Insomnia

            One of the most common sleeping disorders is insomnia.  Insomnia can be transient, short-term, or long-term/chronic.  Transient insomnia is quite common, it lasts a week or less.  Short-term insomnia ranges from anywhere from a week to three weeks, while chronic insomnia lasts over three weeks.  Several things trigger insomnia such as jet lag, stress, medications, smoking cigarettes, caffeine, physical discomfort, etc.  Insomnia causes daytime fatigue, lack of energy, anxiety, poor concentration, and other impairments due to lack of sleep, given the adequate time and opportunity to sleep.  I had never experienced insomnia, until this year.  Luckily, my insomnia lasted around five days, since other people have to deal with their insomnia for over a week.  Those five days were the most dreadful days I have experienced.  I had poor attention during my classes, constant headaches, and felt sleepy throughout the day, which is something very uncommon in me.  When it comes to handling stress, I do not have a problem, however that specific weak I had an overload of stress that was something beyond my control.  I believe stress is what caused me to get insomnia for five days. I was constantly waking up every night and not being able to get a goodnights rest. Luckily, as soon as my stressful week finished my insomnia went away and hasn’t been triggered again.  I can’t imagine how someone with chronic insomnia can deal with constantly being tired through a period of weeks.

            You might think that sleeping pills is the ideal cure for insomnia.  However, this is not the case since most sleeping pills cause addiction, and lose their effectiveness.  Below Pharmacologist Joe Graedon gives other tips, to prevent insomnia.