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Insomnia

Insomnia over time

Chronic sleeplessness affects our daytime functionality. We are fatigued and drowsy, unable to concentrate and prone to emotional and physical exhaustion. Insomnia can affect us in one of two ways: either by the build up of consecutive days of poor sleep or by a recurring common time period that we remain awake for each night.

Transient insomnia lasts for 1 to 6 nights and is most commonly due to a time zone change (jet lag), personal or work stresses. After the stress passes or a person discovers how to cope, sleep returns to normal.

Short-term insomnia involves 1 to 3 weeks of poor sleep. (Life changes such as job loss, separation, divorce, or health concerns are the most common reasons. Stimulants such as caffeine, decongestant/sinus medicines, or prescribed medications can cause a significant disturbance in sleep too.)

Chronic insomnia lasts for weeks, months, or years and proves distressing and sometimes disabling to the sufferer.

Sleep specialists are not typically concerned with the specific number of minutes that a person is awake. Since people have different needs for sleep and insomniacs have difficulty determining when they are actually asleep, the impact of poor sleep on daytime functionality is assessed.

For some, the minutes of lost sleep may be small, but the level of fatigue, tiredness, mental slowing, reduced concentration, memory lapses, irritability, disinterest, decreased motivation and reduced performance may be significant.

Sleep Statistics

The National Institute of Medicine estimates 50 to 70 million Americans have sleep problems, with many more suffering from a lack of sleep.

Worringly, the report says American businesses lose more than one hundred thousand million dollars a year because of tired workers. Some employees are too tired to report for work. They have accidents or are less productive at work. Other costs included increased visits to doctors.

• Women are 1.3 times more likely to report insomnia than men.
• Adolescents and Young adult are more likely to be sleep deprived through a conscious decision to reduce their hours of sleep than to experience an insomnia problem.
• People over age 65 are 1.5 times more likely to complain of insomnia than younger people.
• Divorce and Socio-Economic Standing increase likelihood of insomnia complaints.
• Profession does not impact upon sleep deprivation directly, although attitude to work does.

Is Insomnia dangerous?

Researchers have determined that the fear of an early death from insomnia is not warranted. A person does not die from insomnia (although it may feel like it). It is not a disease, but a symptom. In fact, most insomnia sufferers are not severely sleep deprived. In the 1970's, Dr. Mary Carskadon studied 130 patients who had chronic insomnia and compared their sleep to an equal number of normal sleepers. Only 10 to 15% of the insomnia group received less sleep than the normal sleepers. Research indicates that unless someone is experiencing a severe psychiatric or neurological disorder, it is infrequent for a person to sleep five hours or less.

Perhaps it helps to know that wise old men of the past such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison and Winston Churchill slept less than 6 hours per night. It is likely that they were naturally short sleepers.