Insomnia is a condition in which there is continuous difficulty in falling asleep and there is also frequent awakening at night, this can influence the day time performance of an individual. Insomnia can directly disrupt the sleeping pattern of an individual. Insomnia can directly affect the quality and quantity of the work that a person does. It can also lead to fatigue and lack of energy.
There are certain defining characteristics of insomnia that include:
- Difficulty falling asleep
- Difficulty in remaining asleep
- Fatigue
- Agitation
- Mood swings
There can be many reasons why a person suffers from insomnia. Some of the common causes are:
- It can be due to frequent awakening which can be because of difficulty in breathing, chest pain, ulcers, urinary problems, etc.
- Insomnia can be due to change in environment
- It can be due to hyperactivity of body
- Decreased day time activity
- Change in circadian rhythm
- Stress
- Anxiety
- In women, insomnia can be because of hormonal changes
In order to combat insomnia, an individual should make certain goals so as to regain a normal sleeping pattern so that their day time performance can improve. Firstly, the attention should be focused to identify the factors that affect sleep. Then, they should work in order to find different ways which can induce sleep or help them stay asleep.
Insomnia can be settled by working in certain ways that can help an individual to fall asleep. Following can be measure that a person can take:
- Try to sleep in an environment where there is minimum or no disturbance at all by this you can be assured that once you fall asleep there wouldn’t be any awakening due to environmental disturbances.
- If the reason behind insomnia is a urinary problem. Out of so many urinary problem most common problems are urinary incontinence and voiding. If this is the main reason, then the person should limit their fluid intake at night.
- Excessive day time sleeping can disrupt nighttime sleep. Therefore, a person should limit their day time naps.
- Excessive day time activity should be done so that a person can stay busy. By this, they will feel tired till evening and would easily fall asleep.
- Caffeine, alcohol or any other kind of CNS stimulant should be avoided.
- If insomnia is due to stress then an individual should pursue yoga or any other activity that can help them to relieve their stress.
It has been seen that in order to deal with insomnia people rely on sleep-inducing drugs which is extremely wrong because your body gets habitual of it and slowly it also becomes resistive, which means that you need to increase the dosage to induce the sleep. However, the above-mentioned ways are non-pharmacological and are based on identifying the problem and then working to tackle it. Therefore, it is advisable that rather switching on medication, people should look holistically at their problem to identify the exact cause.