Though often overlooked, choices about your diet can play a role in sleeping problems like insomnia.Ĭaffeine is a stimulant that can stay in your system for hours, making it harder to get to sleep and potentially contributing to insomnia when used in the afternoon and evening. Using your bed for activities besides sleep can create mental associations between your bed and wakefulness.Sleeping in later to make up for lost sleep can confuse your body’s internal clock and make it difficult to establish a healthy sleep schedule.Napping late in the afternoon can throw off your sleep timing and make it hard to fall asleep at night.Keeping the brain stimulated until late in the evening, such as by working late, playing video games, or using other electronic devices.Various lifestyle choices can bring about sleeping problems: Unhealthy habits and routines related to lifestyle and food and drink can increase a person’s risk of insomnia. In some people, circadian rhythms can be shifted forward or backward without a clear cause, resulting in persistent difficulties in sleep timing and overall sleep quality. Both can give rise to a disrupted circadian rhythm and insomnia. Shift work requires a person to work through the night and sleep during the day. Jet lag disturbs sleep because a person’s body can’t adjust to a rapid change in time zone. Two well-known examples are jet lag and shift work. In reality, many people have sleep schedules that cause misalignment of their circadian rhythm. In an ideal world, the body’s internal clock, known as its circadian rhythm, closely follows the daily pattern of day and night.
These people are considered to have high “sleep reactivity,” which is tied to other issues affecting their sleep and their physical and mental health. Researchers believe that some individuals are more vulnerable to stress-induced sleeping problems.
The inability to sleep may itself become a source of stress, making it increasingly harder to break the cycle of stress and insomnia. The body’s physical response to stress contributes to hyperarousal, and mental stress can have the same effect. Exposure to traumatic situations can create chronic stress, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This stress response can come from work, school, and social relationships. Stress can provoke a profound reaction in the body that poses a challenge to quality sleep. Hyperarousal can be both mental and physical, and it can be triggered by a range of circumstances and health issues. On a holistic level, insomnia is believed to be caused by a state of hyperarousal that disrupts falling asleep or staying asleep. Poor sleep can also trigger or worsen other health conditions, creating a complex chain of cause-and-effect for insomnia. There are numerous potential causes of insomnia, and in many cases, multiple factors can be involved. How a person is affected by insomnia can vary significantly based on its cause, severity, and how it is influenced by underlying health conditions. For some people, the primary problem is falling asleep (sleep onset) while others struggle with staying asleep (sleep maintenance). Short-term insomnia happens only over a brief period while chronic insomnia lasts for three months or more. Not all insomnia is the same people can experience the condition in distinct ways. For many people, a combination of these factors can initiate and exacerbate insomnia. It can have serious effects, leading to excessive daytime sleepiness, a higher risk of auto accidents, and widespread health effects from sleep deprivation.Ĭommon causes of insomnia include stress, an irregular sleep schedule, poor sleeping habits, mental health disorders like anxiety and depression, physical illnesses and pain, medications, neurological problems, and specific sleep disorders. It is marked by problems getting to sleep, staying asleep through the night, and sleeping as long as you would like into the morning. Insomnia is a sleep disorder that affects as many as 35% of adults.
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