What is Insomnia? What is the principal cause of Insomnia?

Understanding why they need sleep & knowing the root cause of insomnia is step in coming to terms with & treating it.

How do they define insomnia?

Insomnia is the term used to report a lack of quality sleep; either taking ages to get to sleep, difficulty in staying asleep or waking up early & being unable to get back to sleep.

What are the effects of insomnia?

Individuals who suffer from poor quality sleep tend to be irritable, inattentive, lacking energy & accident prone.They are more likely to suffer from depression, heart disease & strokes.Continued sleep deprivation brings about changes in the activity & timing of important hormones such as melatonin, cortisol, leptin, thyroid hormones & prolactin. It's been shown in studies that this pattern of hormonal changes has also been witnessed in sufferers of depression & in age-related chronic conditions such as obesity, diabetes & hypertension.

This is a taste of the negative effects of insomnia & that is without mentioning the adverse effect it's on our immune systems or the fabulous impact from daytime fatigue on the occurrence of "accidents"; keep in mind Chernobyl or Exxon Valdez.

What is sleep for anyway?

Nobody knows exactly how sleep works. For hundreds of years it was believed that sleep was a neutral state of mind & body but modern science is beginning to identify the lots of positive affects a natural, nice night's sleep has.

Moods

The brain's metabolic rate & temperature is reduced allowing the mending of positive brain cells which would otherwise have difficulty in regenerating.In our deepest sleeping, in the coursework of the speedy eye movement (REM) phase they do most of our dreaming. It is at this stage when the receptors of the essential drugs serotonin, histamine & norepinephrine take a rest, restoring them to the appropriate level of sensitivity. This restorative measure is believed to be important in regulating our moods in the coursework of the waking hours.

Sleep & weight loss

If you are trying to lose weight & think that sleep loss won't adversely affect weight loss, think again. In childhood, human growth hormones (HGH) are responsible for tissue production, but as they grow in to adults HGH becomes responsible for, amongst other things, weight regulation. HGH is only released when they sleep.

Sleep to learn

Lots of studies have been conducted & they have shown that whatever they take in & learn in the coursework of the waking hours needs to be processed & consolidated before it is put to memory & reflected in our abilities. The technique of sleep enhances this in an inestimable way.

So what is the main cause of insomnia?

There may be lots of reasons why they don't sleep well but the main cause of insomnia is basically stress.

Our lives, like that of any other organism, are kept for the most part at an optimum state of balance. Our hormonal secretions, liquid levels, temperature & so on are kept in balance so that the mind & body can perform at its peak.

The "flight or fight" response when being confronted by a predator is the most common example of a stress response but it may even be triggered by much less profound events such as crowding, noise or darkness. But even less obvious is that a stress response can happen to events such as fear, anger & even extreme pleasure.Sometimes they can live in a permanent state of stress response & extended states of stress can leave the body in a constant state of alarm & imbalance.

The process of sleep runs contrary to the effects of stress response. Falling to sleep involves the gradual shutting down of systems, a decrease in metabolism & the cessation of the readiness for action. Going to sleep makes us less alert & decreases arousal. The stress response increases arousal & makes us more alert.

Stress is the main cause of insomnia

The hormones secreted because of stress responses excite the body's systems. When stress is chronic they are hyperaroused.When they are hyperaroused they cannot sleep.

In case you are susceptible to the stresses brought about by every day life which impact on your night time sleep there's sleeping techniques using the senses that can maximize the quality of sleep, bringing enrichment to your waking days.