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Insomnia Disorder
The word insomnia
comes from the Latin language, meaning ‘no sleep.’ However, a
person does not have to have no sleep at all to be a sufferer. A good
night’s sleep is considered to be the following; a person takes
less than 30 minutes to get to sleep. Sleep is maintained for 6-8
hours and there are less than three brief awakenings. The person
feels well rested when they get up.
Sleep is a
natural condition that occurs regularly and in which one loses
awareness of one’s surroundings. Yet it is still largely a mystery
as to what sleep actually is. It is known, however, that there are
basically two kinds of sleep. In one kind, which starts with
drowsiness and gets deeper and deeper, profound restorative processes
take place. In it your breathing and your heartbeat slow down, your
blood pressure drops and your limbs fully relax. This deep sleep is
believed to be an aid to memory. It lasts for about ninety minutes.
Afterward, you
return to a sleep much lighter in some respects, and in other
respects deeper. It is called the REM stage because it is marked by
side-to-side Rapid Eye Movements, which indicate that you are
dreaming. Your heartbeat greatly fluctuates and your limbs grow
tense, indicating that not only your mind but also your body is
involved in dreaming. After about ten minutes of this REM sleep you
will again go into deep sleep for another ninety minutes and then
back up, and so on throughout the night. Most sleep researchers hold
that both kinds of sleep are essential for mental and physical
health; one cannot take the place of the other. As to how long you
sleep, quality is more important than quantity. Insomnia disorder
usually takes one of three forms. Some have a lot of difficulty
falling to sleep in the first place. Others fall asleep readily but
wake up early in the morning and are not able to go back to sleep.
With still others the problem is that they keep waking up
intermittently. Insomnia disorder affects women more frequently than
it affects men. It is more common in aged persons, though it is not a
natural result of aging. In people over 65 its occurrence rate is
50%.
(Olejniczak PW,
Fisch BJ (2003). Sleep disorders. Medical Clinics of North America,
87(4): 803–833).
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