insomniac
i've been having a lot of trouble with sleep, lately.
no matter how tired i am when i'm trying to get to bed at night, it takes me a very long time to fall asleep. this has been a problem all my life, likely indicative of an anxiety disorder as it is marked with the classic characteristic thereof -- inability to stop the torrent of thoughts swirling about in my head.
and no matter how tired i am, i cannot sleep for more than a few hours ... six if i'm lucky, usually around 5, sometimes as little as four.
so of course i'm just completely drained and in a fog all day.
now, i'm not sure if this constitutes the medical definition of insomnia because i typically do wind up being so tired that in the afternoon / evening i have so little energy i can pretty much only manage to lay in bed trying to rest, and i do wind up taking an unplanned and unpreventable short nap of about two to four hours. so, on some days, i do wind up getting a total of ten hours of sleep, but it'll be split up into two sessions, neither of which leaves me feeling at all refreshed.
and even on days when i have resisted the unwanted nap, i still can't manage to get to bed earlier than 3 or 4 in the morning, and i still can't manage to stay asleep past 9 or so in the morning.
as a result i just can't seem to get anything done lately. well ... i say "as a result" of the insomnia, but perhaps the insomnia and my inability to get anything done are actually both symptoms of the same root cause ...
Insomnia can be caused by:
* Life problems like fear, stress, anxiety, emotional or mental tension, work problems, financial stress, unsatisfactory sex life
* Mental disorders such as bipolar disorder, clinical depression, general anxiety disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, or obsessive compulsive disorder.
*Parasomnia, which includes a number of disruptive sleep events including nightmares, sleepwalking, violent behavior while sleeping, and REM behavior disorder, in which a person moves his/her physical body in response to events within his/her dreams
*A rare genetic condition can cause a prion-based, permanent and eventually fatal form of insomnia called fatal familial insomnia
*Poor sleep quality can occur as a result of sleep apnea or clinical depression. Poor sleep quality is caused by the individual not reaching stage 4 or delta sleep which has restorative properties.
my father suffers from sleep apnea. i don't know if it's something hereditary, or with a higher occurrence amongst individuals with a family history, but i just don't know why i wake up after five hours when i'm just so dead tired.
but anyway, without having seen a doctor for a clinical diagnosis, i am sure i either do suffer from or have suffered from an anxiety disorder, and possibly (likely?) one or two of the others listed above as possible causes of insomnia.
no matter how tired i am when i'm trying to get to bed at night, it takes me a very long time to fall asleep. this has been a problem all my life, likely indicative of an anxiety disorder as it is marked with the classic characteristic thereof -- inability to stop the torrent of thoughts swirling about in my head.
and no matter how tired i am, i cannot sleep for more than a few hours ... six if i'm lucky, usually around 5, sometimes as little as four.
so of course i'm just completely drained and in a fog all day.
now, i'm not sure if this constitutes the medical definition of insomnia because i typically do wind up being so tired that in the afternoon / evening i have so little energy i can pretty much only manage to lay in bed trying to rest, and i do wind up taking an unplanned and unpreventable short nap of about two to four hours. so, on some days, i do wind up getting a total of ten hours of sleep, but it'll be split up into two sessions, neither of which leaves me feeling at all refreshed.
and even on days when i have resisted the unwanted nap, i still can't manage to get to bed earlier than 3 or 4 in the morning, and i still can't manage to stay asleep past 9 or so in the morning.
as a result i just can't seem to get anything done lately. well ... i say "as a result" of the insomnia, but perhaps the insomnia and my inability to get anything done are actually both symptoms of the same root cause ...
Insomnia can be caused by:
* Life problems like fear, stress, anxiety, emotional or mental tension, work problems, financial stress, unsatisfactory sex life
* Mental disorders such as bipolar disorder, clinical depression, general anxiety disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, or obsessive compulsive disorder.
*Parasomnia, which includes a number of disruptive sleep events including nightmares, sleepwalking, violent behavior while sleeping, and REM behavior disorder, in which a person moves his/her physical body in response to events within his/her dreams
*A rare genetic condition can cause a prion-based, permanent and eventually fatal form of insomnia called fatal familial insomnia
*Poor sleep quality can occur as a result of sleep apnea or clinical depression. Poor sleep quality is caused by the individual not reaching stage 4 or delta sleep which has restorative properties.
my father suffers from sleep apnea. i don't know if it's something hereditary, or with a higher occurrence amongst individuals with a family history, but i just don't know why i wake up after five hours when i'm just so dead tired.
but anyway, without having seen a doctor for a clinical diagnosis, i am sure i either do suffer from or have suffered from an anxiety disorder, and possibly (likely?) one or two of the others listed above as possible causes of insomnia.