Insomnia Overview
7:17 AM
What is Insomnia?
Insomnia is a serious sleep disorder. It can mean the inability to fall asleep or stay asleep throughout the night, or the tendency to wake too early before having gotten enough sleep. Insomnia is often used to describe the condition of waking up not feeling well-rested or restored, and is the most common reported sleep disorder among Americans. According to the National Sleep Foundation, between 30 and 40 percent of adults say they experience some symptoms of insomnia within a given year, and a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the majority of Americans experience difficulty sleeping at least once a month.
Insomnia can range from mild to severe, acute (short-term sleeplessness) or chronic (insomnia that lasts for longer than a month), and can be a stand-alone disorder or a symptom of some other disease or condition, such as stress, drug use, or other health problems. People with insomnia often have day-time symptoms related to exhaustion, such as fatigue and decreased mental clarity.
Symptoms
Insomnia symptoms may include:
- Difficulty falling asleep at night
- Awakening during the night
- Awakening too early
- Not feeling well rested after a night's sleep
- Daytime tiredness or sleepiness
- Irritability, depression or anxiety
- Difficulty paying attention, focusing on tasks or remembering
- Increased errors or accidents
- Tension headaches
- Distress in the stomach and intestines (gastrointestinal tract)
- Ongoing worries about sleep
Someone with insomnia will often take 30 minutes or more to fall asleep and may get only six or fewer hours of sleep for three or more nights a week over a month or more.
Common causes of insomnia include:
- Stress. Concerns about work, school, health or family can keep your mind active at night, making it difficult to sleep. Stressful life events — such as the death or illness of a loved one, divorce, or a job loss — may lead to insomnia.
- Caffeine, nicotine and alcohol. Coffee, tea, cola and other caffeine-containing drinks are well-known stimulants. Drinking coffee in the late afternoon and later can keep you from falling asleep at night. Nicotine in tobacco products is another stimulant that can cause insomnia. Alcohol is a sedative that may help you fall asleep, but it prevents deeper stages of sleep and often causes you to awaken in the middle of the night.
- Change in your environment or work schedule. Travel or working a late or early shift can disrupt your body's circadian rhythms, making it difficult to sleep. Your circadian rhythms act as an internal clock, guiding such things as your sleep-wake cycle, metabolism and body temperature.
- Poor sleep habits. Poor sleep habits include an irregular sleep schedule, stimulating activities before bed, an uncomfortable sleep environment, and use of your bed for activities other than sleep or sex.
How is insomnia treated?
Some types of insomnia resolve themselves when the underlying cause is removed or wears off. In general, treating insomnia focuses on determining the cause of the sleeping problems. Once identified, this underlying cause can be properly treated or corrected. In addition to treating the underlying cause of insomnia, both medical and non-pharmacological (behavioral) treatments may be employed as adjuvant therapies.
Non-pharmacological approaches to treating insomnia include:
- Improving "sleep hygiene" - don't over- or under-sleep, exercise daily, don't force sleep, try to maintain a regular sleep schedule, avoid caffeine at night, do not smoke, do not go to bed hungry, make sure the environment is comfortable
- Using relaxation techniques - such as meditation and muscle relaxation
- Cognitive therapy - one-on-one counseling or group therapy
- Stimulus control therapy - only go to bed when sleepy, refrain from TV, reading, eating, or worrying in bed, set an alarm for the same time every morning (even weekends), avoid long daytime naps
- Sleep restriction - decrease the time spent in bed and partially deprive your body of sleep so you are more tired the next night.
- Prescription sleeping pills (often benzodiazepines)
- Antidepressants
- Over-the-counter sleep aids
- Antihistamines
- Melatonin
- Ramelteon
- Valerian officinalis
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