Insomnia

"I just can not sleep" - this is one of the most common complaints that doctors deal with.

From time to time, everyone has sleepless nights - because of an airplane delay, grief, anxiety, anxiety, excitement or fun. This is different from the chronic situation in which night after night you spin and spin, not getting the rest your body needs.

Let's first take a look at some of the obvious causes of insomnia. There are several situations that depend on the behavior of the person and the environment, which can disrupt a healthy night's sleep. Your bedroom may be poorly ventilated - it is too stuffy, too hot, too airy or too long. The bed can be too stiff, soft or short. You could acquire the habit of working at a time when you should prepare for bed, and thoughts haunt you for a long time after you put out the light. Sex can relax, but some people are so excited that it is then difficult for them to fall asleep. You thought that jogging late at night or 20 minutes rowing would wear you out, but often the opposite effect is obtained.

What you ate and drank and when, also can act on a dream. Alcohol in the evening can help you fall asleep, but often it will wake you up after a few hours. Nicotine from cigarettes at night and sugar from a late light dinner can disturb sleep, like caffeine in coffee, tea or coca-cola. Strangely, caffeine does not affect everyone in this way. There are people who can drink two cups of black coffee at night and calmly enjoy a healthy sleep, while others - will drink half an hour after five o'clock in the evening and will toss and turn all night.

Aging is another cause of insomnia. The older you become, the less sleep you need. Say, at a month's age, a child sleeps a full 20 or 21 hours a day. Sleep decreases to 18 hours at the age of six months and to 15 - to a year. By the period of puberty, the average rate is 10 to 12 hours. The majority of adults quite manage with eight hours of night sleep of years to 60, and then suffice six hours.

There are perceptual errors that are involved in the problem of insomnia. Many people who complain that they have not closed their eyes all night long, in fact, very long enjoyed the dream. The fact is that they feel that while they were awake, considering the space around, grumbling and rushing about on the bed, too much time had passed, but in fact it is not. The time taken by sleep does not seem to exist for them. Such people rarely realize that they are falling asleep and leaving it.

Of course, your opinion about insomnia can be true, and you actually sleep badly or little. If this is so, here are some possible causes of night insomnia.

Many elderly people have a "polyphasic" rhythm of sleep - they so often plunge into a short day's sleep that they can not sleep deep or long at night. This is especially true for those who have a lot of free time, who just sit, reading or watching TV.

On the other hand, sleeping problems in a child are usually associated with some physical discomfort - colic , poor digestion , hunger , dirty diapers, too hot, too cold. Children can be bothered by worms or erupting teeth . Some teenagers see nightmares from which they wake up, or their legs cramp . It is important to discuss all this with a pediatrician who can find a more subtle neurological disorder, unknown to the parents.

The increased function of the thyroid gland disrupts sleep, promotes excitation, constant sweating, increased heart rate and weight loss, despite the wolfish appetite. People with reduced gland function may have the same symptoms when they take too many thyroid hormones.

Can not sleep? Have you started taking a new medicine , prescription , without it or illegally obtained? The medications most often causing insomnia are weight loss drugs (amphetamines or phenylpropanolamine), aerosols from the common cold , diuretics (due to them you often get up at night), strong vitamins , antidepressants and other mood-altering drugs.

Suddenly stopping the medication you are used to can make you stay awake at night. On New Year's Eve you decided to give up sleeping pills - and kept your word. But now you are not sleeping at all. Your body has become dependent on drugs, and for a while you can not do without them. Patience: you will manage, sooner or later.

Some diseases, whose symptoms occur or are worse at night, upset the sleep. Classic examples - increased prostate gland in men and cystitis (inflammation of the bladder) in women, both make "go for a walk" almost without end. Frequent rising at night is enough to disturb any person's sleep. Ulcers of the duodenum often worsen at night. Heart weakness or lung disease can disturb you in bed, because you will not be short of breath. In rare cases, the angina pectoris will also wake you up. Anything that causes physical discomfort ( arthritis here is common knowledge), will not give you a good night's sleep.

If you did not find the actual physical cause of your insomnia (such as increased thyroid function or other disease), it is better to try to solve the problem yourself without medical advice and prescriptions. This is due to the current situation in medicine, in which one-to-one relations with the patient are replaced by a "more expensive" practice, when many doctors solve the problem of insomnia by simply writing out sleeping pills because they do not have time to listen to your story and find the cause. Except for unusual and temporary circumstances, this is not a solution to the question. This will only lead you to medication. With sleeplessness, you can most effectively cope with yourself, with the support of family and friends.

Symptom: insomnia