Insomnia is one of the most prevalent sleep disorders which affect the quality of life. due to high prevalence of this disease and the side effects of sedative drugs, people tend to use herbal remedies. there are some oral or topical prescriptions in persian medicine texts for treatment of insomnia.the aim of this study was to investigate topical treatments for insomnia in persian medicine (pm) and comparing them with current therapies in modern medicine.
Methods
In this study, pm text books including the canon of medicine,teb-e-akbari, kholasat- al-hekmah, makhzan- al-advieh, exir-e azam, al-aghraz al-tibbia val mabahess al-alaiia, sharh-ol-asbab val alamat, tohfa-al-momen and qarabadin-e-kabirwere searched to investigate effective topical therapies for treating insomnia. also, relevant studies on these topical remedies were searched at databases such as pub med, google scholar, scopus and science direct from the beginning till june 2018 and the results were presented as tables
Results
There are some single herbs or herbal preparations which have been recommended in pm for treatment of insomnia in topical dosage form such as ointment, lotion, nasal drop, oil and etc. the most important herbs used in these topical dosage forms were lettuce, violet, almond, pumpkin and water lily.some of these herbal therapy included lettuce and violet have been studied in clinical trial for insomnia.
Conclusion
Findings of the present study showed that according to pm texts, there are some effective topical herbal remedies which can be used in treatment of insomnia with less adverse effects.
Keywords
Insomnia, topical, traditional medicine, herbal remedies, herbal preparation
