Definition of Insomnia – Are you here suffering from difficulty sleeping or what is commonly referred to as insomnia? This term must be very familiar to you, right? Well, surely most of you think the meaning or definition of insomnia is only limited to difficulty sleeping.
In fact, there is a more complex and complete definition of insomnia. In full, the meaning and definition of insomnia itself is a disorder of difficulty sleeping in a person that causes the person not to get good quality sleep and conform to the sleep standards for humans.
Well, if you don’t get good quality sleep, you will definitely get many side effects that may be fatal.
A health specialist named Lusiana Winata told some of the consequences of this sleep disorder. According to him, a person who has trouble sleeping will experience several disturbances in various general functions.
The functions in question are aspects of life, such as social functions, work disorders, disorders in educational functions both academic and non-academic, and disorders of other important functions.
Difficulty sleeping at night will make the sufferer tend to feel sleepy during the day. Alias the sufferer will feel the urge to sleep while the sufferer is carrying out their daily activities. This is what Doctor Lusiana Winata meant by disrupting the functions of life.
When sufferers feel sleepy when they are doing activities, whether it is work or study, it will definitely affect their performance and work results. There are also sufferers who do not even feel sleepy at all, even so the sufferers still have to sleep just to rest their eyes.
In addition, there are several other minor consequences caused by sleep disorders. Sufferers of sleep disorders will easily feel suffocated due to lack of energy, sufferers will tend to easily feel upset and end up with anger, besides that it will have a fatal impact on mental health and end up with overthinking and ending up with depression. Terrible isn’t it? Well, this time we will invite you to know more about this sleep disorder.
A. Meaning of Insomnia
Insomnia is one of the health disorders that attack the sufferer which causes the sufferer to experience difficulty or trouble sleeping. In this case, difficulty sleeping makes the sufferer have an obstacle to begin to sleep or even continue sleeping.
Insomnia in another sense can also be defined as a condition or disorder that can make the sufferer not have good sleep quality and will get various disturbances during the day. Insomnia has a kind of clinical diagnosis that is generally given regularly at least three times a week.
One of the institutions called the National Institute of Health conducted research and obtained the results that there are about 30% of the total human population having symptoms or signs of this sleep disorder. The results show that the population that suffers the most from the symptoms of insomnia are women, this can be caused by the hormonal changes that occur in women.
Another population that has the most symptoms of insomnia are the elderly (aged) with a vulnerable age between 60 years. It is caused by a change in the cycle or sleep schedule and some are also caused by the development of other diseases due to increasing age.
In addition to being caused by the things above, insomnia can also attack people of various ages. Insomnia usually occurs without any cause, so the trouble sleeping will come on its own for no reason. There are several conditions that can affect the onset of difficulty sleeping or insomnia, among others due to psychological stress, chronic pain in the body, heart disease or heart failure, an overactive thyroid (hyperthyroidism), restless legs syndrome, menopause in the elderly, due to certain drugs, etc.
There are also other factors that can affect insomnia, this factor can affect because it is done on a long-term basis, such as when there is a night shift at work. The diagnosis can be based on the habits when you sleep and some tests used to detect the underlying cause.
Insomnia caused by a psychological illness should be dealt with by a specialist. One of the treatments is psychological therapy. Psychological therapy that is considered effective in treating insomnia is cognitive therapy. The therapy is done in a way that insomnia patients are required to be able to improve their sleeping habits, by doing several ways to feel sleepy. In addition, patients are also trained to be able to reduce or even eliminate various pro and contra assumptions about sleep.
There are some sufferers of sleep disorders who prefer to rely on the way drugs work instead of treating them naturally. Even though you know yourself that we shouldn’t depend on medicine. Drugs that are often used by sufferers of sleep disorders are usually sedatives and sleeping pills.
Both are known to have effects that can make the user feel dependent on the drugs. sufferers will feel unable to sleep if they do not swallow both substances and drugs. If you consume one or both of these drugs continuously, it will definitely have a bad effect on your body, right?
B. Types of General Insomnia
After getting to know the meaning and some short facts of sleep disorders. It’s time for us to tell you what types of insomnia you have. Here are the common types of insomnia that you need to know.
1. Acute insomnia
Acute insomnia or what is also known as short-term insomnia is a condition when you experience difficulty sleeping for a relatively short period of time. Acute insomnia usually comes when you have things that make you feel stressed and depressed. Some examples of the reasons why you suffer from this type of sleep disorder are missal due to the loss of a precious person, receiving a sentence of a serious or deadly disease, and many more.
2. Chronic insomnia
Chronic insomnia is the opposite of acute insomnia. What does it mean? The meaning is, chronic insomnia is a disorder of difficulty sleeping that occurs over a relatively long or long period of time. Well, are you the one who might suffer from this type of insomnia? This type of sleep disorder can cause difficulty sleeping soundly for more than three times a week or may even last for more than three months.
If you feel that you have this type of chronic insomnia, you must have felt the difficulty of sleeping for a long time, right? If you choose to ignore this, then you must be prepared to accept the risk. This condition may have a great influence on your health. That is because your body does not get enough rest time to recharge your body. The cause is due to stress, the formation of sleep patterns, too often bad dreams, being affected by mental disorders, and so on.
3. Insomnia sleep onset
Insomnia sleep onset is a disorder of difficulty sleeping despite already feeling sleepy. Sufferers of this type of insomnia will find it very difficult to sleep even though they already feel very sleepy and have even tried to make their body fall asleep. Sufferers will struggle to sleep even after being on the mattress for approximately 20-30 minutes. Sufferers find it difficult to fall asleep despite closing their eyes repeatedly.
What are the consequences if you have this type of sleep disorder? The result is that you will only look at the ceiling of your room all night without feeling any rest. This type of insomnia is very, very harmful, because if you think about it, it will waste your time to rest. Its prolonged effects can cause Grads to feel tired and sleepy when the dawn has risen.
The cause of this type of insomnia is none other than mental disorders, such as receiving heavy stress, suffering from anxiety disorders, to the point of depression.
4. Children’s insomnia
There is an institution called the American Academy of Sleep Medicine that conducted a study. From the results of their research and monitoring, some facts were obtained that there are two types of sleep disorders that often occur in children or humans at an early age.
The first type of sleep disorder is sleep onset insomnia, which is an insomnia disorder that you may often see. This disturbance of sleep difficulties is caused by the habit of children who are usually held or given milk, and are in the same bed as their parents. Because children are used to it like that, making children won’t be able to sleep if they don’t do those habits.
Not only that, if your child is not used to having a fixed sleeping time, it will also increase the possibility of sleep disorders. If parents or caregivers force the child to have a fixed sleeping time, it will actually reduce the possibility of having difficulty sleeping in the child.
This type of insomnia can be overcome by getting your child used to going to bed earlier, or you can also make a sleep schedule so that they sleep more regularly. Force the child if he refuses to sleep. Don’t let your baby stay awake overnight and even fall asleep at the wrong time.
5. Insomnia due to certain drugs or substances
Insomnia or difficulty sleeping this type of disorder can occur due to the presence of stimulants that come from consuming drugs that can inhibit sleepiness. Certain drugs or substances include alcohol, coffee containing high caffeine, and certain other foods or drinks.
An example of food that can make it difficult for you to sleep is spicy food. Come on! Who among you likes spicy food? Our advice is better not to eat spicy food before bedtime! Because spicy food can give a feeling of heat in the stomach which may disturb your sleepiness and sleep.
The solution to this type of sleep disturbance problem is to stop the use and consumption of the substance or drug.
You already know right? That means you should reduce or even stop its use or consumption if you want to get an ideal sleep pattern and good sleep quality.
6. Insomnia due to medical conditions
Insomnia or difficulty sleeping with this type can be caused by various things related to the disturbance caused by the meditative condition of the sufferer. One simple example is insomnia caused by a mental disorder in the sufferer. Other problems are medical conditions due to mental disorders, such as depression, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorders, and so on.
The range of severity of this type of sleep disturbance is directly proportional to the severity of the disorder or medical condition experienced or suffered by the patient. Patients who suffer from this type of insomnia must undergo two treatments, the first to treat medical conditions (mental disorders, etc.), and the second is to treat sleep disorders. Patients who suffer from this type of sleep disorder must inform the doctor about any medication which is consumed.
7. Mixed insomnia
The last type of sleep difficulty disorder is the mixed type. The name of this type is not yet formal. However, the name of this mixture is very descriptive of this type of sleep disorder. Because mixed insomnia itself occurs due to a combination of sleep onset type insomnia coupled with the lack of ability to maintain sleep quality, as well as the habit of waking up early.
C. Symptoms of Sleep Disorders
Patients or sufferers who experience trouble falling asleep or what is commonly known as insomnia will begin with very simple symptoms, which is always waking up every night and when they wake up in the morning their body will feel tired.
For sleep disorders caused by mental disorders, usually patients will feel tense, anxious, worried, always worrying about the problems they are facing. It was caused by the patient lying on the mattress for too long and not closing his eyes to fall asleep immediately. Cause the patient to think about all the things in his life and even dissolve in it.
For acute type insomnia caused by trauma it will be very difficult to close the eyes. If this trauma happens continuously, then over time the patient will get used to sleeping late and end up with insomnia.
D. Driving Factors for Insomnia Disorder
It cannot be denied that insomnia can occur at all ages. But for the gender range, it is a fact that insomnia occurs more in women than in men. Here we will display some other factors that can trigger the occurrence of sleep disorders.
1. Having a mental disorder or problem (depressed, post-traumatic disorder, violent disorder, and many more)
2. Working with the night shift, work involving the shift method is judged to be able to change the biological clock or the natural clock in the body.
3. Gender differences, for women who are menstruating or menstruating will naturally experience unpredictable hormonal changes. As a result, women will easily produce sweat at night.
4. the elderly (elderly) because they are old, it will be very easy to be affected by old diseases. One of the disorders that occurs is the presence of difficulty sleeping.
5. Sleeping too long during the day
If you like to sleep during the day, then don’t fall asleep for too long. Why is that? Because napping for too long can make it difficult for you to feel sleepy at night. As a result, you will have insomnia and difficulty sleeping at night.
Well, that’s a variety of information about sleep disorders or insomnia that may add insight and help if there are those of you who want to overcome sleep disorders or insomnia.