Insomnia: what to do? Anyone who works all day knows how important it is to get adequate rest during the night. Did you know that men spend up to a third of their life asleep ? Lack of sleep, or the poor quality of sleep, can have a very negative influence on health, in the long and short term.
I have found that sleeplessness is a very common disorder associated with stress. Over the past decade, the problem of insomnia has grown dramatically. Sleep disorders are a global problem that threatens the health and quality of life for 45% of the world population .
How to fight insomnia? Are there any remedies for those who sleep little ? In this article I will explain what I discovered by listening attentively to Dr. Luigi Alberto Gozzi, a psychologist and psychotherapist with a cognitive-behavioral clinical orientation. Dr. Gozzi explains what factors cause insomnia and gives us some interesting tips to deal with it and, possibly, defeat it." Insomnia is a condition of altered quantity, quality and / or duration of sleep. It can be stressful and is often underestimated. Insomnia can present with difficulty falling asleep, early awakening and unsatisfactory sleep quality for at least 3 times a week for at least 3 months .
For simplicity we can divide insomnia into two types, depending on the severity with which it occurs in the patient:
As you can imagine, it is chronic insomnia that causes discomfort and damage to those who suffer from it, which affects almost one in 10 people. If it continues over time, insomnia can facilitate the appearance of other disorders: it is the comorbidity of 60% of generalized anxiety disorder, 41% of cases of depression and nearly 50% of requests for mental health problems. "
"The reason why some patients systematically fail to get enough sleep are different. Insomnia is a very complex disorder, not to be underestimated, because if taken to extreme consequences it can cause serious and permanent damage.
Understanding how to fight insomnia is a general problem. As I said earlier, insomnia is a very common condition. It is estimated that it affects or has affected about ⅓ of the world population. for this reason numerous studies have been conducted over the years on the causes and treatment of this disorder, to try to understand it.
The factors of insomnia are:
Let's see in detail the factors that are linked to insomnia.
There are some predisposing factors for insomnia : somatic activation factors (such as bronchial asthma, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, sleep apnea, OSAS ), cognitive and emotional hyper-activation (tendency to brooding and / or control, anxiety, hyper-vigilance at night and others) and age-related, 20% of over 60s suffer from it and the percentage increases with advancing age.
Other factors, on the other hand, affect the onset of the disorder , which manifests itself as a reactive form to events of high stress, such as bereavement, separation / divorce, family / work conflicts, illness / hospitalization.
There are also factors that maintain insomnia disorder, which are often erroneous beliefs about sleep: for example, the tendency to attribute catastrophic consequences on one's health to insomnia, to have unrealistic expectations about sleep, an incorrect assessment of the causes of sleep. insomnia or the pretense of controlling one's rest, resulting in excessive monitoring of wakefulness and sleep signals.
Here is a brief overview of the most common causes of insomnia :
"Thanks to sleep you are able to lighten the load on the heart and mind. Rest lowers blood pressure, facilitates the memorization process, the processing of the day's information and the restoration of cognitive functioning. But falling asleep is not, however," the switch of the brain. ”To give a simple example, by any chance can you force shutdown like on your PC? The answer is:“ Obviously not . ”Forcing sleep is not the correct way to combat insomnia as it feeds physical and mental hyperactivation, because it forces you to monitor yourself to understand if you are falling asleep or not, consequently increasing a condition of psycho-physical stress.
If we wanted to compare our brain to a computer, the sleep phase would be like putting our PC on standby, the more applications are open, the longer the shutdown time will be. This is how our mind works too: worries, problem solving, planning / planning the next day, activating activities, using social networks, the fear of not being able to sleep and so on, are all factors that contribute to making the falling asleep.
Furthermore, I would like to underline that the idea with which we grew up, namely that 8 hours of sleep are necessary, has no scientific basis, it is only the result of a trivial subdivision of the day into 3 parts of equal duration, to be dedicated to work / study, family and loved ones, and sleep.
In fact, we must remember that not all of us need the same amount of hours of sleep to feel rested , it varies from person to person, what matters is not to go below the level that we consider satisfactory. "
"In addition to fatigue, you will tend to be less performing in the study or at work, more irritable and you may feel discomfort in some social contexts.
In fact, if insomnia lasts over time it can be the cause of interpersonal, social and professional problems, poor concentration, anxiety and worry about not sleeping. It is not uncommon for chronic insomniacs to experience an episode of major depression, hypertension and heart problems.
These are all good reasons to try to fight insomnia with all our strength. Are you wondering at this point what to do about insomnia? So let's see together which remedies can work against insomnia. "
Did you know that there is also a large international association to evaluate how to fight insomnia at an international level? The fundamental mission of the World Sleep Society is to promote sleep health around the world . The World Sleep Society promotes and encourages education, research and patient care around the world, particularly in parts of the world where the practice of sleep medicine is less developed.
The World Sleep Society also acts as a bridge between different sleep societies and cultures, supporting and encouraging the worldwide exchange of clinical information and scientific studies related to sleep medicine.
The World Sleep Society also seeks to encourage the development and exchange of information for global and regional standards of practice for sleep medicine.
The very existence of this international reality is useful to make us understand how important it is not to underestimate the problem of insomnia. It is right to make every effort to try to find cures to sleep satisfactorily and live the rest of our day peacefully.
have you wondered how to fight insomnia by natural means? Did you know that there are also natural remedies that can help us in our fight against insomnia? Obviously they are not to be considered substitutes for therapy or the use of drugs. However, the fact of finding further help against isomnia also makes these natural remedies interesting (which we will now go briefly to see).
In fact, in nature there are several plants with relaxing properties , able to help sleep. Many of the plants and herbs that will be described below are mainly consumed as infusions, herbal teas or herbal compounds.
The main natural remedies to combat insomnia are:
A further solution to help fall asleep can be the use of soothing plant-based essential oils to be added to the water of a room diffuser. The commonly appreciated oils are those of lavender, jasmine, marjoram and rose.
I thank Dr. Luigi Alberto Gozzi for sharing his great experience with us. Thanks to his 12 tips I was able to fight insomnia and start working again, increasing the quality of my days (and nights). I hope that you too can succeed in your intent.
If you have come to the conclusion that you are unable to face your battle against insomnia alone, I recommend that you consult an expert .
If you don't know what to do to deal with insomnia, I can only advise you to get in touch with Dr. Gozzi. Sharing of objectives, transparency, trust and empathy are the basis of the way of working of Dr. Luigi Alberto Gozzi. All the useful information in this article is proof of his careful preparation on insomnia treatments.
When should we stop trying to get by and instead turn to an expert for outside help in our fight against insomnia? I asked Dr. Gozzi, as the last question of our interview. Her answer follows.
"I do not want to speak for all my colleagues, but I can tell you when it is right to contact me for an evaluation of the problem. I am not the right person for you if you are not motivated, if you think you do not have the need or the desire to put yourself in discussion to achieve your goals, if you believe that taking this path requires no commitment for both of you. Are you ready to fight to overcome insomnia? I can't wait to meet you. "
Having reached the end of this interview, I thank Dr. Gozzi for his willingness to share his great knowledge on insomnia and his valuable advice on how to deal with it and overcome the problems of falling asleep on the Windowo blog.
In case you feel you need the help of an expert, I would like to point out the contacts of Dr. Luigi Alberto Gozzi:
If you have a question or comment on how to fight insomnia you can simply comment under this article .
We thank you for reading this content on how to overcome insomnia and wish you many nights of rest.