What Is Insomnia?
Insomnia is a sleep disorder in which a person experiences poor sleep or has trouble sleeping. Insomnia can involve:

• Difficulty falling asleep
   
• Difficulty staying asleep (that is, waking up many times during the night), without necessarily having had any difficulty falling asleep
   
• Waking up too early in the morning
   
• Not feeling refreshed after a night's sleep

In any of these cases the person feels tired the next day, or feels as if he or she did not have enough sleep.

Poor sleep for any length of time can lead to mood disturbances, lack of motivation, decreased attention span, trouble with concentration, low levels of energy, and increased fatigue.

About one-third of the average person's life is spent sleeping. Healthy sleep is vital to the human body and important for the optimal functioning of the brain and other organs.

There are three types of insomnia:

• Transient, or mild, insomnia - sleep difficulties that last for a few days; there is little or no evidence of impairment of functioning during the day
   
• Short-term, or moderate, insomnia - sleep difficulties that last for less than a month, that mildly affect functioning during the day, together with feelings of irritability and fatigue
   
• Chronic, or severe, insomnia - sleep difficulties that last for more than a month, that severely impair functioning during the day, and cause strong feelings of restlessness, irritability, anxiety, and fatigue

Is Insomnia Serious?
Insomnia can have physical and psychological effects. The consequences of insomnia include:

• Impaired mental functioning. Insomnia can affect concentration and memory, and can affect one's ability to perform daily tasks.
   

• Accidents. Insomnia endangers public safety by contributing to traffic and industrial accidents. Various studies have shown that fatigue plays a major role in automobile and machinery accidents. As many as 100,000 automobile accidents, accounting for 1,500 deaths, are caused by sleepiness.
   

• Stress and depression. Insomnia increases the activity of the hormones and pathways in the brain that cause stress, and changes in sleeping patterns have been shown to have significant affects on mood. Ongoing insomnia may be a sign of anxiety and depression
   

•  Heart disease. One study reported that people with chronic insomnia had signs of heart and nervous system activity that might put them at risk for heart disease."
   

• Headaches. Headaches that occur during the night or early in the morning may be related to a sleep disorder.
   

• Economic effects. Insomnia costs the U.S. an estimated $100 billion each year in medical costs and decreased productivity.

How Is Insomnia Treated?

Sleep research has led to major advances in the treatment of insomnia. Many experts now consider sleeping pills to be overused, as well as dangerous because they can become addictive. They suggest that medication be used a last option, after other treatments have been tried.

Non-medicine treatment options include:

Physical Relaxation

If you are anxious about falling asleep, certain muscles in your body become tense and sometimes painful, interfering with sleep. Physical relaxation techniques can help.

Find a quiet, peaceful place in which to practice the following technique about 30 minutes a day:

• Lie perfectly still until you find the most comfortable position for yourself. Now deliberately tense up the muscles in your arms and legs as tightly as you can. Try to hold this tension for about a minute and then let the muscles relax gradually-first your legs, and then your arms.
   

• Now let your whole body feel as relaxed as it possibly can. Take a rest for five minutes and then repeat the procedure twice more.
   

• At the end of the session, try to concentrate on the feeling of your muscles and let them go as limp and relaxed as possible for the rest of the period. Try to make your breathing slow and steady as you relax.

This technique is designed to teach individuals how their body relaxes and how to control relaxation and tension.

Mental Relaxation

Since stress and worry, including the worry about not being able to fall asleep, are often at the core of insomnia, many people have found that mental relaxation techniques can help them to feel less anxious and therefore sleep better.

This method also requires finding a peaceful, quiet place to practice this technique for about 30 minutes a day:

• Try to relax your body first, by finding the most comfortable position for yourself. Then empty your mind of all thoughts by concentrating on one particular object in the room or a particular part of the room.
   
• After a minute, sit up, and then walk around for a bit. Then return to your position and repeat the exercise.
   
• Now think of a particularly happy time in your life that you really enjoyed. If you cannot immediately think of something, find a poster of some exotic place or beautiful scenery. Concentrate on imagining yourself in this place for about five minutes.
   
• Try to feel the sensations first in your neck muscles, and then in your arm and leg muscles, as they gradually become relaxed. After another few minutes, get up and walk around the room a bit. Then repeat the process.

This exercise differs from the physical technique in that it emphasizes controlling the psychological components of anxiety before attempting to relax your body.