Contents
Insomnia 101
In this article, learn more about the damaging effects of insomnia and why it is important to control your thinking and life choices before stepping into bed.
How prevalent is insomnia?
According to the National Sleep Foundation in 2005, evidence showed that insomnia was the second highest health condition complained about worldwide.
33% of people experienced the condition every night, 21% experienced it a few nights per week, 21% few nights per month and lastly, 19% rarely.
This study shows that insomnia affects people in varying degrees and timelines.
No Sleep At Night
No sleep at night is the most significant case of insomnia and quite a common occurrence in the general population, but no sleep at night becomes a problem when it becomes chronic and poses serious negative health effects.
Causes Of Sleepless Night
Often, the causes of a full sleepless night (no hours or minutes slept whatsoever) is due to a poor location of sleep such as rough sleeping, the room being too hot or cold, and psychological reasons behind the fact that they are unable to wind down and get some shut eye.
Sleepless Nights During Pregnancy
If you’re a woman, sleepless nights are inevitable during (as well as after pregnancy) The good news is that though you can’t change the matter of the physical discomfort of carrying your baby, you CAN control your thoughts and concerns throughout the process.
Insomnia Causes And Treatment
Insomnia is caused by a wide range of issues but some of the more complex kinds include suffering from a mental health disorder like major depressive disorder or post-traumatic-stress (PTSD) disorder. Treating this kind of insomnia needs additional intervention and psychological treatment, compared to a physician simply prescribing sleeping tablets – which doesn’t treat the root cause.
Sometimes OCD may cause restlessness and insomnia during the night to a sufferer because they are concerned if they’ve locked all their doors and windows and repeatdtely check during the night.
How is Insomnia treated?
Usually, you need to make a appointment with your Dr so they can assess you and diagnose you.
For significant cases of insomnia, your doctor will identify and:
-
- Check if the insomnia has lasted for at least 6 months
- Check if you have difficulty sleeping nightly
- You don’t suffer from another disorder which creates insomnia
- You have a confirmation of sleep latency from a laboratory
Self Treatment
If one is really dedicated towards improving their reaction and thinking towards getting enough sleep, they can use transformational vocabulary to change a more intense thinking style into a more, positive one.
For instance, instead of “I can’t sleep tonight! This is terrible! My boss will fire me tomorrow for causing a grave mistake”
to…
“I may not be able to feel rested fully tomorrow, and that’s ok. Previous experience has shown I’m unlikely to cause any bad accidents”
Which one of those two would you rather use? ..
More Causes Of Not Sleeping At Night
- Cognitive distortions, rumination on what happened during the day and exaggerating a situation enough that it causes unsettlement at night
- Too much caffeine, alcohol, or tobacco before (or in) bed
- Poor sleep hygiene such as using your phone and checking social media before bed
- Worrying about hypothetical situations or scenarios which may (or may not occur) This is hypothetical worrying, and there’s no substantiation on whether it will occur or not.
- Changes in the times that you work and sleep
- Job stress, such as cashier anxiety
TIP:
Hypothetical vs Practical Worries – What are the differences?
Do Insomniacs Sleep?
This question is contradictory, because a common misconception is that insomniacs don’t sleep at all, but if that was true – they’d all be dead!
All insomniacs sleep a little while, even if it is only 1 or 2 hours a night. But the constant deprivation of outstanding hours of sleep (the average is 8 hours day so in this example, they’re missing 6 hours of sleep), this is the problem, because it causes irritability and poor functioning during the day.
