Insomnia is difficulty falling asleep, difficulty staying asleep, poor sleep quality or some kind of combination of those symptoms. And, we all have a night of bad sleep from here or there, but really what insomnia is... is a more long pattern of a sleep problem that's not only a nighttime issue but it trickles into the daytime in some ways so there is some kind of daytime symptom, whether that's, um, it can be just sleepiness or fatigue, struggling to stay awake during work, concentration issues at work..."I'm feeling grumpy or moody" or even just having a lot of worries during the daytime about the sleep.
So, typically it's more commonly found in women, however you know from down from kids all the way up to older adults...we can all on experience it at one time or another and most people have experienced it...you know, when when you're studying for a test, or you have a very high-stakes job interview, you can suffer from some acute insomnia but when that becomes chronic, usually more than three months and you're experiencing it three or more times a week then it can be actually a sleep disorder.
Insomnia is diagnosed based on what you tell the sleep specialist, so there's no kind of lab test or blood work that you can do to say "You have insomnia." They look at your medical history, your psychiatric history, how you describe your insomnia symptoms.
However, sleep studies...the overnight sleep studies aren't uncommon to do sometimes in insomnia patients because they want to rule out if there's some underlying sleep disorder like sleep apnea that can cause the insomnia. So, insomnia is a complicated sleep disorder because there's always different factors for different individuals that are contributing to it.
So, the first thing that we look at is to see, you know, what kind of behavioral issues that the patient, that may be feeding the insomnia.... so things like maintaining good sleep habits are very important and those are things that we do investigate. A lot of times there some simple things that patients can change to help as part of the treatment.
There's several medications that are available. We typically... try not to go straight to those because you know a lot of times they don't work, and these medications do you know, they do have a side effect profile, so you have to be very careful...you know, when you give these. There is the mainstay which is cognitive behavioral sleep therapy and you know, any time I diagnose a patient with insomnia I usually bring in my colleagues, the sleep behavioral psychologists because they really help identify what factors are continuing the insomnia and they help to set up a plan - a treatment strategy - for patients to change their behaviors because that's what the research shows has the biggest impact.
I am going to talk to you about ways to live with menopause. Now in this clip we're going to talk about insomnia, which is one of the most common symptoms that women complain of when they're going into menopausal, stage. Now, the ways to deal with insomnia, insomnia means that you find it very difficult to sleep. So how can we deal with that particular symptom.
Well there are several ways you can do this. First thing if you go to sleep you can always take a nice hot drink of milk, you know, the standard way, old fashioned way a hot milk. Take a warm bath before you going, go to bed cause it just relaxes you and it makes you feel very distressed, de-stressed and also other technique is meditation is good because meditation is a way to relax your brain. It basically helps you calms your brain and center.
So that also is good. Other relaxation techniques would be good. Find moments, quiet moments with relaxing music is also a way to help you reduce the stress and help you maybe go to sleep. So, also avoid drinking coffee or any beverages that has caffeine content in it because that will keep you up all night. And if possible try the last option is sleeping medications, over the counter sleeping tablets is something you should try not to take but if really really find it difficult to sleep then once in a while is good but I really don't recommend this as an option to try to deal and combat for insomnia.
We all know the feeling; irritable, groggy and exceptionally lazy. Chances are you didn't sleep enough last night, or the past few nights. But what exactly is "enough sleep?" And more importantly, can you ever "catch up" on it? While the very function of sleep is still debated by scientists, we do know that it's necessary to function efficiently and productively. After all, we spend 24 years of our lifetime sleeping, it had better be important. Researchers have tested how much is required each night by assigning groups of people to four, five, and eight hours of sleep over extended periods of time.
After 14 days, those with eight hours of sleep exhibited few attention lapses of cognitive issues; however, those with six or four hours of sleep showed a steady decline. In fact, after only two weeks, the six hour group showed a similar reaction time to a person with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.1%, which is considered legally drunk. The four hour sleepers suffered even more, occasionally falling asleep during their cognitive tests. In both groups, brain function decreased day by day, almost linearly with no sign of leveling off. Scientists have dubbed this cumulative effect as sleep debt. So can we recover from it?
After a night or two of little sleep, studies show that the body and brain can fully recover with a few nights of good sleep. However, with long term sleep deprivation on the scale of weeks to months, the recovery of cognitive function is much slower, requiring many more nights of quality sleep. On the timescale of months to years, it is unknown whether brain function can be fully repaired, or if it causes permanent damage. Paradoxically, with chronic sleep deprivation, your sleepiness or how tired you feel does eventually level off, meaning that you become less and less aware of your objective impairment over time.
So how long should you sleep? Most studies tend to show that seven to eight hours of sleep is the average ideal for humans. Apart from the cognitive issues, individuals who consistently sleep less than seven hours a night have an increased risk of heart disease, obesity and diabetes, not to mention a 12% higher risk of death. On the flip side, studies have shown that while sleeping more than eight hours does not impair brain function, it also carries an increased risk of heart disease, obesity and diabetes, and a 30% increased risk of mortality! So too much sleep may also be a bad thing.
But variation most certainly exists, and our genetics play a large role. In fact, individuals genuinely unaffected by only six hours of sleep were found to have a mutation of a specific gene. When scientists genetically engineered mice to express this gene, they were able to stay awake for an extra 1.2 hours than normal mice. It turns out these short sleepers have more biologically intense sleep sessions than the average person. Ultimately, while it's important to know the ideal average of seven to eight hours exists, let your body and brain help you figure out its own needs. After all, no one shoe size fits all. If you want to know how to get better quality sleep each night in order to conquer the hurdles of sleep deprivation, we have some tips and research for you over on ASAPThought. You can find a link in the description below to that video. Thanks to Audible.com for giving you a free audio book of your choice at audible.com/asap.
Audible is the leading provider of audio books with over 150,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature. We recommend the 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series, which the Game of Thrones TV show is based off of. It's kept us up through the nights and caused a lot of lost sleep! You can download this audio book or another of your choice for free at audible.com/asap. And with a subscription you can get one free book a month, so you can read the whole series! Special thanks to Audible for making these videos possible.
In fact, sometimes it literally feels like you aren't getting enough, but what if you stopped sleeping all together? Strangely, science understands relatively little about why we sleep or how it evolved in the first place. After all, laying unconscious and dormant for hours on end while predators lurk hardly seems advantageous or smart. But, we have discovered a few correlations. For example, adults who sleep between 6 to 8 hours a night tend to live longer. Excess of sleep, however can lead to medical problems including cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Similarly, chronic sleep deprivation has been linked to aspects of cardiovascular disease, obesity, depression and even brain damage. But what if you stopped sleeping right now?
Well, after your first sleepless night your mesolimbic system becomes stimulated and dopamine runs rampant. And this may actually trigger some extra energy, motivation, positivity, and even sex drive. Sounds appealing, but its a slippery slope. Your brain slowly begins to shut off the regions responsible for planning and evaluating decisions, leading to more impulsive behavior. Once exhaustion sets in, you'll find yourself with slower reaction times & reduced perceptual and cognitive functions. After a day or two of no sleep, the body loses its ability to properly metabolize glucose and the immune system stops working as well. In some cases, 3 days of no sleep has lead to hallucinations.
Care about how you look? Studies have shown that direct correlation between sleep deprivation and a person's perceived beauty, that is to say, sleep-deprived individuals appeared less healthy and less attractive than when they were well-rested. The longest scientifically documented case of being awake was 264 hours or 11 days. And while they did develop problems with concentration, perception and irritability, the surprising truth is that they suffered no serious long term health effects. In fact, no individuals under these documented conditions experienced medical, physiological, neurological or psychiatric problems. But there are limited studies, and this doesn't mean permanent damage couldn't be inflicted with more time. Sleep deprivation experiments on rats for example, generally lead to death after about 2 weeks.
But, scientists aren't totally sure if there dying from the lack of sleep or from the stress of constantly being woken up. Perhaps you should look at fatal familial insomnia for an answer. A rare genetic disease of the brain which causes progressively worsening insomnia or sleeplessness leading to hallucinations, dementia and ultimately, death. This disease is only affected around 100 people in the world, but their average survival span was around 18 months. Over time, the lack of sleep becomes worse and the body's organs begin to shut down.
So, while a lack of sleep won't necessarily kill you quickly, continual sleep deprivation will have a negative effect on your body. Sleep tight, but not too much! Got a burning question you want answered? Ask it in the comments or in Facebook and Twitter, and if you can't get enough science in your life, check out the ScienceAlert Facebook page, which is one of the best out there to keep you up to date and entertained with the latest news and breakthroughs.
As I said in prior segments, insomnia often has a different underlying cause where insomnia merely becomes, sort of, a symptom of the cause. People with obstructive sleep apnea often arrive in a sleep disorders office reporting insomnia or daytime fatigue. The insomnia is coming from the multiple awakenings that they are having during the night due to apneas and hypopneas. It's not truly a case of insomnia. Once all diagnostic tests are performed and reviewed, generally this can be shown to the patient and a different course of treatment can be taken that rarely has little to do with actual insomnia.
People with depression and bipolar disorder, both treated and untreated, often experience forms of insomnia. It's not uncommon, in the manic stages of bipolar, for a person to sleep very little or not want to sleep at all. Even once the mania is treated, it's not uncommon for the drugs that get used in that treatment to cause disruptions in sleep or cause a change in the quality of sleep. Certain people with schizophrenia and older atypical anti-psychotics will have sleep issues or just feel that they don't sleep as well as others. Again, it's a thing that's hard to differentiate because you don't always know what a schizophrenic patient is reporting.
Even the most lucid and medicated ones still may not have a good sense of what's going on at night or why they're sleeping poorly. People with restless leg syndrome, of course, generally aren't sleeping well even once they get to sleep because their legs are moving and twitching. They're having issues and their bodies can't fully relax. So, it's important to rule-out the causes of insomnia. Thyroid issues can be a problem. Women sometimes experience insomnia during pregnancy. It is important to rule-out these secondary causes of insomnia and treat them before treating a patient primarily with sedatives and other drugs that can cause physical and psychological dependence. It's just more efficient to treat underlying problems and eliminate any sort of dysfunction that they're creating in a patient's life.
I want to talk about the differences and talk about some of the underlying reasons for insomnia that can make it last beyond just a week or two. Transient insomnia is something that most of us experience at various points within our lives. It's a response to stress. It's a response to grief or depression. It can also be a response due to a change in sleep schedule or work schedule. Sometimes, people experience transient insomnia because, for whatever reason, they've been consuming caffeine later in the day. Generally, people who drink caffeine only during the morning, for some reason will have a night of bad sleep. They'll need to pick up caffeine later in the day to make-up for that lack of sleep.
Then, the caffeine doesn't leave their body quickly enough, and whether they realize it or not, that extra cup of coffee or that glass of soda that you had around 5 o'clock is keeping you awake at night. Transient insomnia comes and goes. It'll usually go away in about a week or two, when you resolve the grief or stress, or when you treat the depression that's causing it. Chronic insomnia has its own causes. Sometimes chronic insomnia runs in families; rarely it does. It is a combination of not only genetic factors but a learned behavior.
If a child grows up knowing that "we don't sleep well, in this family", it can affect their own mental state as it relates to sleep. There is a strong connection between the psychology of the patient and the quality of their sleep. Sleep is not just a physical thing; there are a lot of psychological factors involved. There is a very rare type of insomnia called fatal familial insomnia and the incident of this is so rare that it is rarely mentioned outside of the corridors of sleep disorders facilities. As the title implies, it's genetic and it's fatal. It's caused by a lack of sleep that cannot be cured through any sort of sedation means.
It progresses to dementia and to death. I mentioned it only because it's something that gets mentioned in the popular culture, every once and awhile. Someone will read something on-line about fatal familial insomnia and they think, "Oh crap, I can't sleep. I have that". It's so rare that a doctor would have to tell you, for sure, whether you have it or didn't have it. It's not anything to be concerned about if you're having about of insomnia or if a number of people in your family have insomnia. I think that you would know if it were to be a fatal or terminal illness.
The term insomnia comes from the Greek, literally meaning lack of sleep or no sleep. When people think of a sleep disorder, I think insomnia commonly pops into the head. Most people at some point in their lives experience a mild case of insomnia, that comes and goes, sometimes in response to stress, grief or depression. Insomnia has a number of different causes.
It has a number of different ways to be relieved. It all depends on, sort of, what's going on or the underlying cause of the insomnia. It's not uncommon for children to have bouts of insomnia or for adults. Generally, insomnia resolves itself. When insomnia doesn't resolve, when people have chronic problems getting asleep or when that lack of sleep is causing irritability, fatigue or other issues during the day, that's when we see people in the Sleep Disorders Office for insomnia.
Patients are often seen when a primary care physician issues a prescription for a sleep aid, such as, Ambien, Lunesta or something of the like, that you've seen on TV and for some of the other medications that we may have. It's not uncommon for a primary care physician to refer a patient on to a sleep disorders physician when a temporary prescription or something like that fails to aid the insomnia patient or if the insomnia continues beyond the span of 7 to 14 days.
One of the most common things I'll hear from my patients, is they'll say, "Dr. Axe, I can't sleep." And if you're one of those people that have trouble falling asleep, or struggle with insomnia, or you wake up during the night, that's very common. In this video I'm going to go through the exact steps you need to follow to get better quality of sleep and to help you fall asleep fast.
Step number one in overcoming sleep deprivation is to change your diet, surprisingly. And, for a lot of people, their diets are keeping them from falling asleep. Before you go to bed, you need to really drop your carbohydrate consumption. If you're consuming too many sugars and carbs, your body is burning those, it's getting warm. And so, lowering that sugar, and grain intake, and carbohydrate intake before bed is important. And get some good quality fats before you go to bed. Something like an avocado is a great food to actually help you fall asleep at night, either avocado or some organic yogurt. So again, avocado and organic yogurt, are the best foods to help you naturally fall asleep. The reason they work is those foods are high in magnesium and potassium. Magnesium and potassium are two crucial nutrients you need to help relax the body and to help you fall asleep at night. So remember avocado and yogurt, the top two foods you can consume just a little bit here or there in the evening that will help you fall asleep at night.
The second step you need to do to overcome insomnia is to reduce stress. And for most people, along with diet, this is the big thing that's keeping you up at night, is your mind starts racing, you keep thinking and you can't shut your brain off. And there are several reasons for that. One, is you watched TV up until the point that you went to bed. That visual stimulus you're watching constantly, especially the blue light, and that doesn't just include the TV screen, it also includes your computer, your iPad, or your phone. And that light is blue light, which actually tells your pineal gland in your brain that it actually needs to keep running, so it messes with your circadian rhythms and cortisol levels. It keeps you from falling asleep at night when you were looking at that bright blue light in the computer screens and TV screens. So, about 30 minutes at least, ideally, an hour, but at least 30 minutes before bed, you need to shut off all electronics, and you need to start reading something that helps you relax.
Or start journaling. So you can get out a journal and start writing things down. You can look at your schedule for the next day and write that down. But I really recommend reading a novel that you enjoy, reading a devotional, your Bible, or just something that helps you relax and wind down at least 30 minutes before bed. And that's going to help, and in general reducing stress.
And if you have something that's really stressing you out, that's keeping you from sleeping at night, I recommend you start writing down those things that stress you out. Work on addressing those the best you can, and then start scheduling things into the week that you love to do. It is so important. If you've had a great day, and you've been happy all day, it actually creates certain hormones in your body known as endorphins that actually help you fall asleep at night. So actually, having a good mood throughout the day can help improve your sleep at night. So step number two, shut down the computers and read a book before bed. As well as just add some joy into your life. Reduce stress; it's very important for falling asleep at night.
Step number three, is take quality supplements, especially a magnesium supplement. And taking a magnesium supplement, about 400 to 500mg a night before bed, can help you naturally reduce stress, and really improve sleep. And so I recommend a high quality magnesium chelate or magnesium citrate before bed. So taking a magnesium supplement can help you fall asleep.
Also supplements like melatonin can help, or valerian root. But I don't recommend doing those on a long term basis. Now, if you have jetlag, or you're not able to sleep just for a day or two, taking melatonin on occasion, about 3gms is fine. But you just want to do a small amount of melatonin on occasion, not on a regular basis. But again, consuming magnesium can actually help you fall asleep at night. The next thing, and I think this is a great thing for helping you improve your sleep, is using essential oils, especially lavender essential oil and chamomile essential oil.
So again, lavender oil, you can diffuse that by your bed at night, or just take a few drops of lavender oil and rub it on your neck. Also, you can actually take a warm bath with lavender oil and Epsom salts. Epsom salts work because they have magnesium. Additionally, lavender oil actually has certain aromatic compounds that help relax your body. So doing a detox bath, if you're going to go to bed at 10 or 10:30, get in the bath at around 9:00 and soak in there for 30 minutes with your Epsom salts and lavender oil. Just take about 20 drops of lavender oil, rub it all on your body, get in a warm/hot bath, and relax there 20 to 30 minutes. Get out, and then, go and read a book for 30 minutes while you wind down, something relaxing and then fall asleep there at night. But again, lavender oil and Roman chamomile oil are great essential oils to help you overcome insomnia, and to help you fall asleep at night when you can't sleep.
And last, but not least, just in general, changing your lifestyle. I recommend a few things to do around your home to help improve your sleep. Get the temperature in your house cold, definitely below 70 degrees, often times, upper 60s to mid 60s for some people is necessary. So again, get your house nice and cold. That improves sleep. The other thing you want to do is make sure your bed is comfortable. If there is a big dip in your bed, it's time to get a new bed. Also, making sure it's dark in your room, getting some dark curtains can help you fall asleep at night as well. So if you follow those tips, and if you're saying to yourself, "I can't sleep." I guarantee that these tips will help you fall asleep faster and help you overcome issues like insomnia. If you want to learn more tips on how to naturally fall asleep at night I have an entire article on, I believe over 20 ways and steps to help you naturally fall asleep.
