Chronic Insomnia

Insomnia is the most common sleep disorder. It can have a devastating impact on one’s emotion, physical, occupation and social life. While it occasionally can be seen in the clinical setting as a primary diagnosis, it most often presents as a comorbidity to a medical or psychiatric issue;

In my paper, I will tackle insomnia from various perspectives: definitions, types, causes, effects, and means of solutions.

Sleep is essential for optimal human function. In fact, a lack of sleep can actually affect important cognitive functions, like memory. A 2007 study added to the already substantial evidence that even acute total sleep deprivation impairs attentiveness, working memory, and reaction time in various tasks (Alhola, Polo-Kantola). One such way to further this investigation of the effects of sleep deprivation on memory is through the Memory Interference Test, or MIT. MIT is a program designed by Gaston Pfluegl, Ph.D., and Enrique Lopez, Psy. D., at UCLA to test the memory of students. Along with a memory test, the MIT also anonymously collected the physical states, mental states, and demographics of each student test subject, providing a substantial database through which students can test hypotheses, such as the connection between sleep deprivation and memory. Since the MIT requires short-term memory recall, the hours of sleep a student had before taking the test could have a noticeable effect on his or her performance. An unprecedented study this year found that sleep deprivation may actually even induce false memories, which would certainly impact a student taking the MIT because the test requires the subject to recognize images that have been previously presented to them (Frenda, et al). The hypothesis is that students who slept 8 hours before the test will perform better on the MIT than students who only slept 4 hours. The null hypothesis is that students who had adequate

How often do you hear people complain about being tired all the time? Sleep deficiency has been investigated for years, but there has been no single method to explain why people nod their heads asleep in crucial times focus: during an important class lecture or even at the wheel. However, it is clear that without a good night’s rest, sleep-deprived individuals can find it difficult to pay attention, even if they want to stay awake. Thus, it becomes important to examine the underlying mechanisms that explain the negative effects of sleep loss on attention and cognitive performance. Sleep effects can be measured by alertness, which describes the overall state of the cognitive system and can be attributed to two primary components: a circadian system and a sleep homeostasis system (Åkerstedt & Folkard, 1995). The circadian system is composed of an oscillating 24-hour cycle that fluctuates in alertness throughout one day, while the homeostasis system is a gradual decline of alertness as wake time increases throughout the day, only recovering after sleep (Achermann, 2004). Attention is facilitated by alertness and is the behavioral and cognitive process of focusing on one piece of information at a time. Although it is a broad phenomenon, it can be divided into two components: vigilant attention and selective attention. Vigilant attention is a person’s ability to keep concentrating on one task, while selective attention is a person’s ability to focus distinctly on one stimuli to

The rest of both the groups were made up entirely of men totalling in fifty-nine, the insomniac group containing twenty-two men while the controlled group contained thirty-seven. This is important to note as since not only were the groups not gender equal with numbers, the groups themselves were uneven and unmatched, making the conclusions of this study controversial. The results of testing cognitive function showed no distinct difference claiming that the tests’ results were not affected by insomnia. However it was noted that the insomniac group was found to be nervous, irritable, dull, light headed, and seemed to have loss of their motor control. One study did have conclusive results on the study of insomnia and they had the test subjects rest and tested them, then stay up for 62 hours and tested them. Then they allowed the subjects to rest and retested them again. The results on the test of accuracy while the subjects were getting limited sleep their results went down and it was noticed there was a massive decrease in mental efficiency. After regaining their sleep the subjects scores were said to have stayed the same for accuracy. According to the results the memory and speed seemed to be the functions affected

The health consequences of lack of sleep and excessive daytime sleepiness affect 50 to 70 million Americans annually. Sleep deprivation costs the United States 15 billion dollars annually in health care. In addition, industry spend $50 billion dollars in lost productivity (NIH, 2004).

Narcolepsy is a chronic sleep disorder characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) causing uncontrollable and sometimes inappropriate napping. Though the naps are often refreshing their frequent occurrences can severely impair daily social functioning. Apart from EDS the cardinal symptoms are; hypnagogic hallucinations, sleep paralysis, sleep onset rapid eye movement periods (SOREMP) and approximately 50% of all patients also suffer from cataplexy; sudden episodes of emotionally triggered muscle weakness (Saper et al., 2001, Schenck et al., 2007). In healthy individuals sleep normally progresses from light drowsiness to deep sleep and after approximately 90 minutes it will transition into rapid eyes movement (REM) sleep. With the

Insomnia is another sleep disorder that has an effect on the daily lives of others. There are four different types of insomnia that a person may have: difficulty falling asleep, difficulty staying asleep, waking up too early, and Sleep State Misperception. Sleep State Misperception occurs when a person gets a full night sleep, but they feel like they have not gotten any sleep at all. Insomnia can also be classified into three different categories: transient insomnia, short-term insomnia, and chronic insomnia. Transient insomnia occurs only a few nights, short-term insomnia occurs up to four weeks, and chronic insomnia happens most every night for a month or longer. It is common for most everyone to suffer from short-term insomnia at some point

A common and overlooked sleep problem throughout college aged people is insomnia. While some people don’t even know they have it, it could be greatly affecting their outlook on life. Not getting the correct amount of sleep each night can lead to some very extreme mental health problems. These include: paranoia, hallucinations, schizophrenia, and night terrors. Could therapy help people who suffer from these health problems caused by insomnia? Researchers who conducted this experiment in the UK, Freeman at el, (2015) hypothesized insomnia is a contributory casual factor to psychotic-like experiences. With the help of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), the subjects will get better sleep, therefore they will have less psychotic-like experiences.

The research article Poor sleep quality is associated with increased cortical atrophy in community-dwelling adults is a correlational study that concluded there was a correlation between longitudinal measures of cortical atrophy and lack of sleep quality. The hypothesis of the researchers was that atrophy within the orbitofrontal cortex and medial prefrontal cortex would be associated with poor sleep quality. These researchers also hypothesized that the frontal, temporal, and parietal cortices may also be affected by poor sleep quality, which would reflect the many cognitive deficits that are brought about by lack of quality sleep.

There are three types of sleep disorder which are insomnia, hypersomnolence, and somnambulism. First, insomnia is case that a person cannot sleep. It has many of reasons which related to physiological one such as ache, and it is also related to psychological such as pressure and isolation. Second, hypersomnolence is an exaggeration sleep manner. Moreover, the term narcolepsy is an expected sleep due to hereditary case and imbalance in brain. Third, somnambulism is a situation that person walking during sleep due to concern and pressure. Sufferers during their sleep doing unaware action, for example, search of missing thing. In addition, the term apnoea is through sleep the breathing short stop. This case is due to acid in blood or heart illness.

The topic that I read is sleep. I read about people who get older don't sleep enough due to their busy schedule. There's a higher chance of people getting insomnia and other symptoms. Adults older than 65 have a difficult time falling asleep and staying asleep. I learned that there are two types of insomnia: primary insomnia and obstructive sleep apnea. Primary insomnia happens while you are sleeping and obstructive sleep apnea is a sleep disorder, an example can be snoring while your asleep. To fall asleep, it's recommended to read a book for 20 minutes and by that time you will be

Insomnia can be classified as transient, short-term, and chronic (Cash & Glass, 2014). It can also be sub-classified by the symptoms of sleep onset verses sleep maintenance, with sleep maintenance being the most prevalent subtype (Buysse, 2013). Transient insomnia may be due to situations such as jet lag or sleeping in unfamiliar surroundings, usually resolves in a few days, and does not require treatment (Cash & Glass, 2014). Short-term insomnia lasts longer than a few days, is usually due to stress possibly from divorce or financial problems, and may require temporary treatment (Cash & Glass, 2014). Chronic insomnia may be related to medications (steroids or bronchodilators), substance abuse (alcohol, methamphetamines, opiates), or medical

An example of this would be to adaptively restructure the impractical statement “If I do not fall asleep soon, I will not get anything done tomorrow” to a more practical one, “If I do not fall asleep soon, I may be tired tomorrow but I will still be able to function.” The adaptive thoughts realistically recognize that sleep loss may have some negative consequences, but not the exaggerated consequences predicted by the maladaptive thoughts. With a more practical view, worry about loss of sleep will reduce, which will make it more probable that the person will be able to fall asleep. Cognitive restructuring for insomnia has presented to be an effective treatment and is usually part of a treatment package (Spiegler,

Among many bothering things that I don't like, insomnia is the worst. I hate insomnia not only because it sabotaged my usual sleep but also because it caused some terrible physical and mental problems. I was in a state of being unable to sleep once. At that time, although, I tried to get some sleep by several rational ways as watching unexciting films, reading uninteresting books, drinking some water, eating sweets, counting from 1 to 1000 repeatedly and even using some sleeping pills, I was still unable to sleep. The result of the whole night awoke was the whole body ached, dazzled, tinnitus and unable to control thinking. To resolve my insomnia, I did read some medical books. They wrote that my insomnia had come from my unhealthy activities