Almost every individual suffers with insomnia at some point in their life. In certain cases, insomnia is sporadic in nature because it appears and disappears without any specific reason. In others, the symptoms of insomnia tend to persist for a prolonged during leading to a chronic or severe state of illness. The effect of insomnia on normal human life can be profound as it can negatively impact people of all ages. Some of the more common effects include:
In insomnia, the person feels very tired, fatigued and energy levels get severely reduced. As a result, person doesn't feel interested any of the daily activities of life.
Mental functions like our ability to learn, remember and concentrate gets affected. These can have a severe impact on the efficiency because performance levels tend to drop at an alarming rate.
Some people become very irritable and flare up for no reason. The constant irritability and unreasonable mood swings in turn puts a lot of strain on professional as well as private relationships.
Another major effect of insomnia is lack of self-confidence and depression. People develop tendencies such as self-apathy and self-pity.
In chronic cases, person with insomnia symptoms suffers with lack of concentration and are unable to react quickly. This results in an increased risk of accidents and injuries. Also, thoughts of self-annihilation and suicide manifest prominently in case of severe insomnia.
Due to all these effects, people suffering with insomnia symptoms find it tough to handle aspects like marital stress, keeping a job or other relationship problems. People even resort to excessive consumption of tobacco and alcohol, thereby leading to several other major health complications. Even the immune system of the body gets compromised due to insomnia, thereby rendering the individual to several illnesses.
Although insomnia is very common in today's rapidly changing world, the clarity about the exact causes of insomnia is still not there. Insomnia or sleeplessness is caused due to various reasons some of which are the increasing demands and desires of human beings, unrealistic expectations in both personal and professional life and the constant stress, anxiety and strain appearing in our daily life. These factors also provide the necessary impetus for the growth of depression.
Insomnia sometimes may be transient or appear for short phase either due to some sudden tension in professional or personal life or due to some physical reasons. Transient insomnia eases off without the need of any specific treatment. However, if insomnia lasts for more than a month it becomes acute or chronic in nature. The more frequent the symptoms of insomnia appear, the more severe the disease becomes. Some major causes of insomnia are briefly described below.
It is found that elderly people are more prone to insomnia because of higher incidence of chronic physical ailments such as menopause, hyperthyroidism, arthritis, asthma, and chronic pain in the leg (restless leg syndrome), heart disease, diabetes or hypoglycemia, heartburn, high blood pressure, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease or other chronic illnesses.
Use of medication like anti depressant and pain killers cause insomnia as a side effect
Over consumption of either caffeinated substances or alcohol can disturb the overall sleep patterns of an individual.
Excessively loud music or any other form of noise disturbs the sleep quality severely.
Extremely gold or hot environment can also discourage the onset of sleep as the body continuously tried to adjust to the temperature.
Sleep eludes many people when they spend the night at a new place (either a hotel or at a relative's place) because change in a person's surrounding environment does not allow the person to feel relaxed completely.
Important facts about insomnia are that the disease is a perception or complaint of inadequate or poor-quality sleep that needs to be treated as immediately as possible. Depending on the frequency and severity of symptoms, insomnia may be categorized as mild, chronic or acute. Treatment of insomnia also varies accordingly. In case of mild insomnia, a simple change in perspective, dietary habits or lifestyle patterns helps to cure insomnia. However, if insomnia is of acute form then medical help is necessary. Another alternative is to use herbal remedies for insomnia.
A complete knowledge on the facts about insomnia, its underlying causes and the effect of insomnia is important to understand the disease in a better sense and spread awareness. With the information included here, you should have a good starting point to work from.
Stopping insomnia
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