The goal of this clinical trial is to learn about the curative effect of "Chou's Tiaoshen" acupoints in short-term insomnia and the explore the possible mechanism of the action. The main questions it aims to answer are:

• Whether the curative effect of caupuncturing"Chou's Tiaoshen" acupoints in the treatment of short-term insomnia is not inferior to that of Esazolam.
• What is the possible mechanism of acupuncture "Chou's Tiaoshen"acupoints for short-term insomnia.

Participants with short-term insomnia who met the criteria will be randomly assigned to "Chou's Tiaoshen"acupoints group and Esazolam group. Polysomnography, heart rate variability, cortisol and related scales will be measured before and after treatment to detect the changes in symptoms and signs before and after treatment.

The incidence of short-term insomnia is high. In clinical practice, due to patients insufficient understanding of the severity of short-term insomnia and the side effects of drug treatment, the treatment of short-term insomnia has not made breakthrough progress, and some patients may turn into chronic insomnia, which is more harmful. There is a growing consensus that short-term insomnia is a hyperarousal disorder associated with high sleep reactivity. "Chou's Tiaoshen" acupoints is derived from the experience of Zhou Dean, a national famous traditional Chinese medicine doctor in our department, and the main points are selected: Baihui (DU20), Shenting (DU24), Sishencong (EX-HN1), Shenmen (HT7), Neiguan (PC6), and Sanyinjiao (SP6), the acupuncture method has achieved good clinical efficacy in the early insomnia research, which can improve the waking state of insomnia patients during the day and improve the sleep quality at night. In order to further verify the efficacy of "Chou's Tiaoshen" acupoints in the treatment of short-term insomnia, explore the possible mechanism of action, discover the physical characteristics of patients with short-term insomnia, and explain the connotation of "Chou's Tiaoshen" acupoints, this clinical study is conducted. 96 patients with short-term insomnia who meet the inclusion criteria will be selected and divided into the "Chou's Tiaoshen" acupoints group and the oral esazolam group according to the principle of random allocation. The study will be conducted in the acupuncture and moxibustion Department of Beijing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Shunyi Hospital of Beijing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Pittsburgh Sleep Scale (PSQI) assessment, polysomnography (PSG, some subjects), heart rate variability (HRV) monitoring, serum cortisol measurement will be performed before and after treatment. Ford Insomnia Stress Response Test (FIRST) scale, Daytime function Scale and Chinese Medicine Symptom Score Scale will be evaluated to evaluate the efficacy and explore the mechanism.

Inclusion Criteria:

1. Meet diagnostic criteria for short-term insomnia according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Text Revision, 5th ed (DSM-V) and Chinese Adult Insomnia Diagnosis and Treatment Guide 2017，a predominant complaint of dissatisfaction with sleep quantity or quality, associated with one (or more) of the following symptoms: 1)Difficulty initiating sleep. 2). Difficulty maintaining sleep, characterized by frequent awakenings or problems returning to sleep after awakenings. 3)Early-morning awakening with inability to return to sleep. 4)The sleep disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, educational, academic, behavioral, or other important areas of functioning. The sleep difficulty occurs at least 3 nights per week. The duration of the sleep difficulty is 1 week to 3 months.
2. Experienced insomnia between 1 weeks and 3 months before the start of project.
3. Age: patients between 18 and 70 years old.
4. Patients who agreed to participant in this trial and assigned the informed consent.

Exclusion Criteria:

1. People with other DSM-IV Axis I, Axis II mental disorders or substance abuse/dependence;
2. Patients with serious primary diseases such as cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, hypertension, digestive system, hematopoietic system, liver, kidney, or severe anxiety and depression;
3. Caused by alcohol or drugs;
4. Pregnant or lactating women;
5. Easy to combine infection and bleeding; 6.1 Patients who have used psychotropic drugs, such as antidepressants, mania drugs or other drugs used to treat psychosis, in the last month, and patients who have taken sleeping pills in the last 1 month;

7. Those who cannot cooperate with treatment.

We plan to publish a protocol of this trial in about 6-8 months after the registration, and one paper of the trial including results in a high-impact peer reviewed journal in one year after the trial. About two years after the end of this trial and our open publication of the result, the primary data and type of analysis will be available for 5-10 years until data updated by a more specific study with larger number of participants. Anyone who are interested in the trial can ask us to share the primary data by send a requirement through email. We provide the collected primary data without no real information of participants, all the data sequence will be numbered instead of real names.

About two years after the end of this trial and our open publication of the result, the primary data and type of analysis will be available for 5-10 years until data updated by a more specific study with larger number of participants.

Anyone who are interested in the trial can ask us to share the primary data by send a requirement through email.