be efficacious for insomnia. Instead of needling, acupressure, reflexology, and auricular acupressure are procedures involving physical pressure on acupoints or reflex areas. These variants of acupuncture are gaining popularity, perhaps due to their non-invasive nature. A systematic review has therefore been conducted to examine their efficacy and safety for insomnia. Two independent researchers searched five English and 10 Chinese databases from inception to May 2010. Forty RCTs were identified for analysis. Only 10 studies used sham controls, four used double-blind design, nine studies scored three or more by the Jadad scale, and all had at least one domain with high risk of bias. Meta-analyses of the moderate-quality RCTs found that acupressure as monotherapy fared marginally better than sham control. Studies that compared auricular acupressure and sham control showed equivocal results. It was also found that acupressure, reflexology, or auricular acupressure as monotherapy or combined with routine care was significantly more efficacious than routine care or no treatment. Owing to the methodological limitations of the studies and equivocal results, the current evidence does not allow a clear conclusion on the benefits of acupressure, reflexology, and auricular acupressure for insomnia.