Since we are a mobile society with people traveling world wide, sleep has become a problem for almost everyone. Insomnia can also be caused by stress either at work or at home, depression, uninviting sleeping area, too much light in the room, drinking alcohol, eating heavy meal before bedtime, muscle tension, drugs, too much caffeine, bad mattress, pregnancy or any number of reasons. Insomnia can also be the symptom of a more serious medical problem. That is why it is recommended that if you suffer from insomnia for two or more weeks, you should see your family doctor to see if some other medical problem isn’t going on. Finding the cause of insomnia is sometime the hardest problem but it the most necessary to cure it.

Sleep is extremely important to your health and well-being – as important as exercise and proper diet. Proper sleep in when your body repairs the damage occurring during the day so that you are better able to face the next day fully charged and ready to go. If you don’t get the necessary sleep, it increasingly becomes harder and harder to be at your best daily.

If you believe you are not getting enough sleep or that you are suffering from insomnia, talk to your family doctor. If your family doctor feels that you suffer from insomnia and helpful tips for dealing with insomnia are not helping, he may ask that you keep a sleep diary, or even have you stay overnight at a sleep center so your sleep patterns can be monitored.

In a sleep study, sensors are used to chart your sleep patterns at night. They measure all types of physical responses such as brain waves, breathing, heartbeats, blood pressure and other bodily responses. This study will provide your family doctor with important data to help see if you have a serious sleep disorder or help find the reason for your sleep problems,

Lack of sleep is a sign of a sleep disorder. If insomnia only occurs time to time, it is still a health problem. When insomnia last for a period of 3 weeks to six months it is called acute insomnia. Insomnia which last from months to years is referred to as chronic insomnia and health problems that are believed to be caused by chronic insomnia vary from fibromyalgia to high blood pressure and can even be fatal. Many sleep doctors believe that chronic insomnia is a greater health risk than smoking, obesity or heart disease.

Human beings and other animals as well as plants, have internal biological rhythms, These rhythms are controlled by a biological clock and work on a daily time scale. This biological clock effects body temperature, alertness, appetite, hormone release; but most importantly, it also affects the timing of sleep. Anything that disrupts this timing can give a person a night of sleeplessness or restless sleep. Too much caffeine during the day, smoking, minor pain, being too hot or cold – all of these things can temporarily cause sleeplessness. Jet lag is often the cause of sleeplessness for many business people as well as worrying over a problem from work or home.

One or two nights of sleeplessness, can make you feel fatigued and unable to concentrate the next day. But please realize that as long as sleeplessness is not an every night occurrence, it really is not the type of insomnia that can cause serious problems. Also, a life-threatening health problem is rarely the cause of short term problems with sleep. However, because insomnia is a symptom of many illnesses and medical problems, it is advised that if this type of insomnia continues for 2 weeks, a person should consult their doctor.

Here are several tips that can help with sleeplessness. Try going to bed and getting up at the same time everyday. Don’t eat a heavy late meal right before lights out. Also, don’t do strenuous exercising during the evening hours as exercise “wakes” the body up.

Worrying or stress should be turned off at bedtime. A good tip for doing that can be to do a visualization exercise such as the following: If you are a person who works on a computer, visualize typing your problems or the cause of your stress into the computer, then save the problems on the hard drive, just as if it were a document. Then visualize turning the computer off for the night. Sounds silly — but it works!

Sleeplessness is most often just a short-lived experience, with one or two nights of sleeplessness, and then a person returns to normal sleep. But please remember, if sleeplessness continues for more than 2 weeks — make an appointment to see your doctor.

It is important to make sure that your child gets enough sleep and sleeps well. A tired child may start having development or behavior problems. A child’s sleep problems can cause unnecessary stress for the entire family. Experts recommend the following hours of sleep for children:
• Infants (3 to 11 months): 14 to 15 hours
• Toddlers: 12 to 14 hours
• Preschoolers: 11 to 13 hours
• School-age children: 10 to 11 hours

If your child has any of these problems with sleep, they could be on the way to a chronic sleep disorder. The problems are, a parent having to spend too much time helping the child fall asleep; the child waking up repeatedly during the night; snoring very loudly or struggling to breathe during the night; or behavior, mood or school performance changes. When this is a problem for more than several weeks, take your child to a pediatrician or a sleep specialist. Your doctor may suggest that your child spend a night or a nap period in a sleep center so their sleep cycle can be studied and also to help diagnose any medical problems.

The stress and pressure of a job, demands so much of a man’s time that it often doesn’t leave much room for sleep. The body wants to rest, but man can not stop the mind from spinning during the night. So, many men do not get much sleep on a regular basis. The following are signs that a man may not be getting enough sleep or have already developed a sleep disorder. They include being unable to pay attention during meetings, having to use an alarm clock to wake up on time every morning or just not feeling well.

As the sleep problems gets worse, depression can begin to disrupt the quality of a man’s sleep. As poor sleep continues, men stop taking care of their bodies in many ways. They stop eating or exercising regularly. They are likely to abuse alcohol and drugs. Statistics show men are four times as likely as women to kill themselves. So if a man experiences sleep problems that last more than two weeks, they also should visit a sleep expert or family physician.

Experts suggest that most men as well as women need around seven to eight hours of sleep every night. Women seem to sleep more than men, going to bed earlier with little problems falling asleep. A woman’s sleep also seems to be much lighter and easily disturbed.
There are many factors that affect how a woman sleeps. Most of these factors change over time. As an example, daytime sleepiness is most common in women when they are in their 20s and 30s, while older women appear to have little or no problems adjusting to periods of sleep loss. This difference has been attributed to the many commitments that a young woman may have. In particular are working mothers, who must balance career, family, friends and personal health needs.

Sleeping disorders are believed to affect millions of women. These problems remain undiagnosed and therefore untreated. There are close to over 80 sleep disorders that can affect women, with the causes being different by age and hormone factors.

The symptoms of sleep deprivation are many and varied. Serious and even fatal medical problems can be caused by lack of sleep.

A few of these symptoms can be aching muscles, clinical depression, decreased mental activity and concentration. Furthermore severe sleep deprivation can cause symptoms of
depersonalization, weakened immune system, hallucinations, hypertension, psychosis-like symptoms, slowed reaction time, slurred speech, symptoms similar to: Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and alcoholic intoxication.

Now, go back and read the above paragraph one more time and perhaps you can understand the seriousness of going without sleep.

With a mobile society and millions of cars and trucks on the road, the fact that sleep deprivation causes such profound affects on a person’s reaction time and could be the most serious symptom. Why? — because you are not only affecting your life but you could be the cause of a fatal auto accident.

In a study that was published in 2000 in the British Medical Journal, research done in Australia and New Zealand showed that sleep deprivation could be as bad as being drunk. Those who drive after being awake for 17-19 hours perform tasks worse than other subjects with blood alcohol totals of .05 percent.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has reported that around 100,000 traffic accidents during a year in the USA alone are directly caused by fatigue and drowsiness.

Another study done in 1996 at the University of Chicago Medical Center demonstrated that severely sleep deprivated people affects the body’s ability to metabolize glucose leading to early-stage type 2 Diabetes.

A study done in 2001 linked sleep deprivation to several very serious diseases, among them heart disease, mental illnesses, bipolar disorder as well as psychosis.

Sleep deprivation is considered torture in most countries and has become the subject of debate in the United States. It is being used as an interrogation technique by coalition forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Interrogation subjects are kept awake for several days then are allowed to fall asleep. They are then suddenly awakened to be questioned. By this time a haze has formed in the mind of the prisoner. His spirit is wearied, his legs unsteady and he has only one desire and that is to sleep. Anyone who has experienced this desire knows that not even hunger and thirst can compare to it.