Sleep – we spend about one-third of our Lives doing it. It plays a critical role that We are still figuring out, and our brain and body demand it every day.
A night before your final exams, a very important interview, or even a night before you express your love to your crush – you toss and turn in your bed, unable to let go Of thoughts. You stare at the walls and the roof of your room for hours, unable to fall Asleep. If you’ve experienced this – don’t Worry, there’s nothing wrong with you – it’s Normal.
But persistent inability to fall asleep or maintain sleep or even have a poor quality of sleep is a matter of worry. This is commonly known As insomnia.
What is Insomnia?
Understanding insomnia can be tricky. Maybe you’re tossing and turning at night, unable to fall asleep no matter how tired you are. Or perhaps you wake up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep, staring at the ceiling as time passes by.
But insomnia isn’t just about how many hours you’re in bed; it’s about how well you sleep and how you feel when you wake up. Even if you’re getting a full eight hours but still feel tired during the day, you might be dealing with insomnia.
It’s a common problem, affecting more than 40% of Americans. And it’s not just about feeling tired. Insomnia can drain your energy, affect your mood, and make it hard to get through the day.
Types of Insomnia
There are two main types of Insomnia.
- Transient acute Insomnia
- Chronic Insomnia
Acute Insomnia lasts less than three months and usually resolves on its own without treatment. Chronic Insomnia, also called insomnia disorder, usually lasts at least three months and occurs three days or more each week. Chronic Insomnia doesn’t tend to go away on its own, but it does respond well to certain types of treatment.
What triggers Insomnia beyond the two big umbrella terms of transient acute, and chronic? What other types of Insomnia should we be aware of? Let’s dive in and find out.
Adjustment Insomnia
Most of us have suffered from adjustment insomnia at one time or another. Adjustment insomnia is difficulty sleeping associated with a major life change, such as moving, starting a new job, getting married, or getting divorced.
The transition can be positive, like having a new baby, or negative, like losing a pet. Stress anxiety and lack of familiarity are underlying factors in adjustment insomnia, which typically resolves on its own once you’ve adapted to the change in your life.
Drug-Induced Insomnia
If you’ve ever tossed and turned after drinking a cup of coffee, then you’ve experienced drug-induced insomnia. This type of insomnia can be caused by certain medications, alcohol, nicotine, and cannabis.
Insomnia symptoms are also common during withdrawal from alcohol in cannabis and from many medications like antidepressants.
Comorbid Insomnia
This type of insomnia occurs along with other disorders like depression, cardiovascular disease, or asthma. It can also result from certain medical conditions that cause chronic pain, like cancer and arthritis.
Sleep Onset Insomnia
Sleep onset insomnia describes difficulty falling asleep at the beginning of the night or what’s called sleep onset. This type of insomnia is characterized by a delay in sleep of 30 minutes or more.
One of the biggest causes of sleep onset is an active brain. Many individuals find themselves lying in bed without being allowed sufficient time for mental relaxation. They think of sleep as an on/off switch. They get in bed, and they just think they can turn their brain off, but it doesn’t work that way.
Middle Insomnia
If you suffer from middle insomnia, you wake up during the night and can’t get back to sleep. Middle insomnia is sometimes associated with alcohol use and chronic pain. Hot flashes and night sweats during menopause can disturb sleep, too.
Late Insomnia
If you wake up around dawn, that’s called late insomnia. When it feels too early to get up and too late to go back to sleep. This type of insomnia is often associated with emotional stress, circadian rhythm disorders, and low blood sugar.
Conditioned Insomnia
When insomnia becomes a conditioned response to going to bed. And it’s usually the mechanism behind chronic insomnia.
Many people who have this conditioned insomnia will notice that when they go away on a vacation or sleep somewhere else, they actually sleep better in other locations. This is because they haven’t conditioned the bed with night after night of frustration, lying awake, tossing, and turning.
Behavioral Insomnia
Behavioral Insomnia in childhood begins when a child under five is not given a strict bedtime. This can cause sleep difficulties like refusing to go to bed, wanting to sleep with a parent or getting up repeatedly during the night.
Untreated behavioral Insomnia can cause issues beyond sleepiness, like poor performance at school and temper tantrums.
Idiopathic Insomnia
Idiopathic insomnia describes insomnia with no apparent cause. However, recent research has found that this type of insomnia probably does have a cause, “hyperactivity of the central nervous system.”
This can be caused by an exaggerated response to stress. The body remains in a hyper-vigilant state, making sleep difficult.
Paradoxical Insomnia
The person who lives with paradoxical insomnia thinks they spend hours lying awake, but the amount of time they spend sleeping is within the normal range.
Sleep Hygiene Insomnia
This refers to poor habits like using electronics before bed, an inconsistent bedtime, or drinking alcohol and coffee in the evening. Nighttime exposure to bright light from lamps and electronics can cause insomnia even if you otherwise practice good sleep hygiene.
Symptoms of Insomnia
Insomnia has several potential symptoms, such as
- Difficulty falling asleep at night despite feeling tired.
- Waking up frequently during the night and having trouble returning to sleep.
- Waking up too early in the morning and being unable to fall back asleep.
- Feeling unrefreshed upon waking, regardless of the duration of sleep.
- Daytime fatigue, drowsiness, or irritability.
- Difficulty concentrating, focusing, or remembering tasks.
- Increased errors or accidents due to impaired cognitive function.
- Persistent worries or anxiety about sleep.
- Tension, headaches, gastrointestinal issues, or other physical symptoms exacerbated by lack of sleep.
- Dependence on sleep aids or alcohol to induce sleep.
How to Fix Insomnia?
We all need sleep, and most of us don’t get it. Now, the biggest problem with sleep is that it’s one of those things, and the harder you try to do it, the harder it is to succeed.
You can’t just make yourself fall asleep, but there are things that you can do to help create a better environment for it to happen naturally.
Avoid Stimulants
The first key to solving insomnia is avoiding caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, or other chemicals that interfere with sleep. Caffeine is the most obvious culprit, and besides coffee, it can be found in,
- Tea
- Chocolate
- Cola
- and even some pain relievers.
In smokers, nicotine is also a stimulant and can affect your ability to sleep.
You should avoid any stimulant-type chemical at least four to six hours prior to bedtime, and interestingly enough, alcohol can affect your ability to sleep. It may also help you bring on sleep, but after a few hours, it can act as a stimulant and increase your chance of waking up.
So, it’s best to keep your alcohol intake to one to two drinks a day and avoid drinking within three hours of bedtime.
Create An Environment to Sleep
Turn your bedroom into an environment that aids in sleep. We all do best in a quiet, cool, and dark environment. If you can’t make it quiet,
- Use earplugs or white noise devices to block out distracting noises.
- Use heavy curtains or an eye mask to block out light.
- Keep your room temperature under 70 degrees.
- Have a comfortable mattress and pillow.
We also recommend that you limit activities to sleep in your bedroom. Having computers, TVs, or other distractions or activities in the bedroom blocks your brain from associating your bed with sleep. We need to train our brains to recognize that when we get in our beds, it’s time to sleep.
Establish A Soothing Bedtime Routine
We do this for our children, but for some reason, we think that we’re different. Incorporating certain activities into our pre-sleep routine can help prepare our minds for sleep, such as,
- taking a bath
- reading a non-stimulating book
- meditating
So avoid working on stimulating issues, watching or discussing world events, or any other stress-induced activities. Stress increases the hormone cortisol, which is associated with increasing insomnia.
Keep A Schedule
We do this with our children. They have bedtimes for a reason. Going to bed and waking up at the same time each day helps our body set an internal clock. As we do so, our bodies are more likely to get tired at a certain time, making it easier to sleep.
Just as important is getting up around the same time each day. Even if you didn’t sleep well the night before, this is important to do even on weekends.
The more that you keep a set schedule, the easier it is to train your bodies and minds to go to sleep when they should.
Avoid Naps
The sixth suggestion to optimize sleep quality is to reduce the frequency and duration of daytime napping. However, if you’re going to do it, it’s crucial to keep it brief and schedule it earlier in the day. Limiting nap intervals to a concise 20 to 30 minutes, preferably occurring in the early afternoon, can mitigate the risk of disrupting nighttime sleep patterns.
Moreover, avoiding napping altogether can serve as a potent strategy for recalibrating one’s sleep-wake cycle. By forgoing daytime naps entirely, individuals stand to benefit from a more pronounced resetting effect on their sleep schedules, thus facilitating a smoother transition into restorative nighttime sleep.
Go to Sleep Tired
One of the most counterintuitive yet effective strategies in the battle against insomnia is to go to bed only when feeling genuinely tired. It seems paradoxical, but forcing oneself into bed before experiencing the telltale signs of fatigue can prolong the struggle to fall asleep.
The logic behind this tip is simple: the body’s natural sleep drive, also known as sleep pressure, builds up gradually throughout the day. By waiting until you feel genuinely tired before hitting the sack, you’re more likely to fall asleep quickly and experience deeper, more restorative rest.
However, if you find yourself lying awake in bed for more than 20 to 30 minutes without drifting off, it’s best to get up and engage in a relaxing activity in another room until you feel drowsy again.
Don’t Stare at the Clock
To beat insomnia and sleep better, consider your bedroom environment. A big culprit? The clock on your nightstand.
Constantly checking the time when you can’t sleep ramps up stress. It makes falling asleep even harder and creates negative associations with your bedroom.
Experts suggest ditching the clock in your bedroom. Without the visual reminder of time ticking by, you’ll feel less pressure to sleep. Instead, focus on calming activities like mindfulness or deep breathing.
Create a sleep-friendly space by removing the clock and calming your mind. It’s a small change that can lead to big improvements in your sleep quality and well-being.
Eat A Light Dinner
Keep your dinner meals light. Eating a heavy, greasy meal can make it more difficult for you to be able to sleep. For many, it contributes to indigestion, and that can make it more difficult, especially when you lay down to sleep soon after eating.
If you get hungry at night, it’s okay to have a snack. Just keep it light.
Exercise Early
Daily exercise can be a key factor in a healthy lifestyle and a good night’s sleep. But if you do it too late, it can make it harder to fall asleep. Exercise stimulates the body to secrete the stress hormone cortisol.
Cortisol helps activate the alert mechanisms of the brain, which can make it more difficult to sleep. So try to finish exercising at least three hours before bed or work out earlier in the day.
Be Consistent
All of these tips are important to getting a good night’s sleep. But they’re not something that’s going to happen overnight. It can take several weeks of really working at this to see a significant difference.
Insomnia isn’t something you’ll be able to fix overnight. But keep at it, and you will see improvement.
Just like with any other medical condition, if you’ve been consistently working on these things and are still struggling, get to contact an emergency doctor.