What is insomnia? Insomnia is the inability to sleep properly and the inability to fall asleep. People who suffer from insomnia often feel wide awake and restless when they should be sleeping. They may experience difficulties with concentration, moods, memory, and attention span due to lack of sleep. Among the many causes of insomnia are stress, a recent change in your schedule, depression, pain, viral infections such as flu or colds, certain medications, and poor sleep habits. The National Sleep Foundation recommends that a person’s bedtime should not be later than 11 pm in order to get an adequate amount of sleep.
Insomnia is a sleep disorder where an individual has trouble falling asleep or staying asleep. Insomnia can be categorized into two types: chronic and acute. Acute insomnia lasts for less than three weeks, while chronic insomnia lasts for more than three weeks without signs of going away. Both types of insomnia can have many causes, such as environmental changes, stress and depression, pain and discomfort, medications, caffeine intake before bedtime, and more.
Insomnia affects millions of people and can lead to other problems like obesity or cardiovascular disease when untreated. There are many treatments available for insomnia including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), herbal remedies such as lemon balm tea, meditation techniques, relaxation exercises like self-hypnosis, and much more.
Insomnia is a sleep disorder where sufferers can’t sleep or have trouble sleeping. It affects a person’s daytime functioning and quality of life. 10% of people around the world suffer from insomnia at any given time, which is more than 10 million people. If someone has had 3 or more insomnia symptoms for more than one month it is considered chronic insomnia.
Insomnia can be treated with lifestyle changes, medication, cognitive therapy, and other therapies.
Insomnia can have a large impact on the brain. It can cause the sufferer to lose function of their pre-frontal cortex, which is the area that controls emotion. This causes it to be hard for them to think clearly or make logical decisions. It can also cause someone to have trouble focusing and an overall decline in thinking ability and memory recall. This often leads to lapses of judgment, errors at work or school, and lower performance in daily tasks when compared to a rested person. Many sufferers of insomnia also report having trouble falling asleep and/or staying asleep. If the sufferer has these issues several nights in a row, they may look into other options for treatment. In these cases, medication is often recommended to help with sleep and the other symptoms of insomnia.
Insomnia can lead to many other problems such as obesity or cardiovascular disease when untreated. There are many treatments available for insomnia including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), herbal remedies such as lemon balm tea, meditation techniques, relaxation exercises like self-hypnosis, and much more.”The National Sleep Foundation recommends that a person’s bedtime should not be later than 11 p.m. in order to get an adequate amount of sleep.”
Insomnia can be treated with lifestyle changes, medication, cognitive therapy, and other therapies. The first step is often to make simple lifestyle changes. These changes are successful for many people who have insomnia and can reduce the need for more drastic therapy. Simple changes can include reducing caffeine or alcohol intake, which can prevent drowsiness in the morning and improve the quality of sleep. Another example is to avoid using electronics before going to bed, as the light emitted from these devices is emitted directly onto the eyes activating photoreceptors and preventing circadian rhythm production.
Exercise is another way to help with sleep, as it releases endorphins which are the body’s natural painkillers. It also helps to avoid naps during the day and to eat dinner 1–2 hours before bed. To help regulate sleeping patterns, many sufferers are encouraged to keep a regular sleep schedule by going to bed and waking up at the same time every day regardless of how much rest they have gotten that day. The National Sleep Foundation recommends going to bed only when sleepy. Another way to deal with insomnia is cognitive therapy, as this helps to change the way one thinks of sleep.
Medications, in the form of hypnotics or sedatives, are often prescribed to aid with sleep. They are usually combined with other therapies like behavioral therapy and cognitive therapy. They work by increasing the amount of time spent sleeping, and decreasing the time spent in bed awake. They are called hypnotics and sedatives because they work quickly to help induce sleep.
Normal sleep usually consists of five stages, each stage lasting around 90 minutes. The first four stages make up non-REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, while the fifth stage is REM sleep (rapid eye movement). But certain conditions and medications cause a sleeper to slip into deeper stages of sleep, or into abnormal stages.
To cure insomnia, there are many methods the patient can use to remedy their sleep. These methods include exercise, meditation techniques, yoga techniques specifically designed for sleep disorders, and hypnosis. Each of these methods has its own merits, and most people will find what works best for them individually.
A common way to treat insomnia is the use of herbs; specifically melatonin supplements. Melatonin is a hormone secreted during the change between day and night in a person’s circadian rhythm; it helps get a person into sleep quickly because it triggers sleepiness. Melatonin supplements are commonly taken in pill form. A common supplement is 5-Methyl-Tryptophan (5-MT), which can also be referred to as a tryptophan. The body converts 5-MT into melatonin in the stomach. “The National Sleep Foundation recommends that a person’s bedtime should not be later than 11 p.m. in order to get an adequate amount of sleep.”
In the United States, insomnia is relatively common. The National Sleep Foundation finds that 14% of U.S. adults are suffering from chronic insomnia (more than 30 days in a row), and 12% of U.S. adults are suffering from short-term insomnia (3–14 days in a row). Additionally, about a third of U.S. adults experience occasional insomnia (1–2 nights in a row), and most instances of insomnia last less than a week. Women are more affected by insomnia than men, with the prevalence being 16% among women compared to 12% among men.
Insomnia is more common among young people than older people, which is why it is sometimes called ‘youth insomnia’. Adults are also likely to suffer from chronic insomnia if they experience sleep disturbances at least two or three nights during one week. However, less than 5% will suffer from chronic insomnia in their lifetimes, and many of them don’t even know they have it.
Unusual EEG patterns can occur during sleep which can be associated with acute insomnia or sleepwalking. Sleepwalking occurs when a sleeper walks during the night without consciousness and is also not a normal part of their sleep. Signs of insomnia include nightmares, impaired quality of life, and daytime dysfunction. In some cases, sufferers will still feel tired even though they have slept well the night before.
Inability to fall asleep at an appropriate hour is the most common type of insomnia. The inability to fall asleep decreases one’s quality of life and makes it hard for a person to function once they do fall asleep. This type of insomnia leads to daytime drowsiness, poor concentration, and fatigue. Insomnia can be difficult to treat and there are many different causes for it. These causes can be classified into external and internal factors.
Chronic insomnia typically develops as a result of a lifestyle that does not allow the sufferer to sleep well or regularly. It often stems from the stress of work, school, or other aspects of life that are not conducive to good sleeping habits. Chronic insomnia can also be caused by a psychological factor such as anxiety or depression. Often, this insomnia is chronic but acute insomnia can also occur.
Acute insomnia is the result of constant sleep disruption, frequently caused by significant stress or unexpected demands on time. These demands can include a household emergency, the death of a loved one, or other large-scale life changes that are unavoidable. Acute insomnia is harder to treat because there are less external factors that can be eliminated as the cause and because sufferers of acute insomnia do not typically have chronic insomnia.
This is characterized by difficulty initiating sleep and difficulty maintaining sleep. These problems can stem from a host of factors, including substance abuse, anxiety disorders, cardiovascular disease, drug abuse, hyperthyroidism, depression, and sleep apnea. The intensity of the insomnia is sometimes unclear and frequently goes along with other sleep disorders such as obstructive sleep apnea and restless leg syndrome.