Your doctor should be consulted if insomnia affects your health and daily life, as there may be an underlying medical condition. Recognition and treatment of the disorder is the key.
There are many ways to help yourself overcome insomnia if the cause is unknown. The process may just take time to find out exactly what works for you.
Sleep hygiene
How we lead our lives can have a huge impact on our ability to sleep. We can help ourselves by adopting good sleep hygiene, a term used to describe conditions conducive to healthy sleep.
| The following are self-help ways of ensuring good sleep practice: If you cannot fall asleep after 30 minutes, get up and do something - don't lie there and worry
Keep active during the day
Avoid working just before going to sleep, and give time to wind down
Avoid stimulants late at night e.g. coffee
Ensure the environment is conducive to sleep (quiet, dark, ventilated, not excessively hot or cold)
Try relaxation techniques
Get into the routine of sleep and wakefulness hours
Ensure you have been exposed to natural light during the day
Try to avoid napping during the day, as you are less ready for sleep at night
Adopt a comfortable sleeping position that keeps the spine aligned - this can prevent further health problems such as backache. |
The issue of napping is hotly debated. If everything has been tried, and you cannot recondition your sleep, napping may become essential in order to achieve some much-needed rest.
Sleep clinics
Most of the sleep clinics in the UK focus on respiratory disorders during sleep such as sleep apnoea and snoring. More clinics are now being established in hospitals, which in the future may be able to provide more routine testing and assistance for those who suffer from insomnia.
Drugs
Sleeping tablets can be used in extreme cases, but should only be adopted as a short-term measure due to their addictive nature and the fact that they don't provide a cure.
The main group of sleeping tablets are the benzodiazepines such as diazepam (trade name, valium). They have side effects and people build up a tolerance over approximately 10 days. Withdrawal from the tablets can cause even worse symptoms.
Non-benzodiazepine drugs such as Zimovane and Zopiclon are structurally unrelated to other tranquilisers. They are for short-term use only, not recommended for certain conditions such as sleep apnoea. They function by rapidly initiating and sustaining sleep without the reduction of REM sleep and with preservation of slow wave sleep (delta - stages 3 and 4). They have negligible effects in the morning, but there is still a minimal risk of dependency.
A relatively new drug, Zaleplon, has the advantage that not only does it act quickly but its effects wear off after 3 hours. Hence you can try and fall asleep naturally, but if this does not work Zaleplon can be taken in the middle of the night without risk of continued drowsy effects in the morning. So far there is no known addictive nature, though this needs monitoring.
Your doctor should be consulted for further information about medication that assists with the treatment of insomnia.
02/06/2009