Have you ever woke up at midnight for no reason? Some of you must have remembered the post that went viral on social media that if you wake up for no reason, that was due to the presence of some supernatural entity in your room. But, no worries. It can be primary insomnia. According to APA, among adult one-third are exposed to the symptoms and “6–10 percent meet the criteria of insomnia disorder”.
Insomnia can be categorized into 2 types. Primary insomnia and Secondary insomnia. The former has no link with the health issues but later can be mainly caused by severe health issues.
Insomnia Causes
Primary Insomnia Causes
- Stress is one of the common factors of primary insomnia. It can be work stress, study stress or even anything stressful in the family can leave you tossing in the bed all night.
- To have healthy sleep you need a nice environment. Noise and bright lights can affect your sleep.
- Moving to another time zone where the time difference is more than five hours can make it difficult to fall asleep or keep asleep.
- The one who has faced the jet lag situation knows how bad is the feeling. Despite lying in a warm cozy bed you feel like swinging low and high. No matter how much you loved to swing higher in childhood, after jet lag, it feels like hell.
- According to Insomnia: A Clinical Guide to Assessment And Treatment, consuming heavy meals in late evenings may cause you inappropriate arousal.
- Sleeping somewhere other than your own comfy bedroom may disrupted disrupt your sleep.
- Ingestion of several drugs like nicotine, caffeine and alcohol near bedtime can also disturb the sleep pattern.
- Screen time close to bedtime is also one of the problematic factors for sleep disruptions.
Secondary Insomnia Causes
- Any kind of severe pain in any part of the body causes secondary insomnia. For instance, toothache, headache, back pain, etc.
- Severe medical conditions (allergies, cancer, arthritis, rhinitis, asthma etc.) cause sleep disturbances.
- A cross-sectional study on 4558 Australians found that “the proportion of subjects reporting indigestion, palpitations, tremor, headache, and insomnia increased significantly with mean caffeine intake.”
- Depression and anxiety are common causes of chronic insomnia these days. A research published in Dialogues in Clinical Neurosciences says ¾ of the depression patient have sleep problems, and 40% of the young patients of depression and 10% of older patients are exposed to hypersomnia.
How Insomnia Affects your Life
Insomnia can be quite disturbing both mentally and physically. It can turn your life upside down.
1. Physical Effects
Insomnia makes you feel weak and weary all day long. You feel like all energy has been drained out of your body. If you have secondary insomnia, it can cause you major health issues such as heart issues and blood pressure related problems.
2. Mental Effects
Moreover, there can be an increase in forgetfulness if you are suffering from insomnia for a longer time. Attention deficits, substance abuse, anxiety disorder, and depression are also the consequences of insomnia.
How to Avoid Insomnia
- limiting extra naps can assist a perfect night time sleep.
- Avoid caffeine and other drugs that can interrupt your sleep schedule.
- Practicing early to bed, early to rise formula consistently can do miracles.
- Avoid eating or drinking after 8 in the evening. Chinese people strictly follow this rule to spend an active and refreshing day ahead.
- Dim lights help to fall asleep early.
- Avoid screen time close to bedtime and keep cell phone, laptop, tablet at a distance while sleeping.
After all,
“Sleep is the best meditation.” Dalai Lama.
