The Road To Understanding Insomnia Starts Here

First off, if you're having trouble sleeping right now and need help, click the links below for some immediate solutions.

Life Sign Sleep Key

Sleep Tracks White Noise Therapy

Ambiatol

Magnetic Therapy Sleep Pad

Apollo Blue Light Therapy

If you're still reading, I thought I would take the time in this post to further help wrap our minds around insomnia. You see, contrary to popular belief, insomnia is a symptom, not a disease. It usually occurs in relation to a variety of medical, psychiatric and physiological disorders. Complaining of insomnia usually means you are upset by the following:

• difficulty falling asleep
• sleeping too lightly
• having multiple spontaneous awakenings
• early awakenings with an inability to fall back to sleep

It is important to assess the timing of insomnia in order to determine its' cause and origin. When you suffer from persistent sleeplessness it is crucial to define exactly how the condition is effecting you, being as specific as possible. This is why it is very important that each patient defines to the best of their ability what he or she means by the term “insomnia”.

Research has found that patients with insomnia show a variety of consistent features. They are more likely to have:

• higher rate of depression and depressive and/or anxiety issues
• longer daytime sleep latency (unable to rest during the day)
• an increased 24 hour metabolic rate
• more night to night variability in their sleep (irregular sleeping patterns)

How Do We Get Insomnia?

Experts believe that there are three main factors that will cause sustained sleeplessness. These are what we call the three P's

1. The Predisposed personality, sometimes including people with a higher than normal rate of neural activity. This can include any combination of the following personality traits:

• anxious
• pessimistic
• emotional hyper-activity
• general stress or tension.

2. A Preceding event, or an event(s) that is outside of the person's control that is the cause of sleep problems. These events are usually easy to spot as changes in our routines caused by anything from a family conflict to surviving an earthquake. Such preceding events could easily include:

• work stress
• financial stress
• health problems
• death in the family
• surviving disaster situations (earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, e.t.c...)
• shift work
• *melatonin deficiency

3. The Perpetual practicing insomniac. If you look back at my previous post regarding the condition of somniphobia, you can note from that analysis that a perpetuating insomniac can fall under the category of somniphobe. It develops as a response to sleeplessness, but inevitably ends in prolonging the condition by developing series of thoughts and fears about the insomnia, wherein the subject can “talk” themselves out of a quality rest. Traits of a perpetuating insomniac can include:

• sleeping too early
• staying in bed late
• caffeine
• reactions to sleep medications
• excessive worrying over sleep
• daytime napping

So What Can We Do?

As mentioned at the beginning of the article, if you find yourself relating to any of the above criteria, there are certain sleep systems that are available without prescription that can significantly help to combat the problem. Sleep Tracks or Light Therapy will normally help the perpetuating insomniac by allowing a calm, soothing environment. (click the links to examine the systems) Melatonin hybrid preparations like Ambiatol can assist those who have a specific predisposition to insomnia (as eluded to in this post).

Those that find themselves with insomnia due to a preceding event should also use things such as sleeping pads and even a sleep computer to at least have weapons in the battle. However if the conditions of a preceding event are due to a specific traumatic event, it is extremely wise to seek out a diagnosis of emotional health, since PTSD (Post Trauma Stress Disorder) must be ruled out. A combination of therapy and anti-depressant medications will certainly help immensely in dealing with PTSD.

This article was meant to list the variables associated with insomnia, and to provide some natural insomnia cures to assist you in getting a proper rest. It is always most wise to consult a proper sleep clinic with concerns as they become more and more persistent, but in some cases, the products and systems I've listed above can help significantly. You can click on any of the systems to order or examine. I'll end by saying the same thing I've said many times within this site, it is always best to try non-intrusive therapies before resorting to medications.

Get some rest!