SELF-HELP PREVENTION: INSOMNIA
Posted on Apr 23, 2009 under General health | No CommentWhat is it?
The inability to get to sleep or to get as much sleep as we think we should have. Many people troubled by insomnia believe they need more sleep than they actually do. This is especially true of the elderly, who are often immobile or take very little exercise, snooze on and off throughout the day, and then worry that they don’t sleep for eight hours at night as well.
Research has found that most people sleep too much and could manage just as well with far less. Certainly it is true that prolonged sleeplessness is harmful but it has also been found that most healthy adults could function perfectly adequately on four or five hours’ sleep.
There are many unhelpful myths about sleep that make people feel bad about perfectly ‘normal’ insomnia. Some imagine that they are being punished for some evil deed by not being able to sleep; others equate insomnia with madness; and from the perfectly reasonable notion that some ill people have difficulty sleeping many people jump to the conclusion that everyone who can’t sleep must be ill. Memories of childhood scolding also play a part with many people. They remember being told they were naughty for not being asleep, yet they probably didn’t need that much sleep then and certainly don’t now.
What causes it?
• Any illness, and especially a feverish one, or one that causes pain, will cause even the best sleeper to have difficulty sleeping.
• Drinking tea or coffee too close to retiring is a common cause. People forget just how potent a stimulant coffee is. Some people cannot sleep until 4a.m. after one cup of coffee at 7 o’clock the previous evening.
• Deficiencies of vitamins Â1 and B6 can cause insomnia, as can deficiencies of zinc, manganese, calcium and magnesium.
• Too big a meal just before retiring.
• In children sleep may be broken by night terrors, nightmares or sleepwalking-and, of course, some adults suffer from these too.
• Going to bed too soon after extreme mental or physical effort is a sure recipe for sleeplessness because the body is keyed up for action.
• Jetlag and time-zone changes.
• A bad bed.
• Depression. This is probably the most common cause of insomnia in adults. There is usually a depressed mood, a loss of weight and appetite, poor sex drive, irritability, tearfulness, poor concentration, poor memory, an inability to make decisions, and a general lack of vitality. Such people have difficulty falling asleep and then wake in the early hours (around 4 or 5 a.m.) and don’t go back to sleep.
• In some neurotic states the sufferer has difficulty getting off to sleep or wakes frequently with bad dreams and nightmares. Some people are in a perfectly normal psychological state yet are woken by bad dreams and nightmares as a result of eating certain foods. Red wine and cheese seem to be particularly potent in this respect, which is hardly surprising as they contain a vaso-active amine called tyramine.
• Sexual frustration is a not uncommon cause of insomnia. Most people say that they sleep better after intercourse or masturbation.
• Schizophrenics, especially young ones, often spend hours tramping round the house at night.
• Senile dementia can cause a reversal of the normal sleep pattern, with the old person sleeping all day and lying awake at night.
• Manic people are so active that they can’t find time to go to bed.
• Alcohol and drugs are important causes. The drinker who slumbers under the influence of drink may wake up with a full bladder, which, having been relieved, leaves him or her sleepless. Some alcoholics can’t sleep because of the direct toxic effect of the alcohol. A little alcohol helps induce sleep but large amounts can have the opposite effect. This is also true of barbiturates.
• Many people with severe heart disease don’t sleep well because they are breathless unless propped up with lots of pillows.
• Worry about day-to-day events and problems keeps many people awake but eventually they fall asleep and wake refreshed.
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