Answering The Question “Do I Have Insomnia?”

 Everyone needs to sleep – it’s as necessary to a healthy body as eating well, exercising enough and taking care of yourself.  The mind isn’t able to process things correctly if it doesn’t get enough sleep which can really affect someone’s everyday life.  Many people who have sleeping problems, however, don’t realize that they actually have a disorder and not realize that they should be asking themselves, “Do I have insomnia?”  First, you have to figure out what is causing your sleepless nights and take into account how often they are occurring – that’s the only way to answer the question of “Do I have insomnia?” accurately.

 However, people with insomnia not only have problems actually falling asleep but they can’t even really stay asleep – they wake up many times during the night and have to try and get back to sleep.  Secondly, do you wake up at night often for seemingly no reason and have to struggle to get back to sleep?  And you have to take into account other symptoms as well, like waking up in the morning feeling like you didn’t sleep at all anyway.  There are also other things that go hand-in-hand with insomnia – things like irritability and anxiousness are a bi-product as well.

 To cure insomnia you have to figure out what causes it and that’s where things get a little tricky because insomnia has many different causes.  The most common cause of insomnia is usually stress-related – stress over bills, work or other things can make it impossible for the brain to shut down and the person to sleep no matter how hard they try.  Other causes include mental disorders like post traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and even clinical depression.  Even things like medications or jet lag can set off insomnia in some people, so take that all into account when asking, “Do I have insomnia?”

 When it comes to curing insomnia, doctors most often using something called cognitive behavioral therapy.  One of the ways insomnia is cured is by cognitive behavioral therapy – a sufferer is taught proper sleep habits and ways to relieve their stress so that they can to sleep.  They can also choose to prescribe meditation although that is usually a last resort since most sleep mediations carry a risk of dependency.   However, when that doesn’t work, doctors often prescribe sleeping medication although many do not want to prescribe them because people are more likely to become more dependent on them.