The Science Behind Insomnia

Have you ever suffered from insomnia? In other words, do you face the difficulty of falling asleep and staying asleep at night? So what causes it?

Often times, insomnia is caused by multiple reasons, such as not getting enough rest, hunger, psychological trauma and so on. No matter what the reason is, millions of human beings suffer from the devil called insomnia. It robs you from getting enough rest, saps your energy and destroys your productivity the next day. Not to mention the detrimental effect towards your own physical and mental health.

What is Insomnia?

Insomnia by definition is the difficulty of falling asleep and staying asleep. It refers to the types of restlessness a person suffers at different points of his or her sleep cycle. A simple indication to diagnose insomnia is when a person is not satisfied with the amount of sleep that he or she has been getting.

Those with insomnia will feel the lack of energy, fatigue at different moments of the day, facing difficulty in concentrating on tasks, experiencing terrible mood disturbances, and having a low-performance level in the workplace. It’s possible for insomniacs to have any of these symptoms after staying awake throughout the night.

A human body requires rest to rejuvenate both mind and body. A lack of rest in either one of them will result in fatigue and various mental illnesses. Although they are terribly exhausted to the core, they still fail to fall asleep or stay asleep due to different causes.

The Two Types of Insomnia

1. Acute Insomnia

There are two main types of insomnia. The first type is the kind of insomnia when you only suffer a couple of restless nights. Often times, you're able to fall asleep and stay asleep easily. For many, insomniacs might not think that they are suffering from it but the fact is, they could be having Acute Insomnia.

So what is Acute Insomnia? This kind of insomnia comes from the core levels of stress that insomniacs are experiencing at that moment. They will face a short period where they are not able to fall asleep because of the life circumstances they're facing at that moment. This type of insomnia doesn't last for a prolonged time. Instead, it only happens due to certain factors or events during a specified period of time.

For instance, acute insomnia might occur after insomniacs faced the wrath of their boss, gotten a bad grade on a test, got rejected by their crush, or merely because they're having a 'Bad Day'. These situations can cause a person to have a night or two where he or she simply cannot get any sleep. Many people may have experienced this kind of insomnia and it tends to resolve on its own.

2. Chronic Insomnia

The second type of insomnia is known as Chronic Insomnia. It’s a prolonged kind of insomnia which occurs at least three nights per week and lasts for at least three months. Usually, this occurs when you are facing a significant change in your environment, physically or mentally. It could be moving to a new home, losing a loved one, being in a new workplace, facing challenges in school, or having trouble adapting to a harsher weather. Perhaps, the reason why chronic insomniacs are having trouble with sleep is that they have an unhealthy sleep habit without a proper sleep routine.

It’s common in today's world; modern society has screwed up sleep cycle with short hours of sleep. To make things worse, most of them sleep at odd hours. They don't practice the habit of going to bed early and rising early the next day.

As a result, the mind doesn't know when to shut down and would be accustomed to staying up late. That's the reason why insomnia has become a common problem in today's society. What people fail to understand is that the body will not be able to function with a small amount of sleep one night and expect to compensate their sleep gap by taking naps later on during the day. While this may seem possible and useful in the beginning, this sleep pattern is not sustainable for the long-term.

Eventually, the mind and body will collapse, and you will experience complete exhaustion until you get enough rest. The best fix is to have a fixed schedule to sleep and practice healthy sleep routine. Otherwise, you need to visit the doctor for medication. Typically it will be linked to another medical or psychiatric issue; meaning that the reason why you might be having chronic insomnia will be due to stress. What seems to be a typical situation will seem stressful if you have chronic insomnia. A restless mind and body will feel annoyed by any stimulus from the immediate environment.

The Causes of Insomnia

Regardless of the types of insomnia, the causes are the same. The difference lies in the intensity of emotions a person experiences for a set amount of time. Besides that, underlying medical conditions can also cause insomnia. Fortunately, insomnia is treatable in most cases.

These medical conditions can be either severe or mild, inducing insomnia to occur at a different point in a person's life. These symptoms include nasal allergies, sinus allergies, lower back pain, overall chronic pain, gastrointestinal problems, arthritis, asthma, and other neurological problems.

The stress on the patient's body will cause the mind to stay awake for a longer period of time. For instance, those who catch a cold will realize that they are staying awake for the majority of the night or they might find themselves waking up frequently. Both of these factors can result in a person having a severe lack of sleep and rest. They might try to relax while having a cold, but insomnia will prevail.

Physical pain can also cause insomnia as the body cannot get into a comfortable position to rest. Have you ever experienced sleepless nights because you're unable to get into a comfortable position? This situation is typical when you experience any pain in your body. The best way to fall asleep and stay asleep fast is to get your body in a comfortable position in bed. It will also aid in healing and ensure a more productive sleep. Otherwise, you'll find yourself in a constant battle to fall asleep and even opt for unnecessary medication if you can't get into your best sleeping posture.

With all of these different causes in mind, we can now move on to the cure. But it’s just as important to study all the factors that cause insomnia. But did you know that there are also risk factors of insomnia? If you find some of these risks apply to you, then you simply have a higher chance of having insomnia at some point in your life. Otherwise, pay attention to your health and sleep habits to make sure that you're insomnia-free for the rest of your life.

The Risk Factors of Insomnia

The risk factors of insomnia include being a female, being pregnant or in the period of menopause, adults above the age of forty, suffering from more stress, suffering from depression, have a night time job, travel long distances where there is a time change, or have a family history of insomnia. All of these factors lead a person closer to insomnia. But do you realize that most of these risk factors are the results of your choices? In most cases, people think that they have little to no choice in life, which is not true.

They can choose to take a longer vacation when they are moving through different time zones, but they didn't. They can go for a day job, but they decided to go through the hard times of having a job at night and adapt to an entirely different lifestyle.

It is hard to deal with the risk factors of insomnia, but ultimately, it all depends on your choices. Sometimes, you may go through tough times in life. It can be relationship problems, family problems, or job problems. Not only that, you might be suffering from financial or personal problems where you are having trouble balancing your professional and personal life. All these will beat you up and keep you up at night until most of the stress or depression is gone. In some cases, it might take longer. In other cases, people can find solutions and get through the tough times rather quickly. Either way, having the right mindset is the cure to emotions-induced insomnia.

Since insomnia has many different causes and risk factors, there are many different things that you can do to prevent yourself from having more sleepless and restless nights. Most of the time, it’s easy to find out what the causes are, but the real challenge is how to overcome it and have a good night sleep. Life can be difficult, and sometimes it can beat a person down to the point where he's not even sure if he can get back up.