PMS and Insomnia. Problems affecting the brain, including neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders, have been found to be associated with an elevated risk of insomnia. Nighttime confusion can further worsen sleep quality. Specific sleep disorders can be a cause of insomnia. Abnormal behaviors during sleep , known as parasomnias, can interfere with sleep. Some well-known examples of parasomnias include sleepwalking , nightmares , and sleep paralysis. As in people of a younger age, stress, physical ailments, mental health problems, and poor sleep habits can cause insomnia in the elderly.
However, elderly people are often more sensitive to these causes because of higher levels of chronic health conditions, social isolation, and an increased use of multiple prescription drugs that may affect sleep. Research indicates that people over age 60 have less sleep efficiency. They spend less time in deep sleep and REM sleep, which makes it easier for their sleep to be disturbed. A decrease in daylight exposure and reduced environmental cues for sleep and wakefulness can affect circadian rhythm, especially for elderly people in managed care settings.
Insomnia has been estimated to affect up to Teens may be especially susceptible to overscheduling and stress from school, work, and social obligations. Teens also have high rates of using electronic devices in their bedroom. Each of these factors contributes to a high rate of insomnia during adolescence. Multiple factors can cause insomnia during pregnancy :. Studies have found that more than half of pregnant women report sleeping problems consistent with insomnia.
In the first trimester, pregnant women frequently sleep more total hours, but the quality of their sleep decreases. After the first trimester, total sleep time decreases, with the most significant sleeping problems occurring during the third trimester. Eric Suni has over a decade of experience as a science writer and was previously an information specialist for the National Cancer Institute. He is board-certified in psychiatry as well as sleep medicine. Insomnia is a common sleep disorder characterized by a persistent difficulty to fall or remain asleep despite the opportunity to….
Sleep problems can affect anyone, but women are more likely to experience insomnia than men. Poor sleep can provoke daytime…. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information. Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies.
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Updated August 6, Written by Eric Suni. Medically Reviewed by Alex Dimitriu. What Are Common Causes of Insomnia? Is All Insomnia the Same? Insomnia and Stress Stress can provoke a profound reaction in the body that poses a challenge to quality sleep. Various lifestyle choices can bring about sleeping problems: Keeping the brain stimulated until late in the evening, such as by working late, playing video games, or using other electronic devices.
Napping late in the afternoon can throw off your sleep timing and make it hard to fall asleep at night. Using your bed for activities besides sleep can create mental associations between your bed and wakefulness. Sign up below for your free gift. Your privacy is important to us. Was this article helpful? Yes No.
This therapy involves limiting the amount of time you spend in bed, including avoiding naps. Your time in bed is gradually increased as your sleep improves. This strategy involves focusing on staying awake in bed instead of expecting to fall asleep. It helps reduce worry and anxiety over being able to fall asleep. There are a number of prescription medications and over-the-counter OTC sleep aids that may help you get to sleep or remain asleep.
Certain classes of sleeping pills are also habit-forming. Always speak to your doctor before taking an OTC sleep aid, including natural remedies, such as melatonin and valerian root. Just like prescription drugs, OTC and natural sleep aids can cause unwanted side effects and interfere with other medications. If your chronic insomnia is caused by an underlying medical condition, such as acid reflux or pain, treating the condition may cure your insomnia. Chronic health conditions that cause insomnia can be managed with changes in treatment, in turn managing or preventing insomnia.
There are several things that you can do at home to treat or prevent chronic insomnia. One important option for treatment is known as sleep hygiene. This calls for changes in patterns of behavior to help improve your ability to fall asleep and stay asleep. Chronic insomnia is a long-term pattern of difficulty sleeping. Insomnia is considered chronic if a person has trouble falling asleep or staying asleep at least three nights per week for three months or longer. Some people with chronic insomnia have a long history of difficulty sleeping.
Inability to get the sleep they need may be persistent or go away and recur with months-long episodes at a time. Chronic insomnia has many potential causes. Like acute insomnia, it can be tied to stressful situations, but it may also be related to irregular sleep schedules, poor sleep hygiene, persistent nightmares, mental health disorders, underlying physical or neurological problems, medications, a bed partner, and certain other sleep disorders.
Like short-term insomnia, chronic insomnia occurs in people of all ages and has a higher prevalence in women. While the sleep disorder of insomnia is principally classified as either short-term or chronic, there are other terms that may be used to describe insomnia. PMS and Insomnia These terms may be used informally or as a way for researchers to better categorize and analyze the different ways that insomnia can be experienced. Sleep onset insomnia describes difficulty falling asleep at the beginning of the night, or in the case of shift workers, whenever they attempt to initiate sleep.
It is associated with the idea of tossing and turning without actually being able to get to sleep. The inability to fall asleep means that a person with insomnia of this nature has reduced total sleep time and can feel the effects of that lack of sleep the next day. Sleep maintenance insomnia describes an inability to stay asleep through the night.
Most often, this means waking up at least once during the night and struggling to get back to sleep for at least minutes. The fragmented sleep associated with poor sleep maintenance means a decrease in both sleep quantity and quality, creating higher chances of daytime sleepiness or sluggishness. Early morning awakening insomnia involves waking up well before a person wants or plans to in the morning.
Some experts view this as a component of sleep maintenance while others consider it separately. Though not a formal term, the descriptor mixed insomnia may be applied to people who have a combination of problems related to sleep onset, sleep maintenance, and early morning awakenings.
In general, the broader term insomnia can be thought of as describing mixed insomnia because it is common for people to have overlapping sleeping problems. In addition, people with insomnia often find that their symptoms can shift over time , making it hard to classify insomnia strictly among the subtypes of onset, maintenance, and early morning awakenings. In the past, sleeping problems were sometimes labeled as comorbid insomnia or secondary insomnia.
This meant that insomnia was believed to arise as a result of another condition such as anxiety , depression , sleep apnea, gastroesophageal reflux disease GERD , or physical pain. Contemporary research has generated a deeper understanding of insomnia that recognizes that sleeping problems often have a bidirectional relationship with other health issues. For example, while anxiety may contribute to insomnia, insomnia may trigger or exacerbate anxiety as well. Furthermore, insomnia triggered by another condition does not always go away even after that underlying issue is resolved.
Because of the complexity of these relationships, it becomes difficult to classify insomnia as strictly comorbid or secondary. Similarly, the presence of multiple contributing factors makes identifying a single cause of insomnia challenging for many patients.
For these reasons, insomnia classification systems used in sleep medicine have moved away from this terminology and toward a broader understanding of insomnia. Insomnia can manifest in diverse ways, and researchers are working to further identify how causes, symptoms, health consequences, and treatments may be different among distinct subtypes. In the future, it is possible that continued investigation along these lines may sharpen our understanding of insomnia and expand the ability to optimize treatment for any given patient.
Eric Suni has over a decade of experience as a science writer and was previously an information specialist for the National Cancer Institute. Sleep disorders: The connection between sleep and mental health. National Alliance on Mental Health. Approach to the patient with sleep or wakefulness disorder. Merck Manual Professional Version.
Natural Medicines. Sleep and aging. National Institute on Aging. Kliger B, et al. American Family Physician. Bonnet MH, et al. Clinical features and diagnosis of insomnia. Bonnet MH, et al, Treatment of insomnia. Cassoff J, et al. Evaluating the effectiveness of the Motivating Teens To Sleep More program in advancing bedtime in adolescents: A randomized control trial. BMC Psychology. About AASM accredited facilities. American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
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