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Insomnia Causes

You struggle to keep your eyes open during the day, but can't get to sleep later on. Chances are, you've got insomnia.

Nearly half of us suffer from insomnia every year, and frequently lie awake staring at the ceiling, unable to silence our babbling thoughts.

Insomnia is when you're not getting enough uninterrupted sleep to leave you refreshed the next day. Don't bother counting the minutes you were asleep. For a start, if you've got insomnia it's difficult to work out how long you've slept - it may well be more than you think. Also, because everyone needs a different amount of sleep, specialists don't think it's important - they're more interested in how poor sleep affects your ability to function in the day. For some people, a small loss of sleep can leave them unbelievably tired and irritable, totally unable to concentrate, taking them twice as long to carry out basic tasks.

The reason we have trouble sleeping varies from the mildly irritating - a cat whining outside your window - to whirring thoughts about work, fi nancial diffi cultiesor concern over a friend's illness. Sometimes it's just a free-fl oating anxiety that scoops up seemingly small worries like what colour to paint the bathroom or whether you were short-changed in the supermarket. It may be caused by medical illness, depression or a sleep disorder such as sleep apnoea.

Some 75% of insomnia will only last for a few nights and is caused by some change to your sleep schedule such as jet lag or illness. You may also be worried about a forthcoming event - a job interview perhaps - but once this has gone, your sleep will go back to normal. Women often suffer disturbed sleep during a period - body temperature rises causing tossing and turning. Shortterm insomnia will last three to four weeks and is normally caused by events such as job loss, separation, divorce or health worries - if these are not dealt with it could lead to chronic insomnia. This is when your insomnia lasts over a month - and you get it regularly, or even every night.

WHICH TYPE ARE YOU?

Can't get to sleep? Normal sleepers take less than 20 minutes to fall asleep - if you're this type of insomniac it could take more than 30 minutes. In fact the average is just over an hour. You may find it difficult to get to sleep however tired you are. This is often due to anxiety, but it could be that your body clock is running too late.

Keep waking up in the night? Everyone wakes up momentarily throughout the night, but we're not aware of it so it doesn't affect our sleep. If you suffer this kind of insomnia, however, you wake up in the middle of the night, and spend what seems like ages, tossing and turning. You can be awake for hours or just wake up frequently. Triggers include snoring, sleep apnoea or sometimes depression.

Early morning insomnia? If you're an early bird or if you're used to waking up early for your job or your children, then getting up at the crack of dawn probably won't be a problem - particularly if you've gone to bed earlier to make up the time. If you've got early morning insomnia, however, you'll wake up more than an hour before you want to. Depression or a body that's set to wake up too early are common causes.


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