A common sleep disorder called insomnia can make it difficult to fall asleep, stay asleep, or cause you to wake up too early and be unable to fall back asleep. It can affect your energy levels and mood as well as your health, ability to work, and quality of life.
Depending on the individual, seven to eight hours a night of sleep is usually sufficient for adults.
Some people have long-term (chronic) insomnia, which lasts for a month or more. Insomnia may be the primary issue, or it may be related to other medical conditions or medications. At some point, many adults experience short-term (acute) insomnia, which lasts for days or weeks and is typically the result of stress or a traumatic event.
Simple adjustments to your daily routine can frequently be helpful if you don’t want to suffer through sleepless nights.
Symptoms
Insomnia symptoms may include:
- Sleeping at night is difficult
- Early morning awakenings
- Waking up too early
- After a night of sleep, you don’t feel rested
- Daytime tiredness or sleepiness
- Irritability, depression or anxiety
- Having trouble remembering, concentrating, or paying attention
- Increased errors or accidents
- Ongoing worries about sleep
Causes
It’s possible that the main issue is insomnia, or that it’s related to other health issues.
If the underlying cause is treated, chronic insomnia can sometimes be resolved, but it can also persist for years. Chronic insomnia is typically brought on by stress, life events, or habits that interfere with sleep.
Chronic insomnia has a variety of causes, including:
- Stress.Stressful life events or trauma, like the death or illness of a loved one, divorce, or a job loss, may also cause insomnia. Concerns about work, school, health, finances, or family can keep your mind active at night and keep you from falling asleep.
- Travel or work schedule.Circadian rhythm disruptions, which include jet lag from traveling across multiple time zones, working a late or early shift, or frequently changing shifts, can cause insomnia. Your circadian rhythms function as an internal clock, guiding things like your sleep-wake cycle, metabolism, and body temperature.
- Poor sleep habits.Computers, TVs, video games, smartphones, and other screens just before bed can disrupt your sleep cycle, as can an irregular bedtime schedule, naps, stimulating activities before bed, an uncomfortable sleep environment, and using your bed for work, eating, or watching TV.
- Eating too much late in the evening.A small snack before bed is acceptable, but eating too close to bedtime may make you feel physically uneasy and, for many people, cause heartburn, which is the reflux of stomach acid and food into the esophagus.
The following are other typical reasons for insomnia:
- Mental health disorders.You may have trouble falling asleep if you have an anxiety disorder, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. You may wake up too early if you have depression.
- Medications.Many over-the-counter medications, including some pain relievers, allergy and cold medications, and weight-loss products, contain caffeine and other stimulants that can disturb sleep. Many prescription drugs, such as certain antidepressants and medications for asthma or blood pressure, can disrupt sleep.
- Medical conditions.Cancer, diabetes, heart disease, asthma, GERD, an overactive thyroid, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s disease are a few conditions that have been linked to insomnia.
- Sleep-related disorders.Restless legs syndrome makes you feel uncomfortable in your legs and almost compelled to move them, which may make it difficult for you to fall asleep. Sleep apnea causes you to stop breathing periodically throughout the night, disrupting your sleep.
- Caffeine, nicotine and alcohol.Alcohol may help you fall asleep, but it prevents deeper stages of sleep and frequently results in awakenings in the middle of the night. Caffeinated beverages such as coffee, tea, cola, and other stimulants can prevent you from falling asleep at night. Nicotine in tobacco products is another stimulant that can do this.
Complications
Whatever your cause of sleep loss, insomnia can affect you both mentally and physically, and people who have it report a lower quality of life than those who are sleeping well. Sleep is as essential to your health as a healthy diet and regular exercise.
Insomnia problems can occur because of:
- decreased efficiency at work or in the classroom
- a slower ability to react while driving and a greater chance of accidents
- disorders of the mind, such as substance abuse, anxiety disorders, or depression
- Long-term diseases or conditions like high blood pressure or heart disease are more likely to occur and to get worse.
Prevention
Sound sleep can be encouraged and insomnia can be avoided with good sleep habits:
- Keep your wake-up and bedtime schedules the same every day, even on the weekends.
- Keep moving; regular movement encourages restful sleep.
- To see if your prescriptions may be causing insomnia, check them out.
- Avoid or limit naps.
- Use of nicotine should be avoided or kept to a minimum.
- Avoid consuming a lot of food or liquids right before bed.
- Only use your bedroom for sleeping or having sex. Make it comfortable.
- Establish a soothing bedtime routine that includes activities like reading, taking a warm bath, and listening to soft music.
Treatment
If these steps don’t work, your doctor may suggest cognitive behavioral therapy, medications, or both, to help improve relaxation and sleep. If these measures don’t work, you can usually get back to a restful night’s sleep by changing your sleep habits and dealing with any issues that may be contributing to your insomnia, such as stress, medical conditions, or medications.
HOMOEOPATHIC MEDICINE
Ambra Grisea
Useful for insomnia where worry is the main contributor to insomnia. There are dreams filled with anxious moments. Business troubles contributing to insomnia. Cannot fall asleep in new places or around strangers. Limbs to fall asleep on the slightest pressure. Arms to fall asleep (go numb) while lying down. Worse by music, any unusual thing.
Coffea 30c
Useful for insomnia when the mind is awake and overworking, when there is an inability to relax due to the overexcitement caused by good news or ideas, when there are vivid dreams, overactive thoughts, and when there is overexcitement—perhaps from too much coffee—of the nervous system.
Nux Vomica
Excellent for people who are agitated and sleepless due to stopping sedatives, or from excessive mental stress, alcohol, or food. For alcohol, overeating (especially spicy foods), noise, and lack of sleep. Sleeplessness usually occurs after waking up very early in the morning. The person cannot get back to sleep until just before the alarm goes off. The person then wakes up agitated and angry from lack of sleep.
Passiflora
Particularly helpful in nervous people and elderly people with insomnia. Mentally anxious, hypochondriac, overworked people with a tendency to convulsions. May be associated with night cough. Useful for insomnia where mental irritation or pain is the cause. In wakeful sleep resulting from exhaustion.
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