INSOMNIA AND SLEEP ISSUES

Insomnia is the inability to fall asleep or to stay asleep after falling asleep.

 If you can answer “yes” to one of these 3 questions, then you probably have insomnia:

"Do you experience difficulty sleeping?”

"Do you have difficulty falling or staying asleep?"

"Is your sleep poor in quality?"

Insomnia occurs in 30% to 50% of the entire world population. Almost everyone will suffer from insomnia at some point in their lifetime.  It can strike at any age, although as a person ages the symptoms can become more severe and it has a higher prevalence in the female population. People with insomnia often have impaired function while they are awake, often extremely tired they are still unable to sleep at night.

Insomnia is both a sign and a symptom that can accompany several sleep, medical, and psychiatric disorders.  If you are suffering from insomnia your first port of call must be your doctor to rule out any underlying medical cause. 

Anxiety is by far one of the biggest causes of insomnia. This can be caused by many triggers such as work stress, relationship problems, money worries, health worries etc. Ironically one of the biggest causes of anxiety is the inability to sleep. This is called sleep anxiety.

How does sleep anxiety cause insomnia? Sleep anxiety is quite simply the worry, fear or anxiety about getting to sleep, staying asleep, or not getting enough sleep. Ironically, sleep anxiety is one of the biggest causes of insomnia. It can become a vicious, restless and worrying cycle of too little sleep, high anxiety, chronic tiredness and misery for many millions of people. Most people with insomnia also have sleep anxiety. Many people are unaware that they are anxious about sleep, only that they are anxious and don’t know why. People are much more likely to feel anxious when they don’t have enough sleep on a regular basis, and many people become depressed and feel they are unable to function properly unless they get enough sleep. For the many that are aware or become aware that they have sleep anxiety, they have no idea how to stop the anxiety and break the insomnia cycle and return to a natural, refreshing sleep cycle. In fact, many start to get anxiety about their sleep anxiety. They can feel themselves becoming more and more worried and tense to closer bedtime comes, often developing elaborate bedtime routines that require a lot of preparation and also often cause a lot of anxiety.