Insomnia Articles

INSOMNIA ARTICLES - Personal Health; When Lyme invades the brain and spinal system.

2006-12-09T02:54:00.000-08:00

INSOMNIA ARTICLES

Personal Health; When Lyme invades the brain and spinal system.

A YOUNG woman, whose doctor declined to identify her, thought she was going crazy. Suddenly, this once perfectly healthy college freshman developed severe anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia and loss of appetite.

A doctor and a psychologist at her college's health service recommended rest for what they thought were problems in adjusting to being away from home. Forced to take a medical leave, she underwent an extensive examination that showed no abnormalities except one: evidence in her spinal fluid of infection by the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi, which causes Lyme disease. Only then did she recall having had a circular rash characteristic of Lyme disease months earlier, followed by a brief bout of headaches and unusual fatigue. At the time, she did not take these symptoms seriously and did not seek medical attention.

The young woman's case is among dozens reported in which the Lyme spirochete was the apparent cause of a wide range of psychiatric and neurological problems. Three months after receiving a six-week course of intravenous antibiotics to eradicate the spirochete, the woman felt better. But a year later more therapy was needed when the anxiety and panic attacks returned, along with musical hallucinations, deja vu experiences and obsessional thoughts.

Although such extreme cases are rare, neurological problems resulting from Lyme disease are more common than realized by most doctors, who tend to look for the more characteristic arthritic conditions associated with the disease. Nervous System Attack

When Lyme disease is promptly recognized and properly treated, the overwhelming majority of patients recover uneventfully. But often the initial sign of a bite by a Lyme-infected tick, a red circular rash that clears in the center, is not recognized. Only when more severe symptoms develop weeks or months later are a diagnosis and treatment pursued.

Meanwhile, within weeks of entering the body, the spirochete, a bacterium that resembles the organism that causes syphilis, can invade the brain and spinal cord. At first, patients may develop meningitis, encephalitis or problems like pain or loss of sensation stemming from an attack on the nerves that emanate from the brain or spinal cord. But as with syphilis, months or years may pass before the late signs of a neurological infection appear.

Once inside the central nervous system, the organism can wreak all kinds of havoc, from memory problems, moodiness and depression to hallucinations, panic attacks, paranoia, manic depression, seizures and even dementia. Memory problems are the most common sign of a brain infection. When the organism invades spinal nerves, patients may develop numbness and tingling in fingers and toes and pain radiating to the front of the body.

In rare cases, the spirochete may mount an attack on the protective sheath of nerves, resulting in spastic muscle weakness in the extremities that resembles multiple sclerosis, said Dr. Allen C. Steere of Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston. Dr. Steere first recognized Lyme disease as a distinct disorder in 1975 and soon realized that it could cause neurological problems.

Dr. Brian Fallon, a psychiatrist at the State Psychiatric Institute in New York, recently reviewed the neuropsychiatric aspects of Lyme disease in The American Journal of Psychiatry, in the hope of prompting his colleagues to consider the possibility of this infection when examining patients who might have been exposed to Lyme-infected ticks.

In Europe, where the disease is called borreliosis, patients commonly develop neuropsychiatric symptoms after being infected by the same spirochete that causes Lyme disease, Dr. Fallon said. But in this country, arthritic symptoms are most common and many doctors still do not appreciate the threat to the nervous system.

Dr. Fallon said that up to 40 percent of patients with Lyme disease developed some involvement of the nervous system affecting either the extremities or the central nervous system. He told of a 47-year-old man who experienced depression and memory problems as his main signs of Lyme disease, symptoms that responded well to intravenous antibiotics. The symptoms recurred five months later, but he was not treated a second time. He developed a type of dementia that required hospitalization and died a few years later. An autopsy found Lyme spirochetes in a degenerated part of his brain.
Children can also develop a neurological form of Lyme disease that often shows up as behavioral or emotional disturbances. Such children may become moody, lose interest in play and do poorly in school. Among 16 children in Westchester County, N.Y., who contracted Lyme disease, 15 whose infections were identified and treated within the first month were doing very well, Dr. Fallon said. But one child, in whom the disease was not diagnosed until four months after he was thought to have been infected, has suffered for five years with arthritis, headaches, depression and memory problems.

Studies by Dr. Steere and others of patients with neurological signs of Lyme disease have revealed inadequate blood flow through particular areas of the brain. Dr. Steere also said that after an attack of Lyme disease, patients might develop pain or fatigue syndromes that resemble fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome. Diagnosis Problems

To be sure, extreme incapacitating effects of a Lyme infection are rare. But even the more subtle effects like depressed mood, memory problems and word-finding difficulties can be devastating to those who are afflicted.

Such patients commonly receive the wrong diagnosis or inappropriate treatment. Often they are shunted from one doctor to another. In addition to blood tests for antibodies to the spirochete, diagnosis of neurological Lyme disease may require a spinal tap, an electroencephalogram (EEG), magnetic resonance imaging (M.R.I.), standard neuropsychological tests (for example, for memory, word association and depression) and a carefully taken health history.

Even after a correct diagnosis is made and a long course of intravenous antibiotics is administered, the organism may not be eradicated from its sanctuary in the brain. Repeated courses of this costly therapy are typically needed, but many insurance companies balk at paying for them because the treatments are still considered experimental.

Sometimes the treatment itself can cause a flare-up of Lyme disease, producing both physical and neuropsychiatric symptoms. But most often, when the presence of a Lyme infection can be established, treatment with intravenous antibiotics for four to six weeks results in a distinct improvement. But Dr. Steere, who uses ceftriaxone, which is sold as Rocephin, noted that patients typically must wait three to six months to see signs of gradual improvement and may never recover 100 percent.

by Jane E Brody on The New York Times, published on Feb 15, 1995

2006-11-23T21:48:00.000-08:00

INSOMNIA ARTICLES

It’s Not Just Apes; Fruit Flies Are Our Cousins, Too

As humans age, so I’m told, they tend not to sleep as well as they once did. There are all sorts of reasons — aches and pains, worries about work, and lifelong accumulations of sins that pretty much rule out the sweet sleep of innocence.

But what about fruit flies?

Not as a cause of insomnia. What about the problems fruit flies have sleeping? Yes, Drosophila melanogaster also suffer sleep disruption when they get older. And a report on the troubled sleep of drosophila is being published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This is the kind of science that makes you wonder. For instance, are the female flies suffering from hot flashes? Are the male flies getting up to go to the bathroom three or four times a night? Of course not. Fruit flies don’t have bathrooms.

Or you may wonder what troubles are keeping the flies up. They don’t have to worry about family values, illegal immigration or debt. They don’t have families or money.

And given the ubiquity of fruit and of scientific research, I’m guessing drosophila, bless their little genomes, must benefit from something close to full employment.

What I wonder is why people waste time worrying about whether we evolved from animals. But they do.

As reported over and over again, a disconcerting number of Americans doubt the fact of evolution. The country seems almost evenly divided on the matter, according to a recent report in Science. Some of the worriers concentrate on apelike ancestors, showing a lack of vision. There are stranger connections to agonize over, like drosophila and beyond. We share sleep problems with fruit flies. We have a huge amount of DNA in common with yeast.

Those are our distant cousins we consume in leavened bread, our fellow multicelled organisms undergoing dreadful experiments in the drosophila lab.

For instance, scientists have heated up the ambient temperature in fruit flies environments to see what happens. At 64 degrees Fahrenheit they live twice as long as at 84 degrees. Live hot, die young.

What does that mean for us? We really do share a lot with drosophila. As the article in the Proceedings reports, fruit flies have sleep-wake cycles that become fragmented as they age, suffering a “loss of sleep consolidation, namely increased daytime sleep and increased nighttime wakefulness in the elderly,” as Kyunghee Koh at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and three colleagues describe it.

Sound familiar? It should. Some of the same genes related to circadian rhythms occur in humans and in flies. Mutations in some of these shared clock genes can cause sleep disorders in people.

We also share genes related to learning and alcohol sensitivity. But even these commonalities are not worth worrying about. The genes are just details. We have the same basic cell machinery — DNA, for example — with everything living. Broccoli rabe for instance, is known to have DNA. You may find it bitter, but you still share an evolutionary history with it.

The bacteria in my gut accounts for more genes than I have in my chromosomes. We not only have a lot in common with microbes, in a way that is only beginning to be understood, we are microbes.

This is fine with me. I’m delighted to be related to flies, yeast, frogs, chimps and blue-green algae. I find the serenity of algae restful and the ambition of yeast admirable. Frogs are great jumpers. Chimps have hands at the end of their feet, sort of. And fruit flies, well, I never met a fruit fly that I was ashamed to share genes with, and I certainly can’t say that about human beings.

Watch the news. Read history. Be honest, if you could pick your relatives, would you choose this species?

By the way, Dr. Koh and colleagues don’t have a cure for age-related sleep disturbance — in flies or people. But I, for one, will rest easier knowing I’m not the only one lying awake at night. My drosophila cousins are probably up too.

I wonder what flies count when they can’t sleep — paramecia?

by James Gorman, published on Aug 22, 2006

INSOMNIA ARTICLES - Elderly and Can't Sleep? Try Scent of Lavender

2006-11-14T22:17:00.000-08:00

INSOMNIA ARTICLES

Elderly and Can't Sleep? Try Scent of Lavender

Lavender, which was used to perfume the baths and underwear of the Romans and employed for at least 1,000 years in various folk remedies, may help older people overcome insomnia, a small study suggests.

The researchers, who reported the findings in the current issue of The Lancet, a medical journal, noted that doctors often prescribed powerful hypnotic drugs for older patients with insomnia. They said the drugs could have serious side effects and were often prescribed for long periods, even though they were recommended only for short-term use.

Dr. David Stretch of the Greenwood Institute of Child Health at the University of Leicester in England and his colleagues tested whether lavender oil could replace drug treatment for insomnia in older people. Previous pharmacological and animal studies had shown lavender oil to have a light sedative effect.

Four geriatric patients in a nursing home, three of whom had been on tranquilizers for one to three years and one who had received no previous medication, had their sleep measured for six weeks. For the first two, the patients used their regular medication. For the next two , medication was halted. For the last two, the ward was perfumed with a diffuser and lavender oil.

"To our slight surprise we found that there might be something after all to the old wives' tales," Dr. Stretch said. Although removing medication significantly reduced the number of hours spent asleep, the use of the scent of lavender restored that time to the level obtained through medication. Patients were also found to be less restless during sleep.

Dr. Stretch emphasized that the study was preliminary and that further research was required to determine the effectiveness of lavender. The researchers plan a more formal study using lavender in other groups, including young children.

source: The New York Times, Sep 1995.

INSOMNIA ARTICLES - Hormone Versus Insomnia

2006-11-06T19:27:00.000-08:00

INSOMNIA ARTICLES

Hormone Versus Insomnia

Many elderly people who suffer from insomnia have stopped making a brain hormone that helps set the body's internal clock for waking and sleeping, an Israeli scientist reported last week. But when the hormone, melatonin, is given in pill form two hours before bedtime, sleep improves dramatically.

"This is the first time melatonin has been found to correlate with insomnia," said Dr. Peretz Lavie, dean of medicine at the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. "It works better than I dreamed possible." He reported his findings at the annual meeting of the American Sleep Disorders Association and Sleep Research Society in Los Angeles last week.

Melatonin, a natural hormone not patentable as a drug, is produced rhythmically by the brain's pineal gland and, in ways that are not yet understood, tells the human body when to fall asleep and wake up. The brain makes a large amount at night and very little during the day.

Dr. Lavie's research group first looked at melatonin levels in the blood of men and women grouped into four categories -- young adults without sleep problems, elderly people without sleep problems, elderly insomniacs who live independently and elderly insomniacs who are institutionalized for health reasons. The institutionalized patients had no detectable levels of the hormone during the day or night. The insomniacs who live independently had a small amount of melatonin, whereas the other groups had more or less normal levels of the hormone, Dr. Lavie said.

Insomniacs were given two milligrams of melatonin two hours before bedtime. After one week, "they slept much, much better," Dr. Lavie said. Forty patients have been taking the hormone for nearly four months now, he said, with no ill effects.

In a companion study, Dr. Lavie is giving melatonin to patients with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias that severely disrupt sleep. "I can say their sleep improves enormously," he said.

by Sandra Blakeslee at The New York Times

INSOMNIA ARTICLES - Fatal Insomnia

2006-09-17T18:41:00.000-07:00

INSOMNIA ARTICLES.

Fatal Insomnia

A rare and fatal form of insomnia has been classifed as a prion disease, an inherited disorder that leaves spongy holes in the brains of its victims.

The finding, reported in the Feb. 13 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, adds a strange twist to the puzzle of prion diseases, said Dr. Pierluigi Gambetti, a neuropathologist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland who was the lead author of the report.

While other prion diseases attack the brain's higher cortex, Dr. Gambetti said, fatal familial insomnia attacks the thalamus, a brain region that relays messages between the cortex and the more primitive brain stem. The disease causes the thalamus to shrink, he said, and only occasionally creates holes in the cortex.

Prion diseases, which can be infectious or hereditary, are caused by mutations in a gene that makes a brain protein whose function is not yet known, Dr. Gambetti said. When the protein, called a prion, is abnormal, he said, the brain deteriorates and patients lose control of their bodies and minds.

The newly described prion disease was first identified in a large, five-generation family from northern Italy, Dr. Gambetti said. Victims experience a progressive loss of slow-wave sleep and rapid-eye-movement sleep, he said, and cannot distinguish between dreamy states and reality. They later develop complex hallucinations, elevated body temperature and faster heart beats. Ultimately they go into a coma and die, he said.

The disease occurs in men and women who are typically in their late 40's, Dr. Gambetti said. Once the symptoms begin, patients live for only about a year, during which time they retain most of their higher intellectual functions.

The disease has been found in five families around the world, the researcher said. It may also occur sporadically, meaning an individual would develop the mutation spontaneously, without having it run in the family.

Dr. Gambetti and colleagues from Italy and the United States found the same mutation in the prion gene in all five families. Not all family members who have the mutation develop the full-blown disease, he said. This phenomenon, called incomplete penetrance, remains a mystery.

Dr. Stanley Prusiner, an expert on prion diseases at the University of California at San Francisco, said the new research "widens the clinical perspective of prion diseases."

by Sandra Blakeslee at The New York Times

INSOMNIA ARTICLES - A Slight Change in Habits Could Lull You to Sleep

2006-08-19T04:09:00.000-07:00

INSOMNIA ARTICLES.

A Slight Change in Habits Could Lull You to Sleep

Faith Sullivan of Minneapolis was having a really hard time getting a good night's sleep. For years, she had slept about seven hours a night. Then, in her late 50's, something changed. After going to bed at 10 or 11 p.m., she would wake up around 3 a.m., unable to fall back to sleep.

No, neither depression nor hot flashes were disrupting her night's rest. It was caffeine. She never drank caffeinated coffee in the evening, but she often had it as a midafternoon pick-me-up. Though she found it hard to believe that coffee at 4 p.m. could disturb her sleep at 3 a.m., at the suggestion of a friend she tried cutting it out. The result was striking. Within a day, she was back to sleeping seven hours a night.

While not every insomniac's problem is so easily solved, many if not most of the millions of Americans who now rely on sleeping pills could cure their insomnia simply by changing their living and sleeping habits.

Food, Drink and Drugs

Caffeine is not just in coffee. It's in tea, colas and other soft drinks, some herbal teas, chocolate and some medications (Anacin and Excedrin, for example). There's even a little caffeine in decaffeinated coffee and tea. For people highly sensitive to caffeine, its stimulant effects can last as long as 20 hours. Even decaffeinated coffee in the evening can keep me awake.

Alcohol is a sedative. It's O.K. with dinner but ill-advised as a nightcap. When broken down by the body, alcohol lightens sleep and can cause early awakening.

Likewise, a large meal before bed makes many people sleepy initially, but can result in disrupted sleep. This is not to suggest you should go to bed hungry. Rather, stick to a light snack, preferably one high in carbohydrates or the amino acid tryptophan, the precursor of serotonin, which reduces anxiety and relaxes the brain.

Good choices include warm milk, turkey, chicken, whole-grain bread or crackers, cereal with milk and banana, and low-calorie popcorn. But at bedtime avoid spicy and fatty foods, which can cause indigestion.

Of course, there are many excellent health reasons for quitting smoking. But for the insomniac, the stimulant effects of nicotine may prove most persuasive. Nicotine raises blood pressure and heart rate and stimulates the brain, countering the slowdown you need to get a good night's sleep.

If you are on medication (prescribed or over-the-counter) and having trouble sleeping, check with your doctor to see if a drug could be the cause. Often, another medication that does not disrupt sleep can be substituted.

Several over-the-counter pain remedies, like Excedrin and Tylenol, come in a "PM" version free of caffeine but with an antihistamine that makes people sleepy.

Sometimes sleep environment is the problem: noise from the street or a neighbor, or a snoring bed mate. Try using earplugs, a white noise machine or a fan that hums to block out the disruptive sounds. If you can get a snorer to sleep on a side instead of the back, it may get rid of the raucous noise.

Is your bed comfortable? Remember the three bears? Although firm mattresses are often recommended for back support, some people sleep better on a mattress that conforms more to their bodies. Also choose a pillow that supports your head in a position that does not strain your neck.

Good sleepers can do anything they want in bed. But those with insomnia are advised to use their beds only for sleeping and sex. No watching television, reading, knitting or what-have-you. The bed should be associated with sleep.

Select a comfortable blanket with the appropriate warmth and weight. I find it almost impossible to sleep well under a heavy cover, a blanket that is too hot, or any blanket or sheet that is tucked in at the foot or side. Consider the sheets as well. Is the fabric irritating?

Keep the room cool. A sleeping temperature of 60 to 65 degrees is best for most people, even in the dead of winter. In hot weather, use a floor or ceiling fan to create a breeze, or an air-conditioner set at about 70 degrees.

Light can be more disruptive than many people realize. Even the dial of a luminous clock can disturb some people's sleep. Cover or move the clock, use blinds or dark shades or drapes on bedroom windows if they are exposed to street lights or passing headlights, or wear an eye mask.

However, if you are likely to get up during the night to use the bathroom, use a flashlight or night light to reduce the risk of falling.

If you know you have to get up at a special time, perhaps earlier than usual, set an alarm clock or timer lest your anxiety awaken you several times during the night to see what time it is.

Sleep Schedule

People who have trouble sleeping do best if they maintain a consistent sleep schedule, going to bed and getting up at about the same time every day, including weekends and holidays. This keeps your body programmed with a predictable sleep-wake cycle. But if you stay up until 2 a.m. and sleep until noon on Sunday, you may have a hard time falling asleep at 11 Sunday night and getting up at 6 or 7 Monday morning.

Despite the known rejuvenating value of a "power nap" for ordinary people, those with insomnia are advised not to nap during the day lest they disrupt a hard-won sleep-wake cycle. A nap is no substitute for a full night of restful sleep.

Go to bed only when you feel sleepy and allow yourself 15 or 20 minutes to fall asleep. If sleep won't come, get up and do something relaxing: — take a warm bath, read a dull book, have a glass of warm milk. Go back to bed when you feel sleepy again.

The worst thing to do when you can't sleep is to worry about the fact that you're not sleeping. Instead, try to envision a relaxing scene or activity, like basking in the sun or watching waves, or count sheep sleeping in a meadow.

Exercise regularly, but not within three hours of bedtime.

Nondrug Treatments

If the above remedies are insufficient, there are a few medically directed treatments that steer clear of drugs. Perhaps the most popular is progressive relaxation therapy, which teaches the patient first to recognize tense muscles and then learn how to relax them one by one, starting at the toes and working up to the head.

Another approach is guided imagery and meditation. With it, patients learn to focus on pleasant, nonstimulating images. Or biofeedback may be used to achieve muscle relaxation.

A third technique may seem counterintuitive to someone who is already not getting enough sleep. It's called sleep restriction therapy, and its goal is to exhaust patients until sleep is inevitable. Patients are allowed to sleep for only a few hours at first, with the time gradually increased as insomnia wanes.

If all this fails to cure your insomnia, the final option is to consult a sleep specialist. The National Sleep Foundation — at 1522 K Street NW, Suite 500, Washington, 20005, at (202) 347-3471, or on its Web site, sleepfoundation.org, can help you find a nearby sleep center.

INSOMNIA ARTICLES - Help for Chronic Insomnia Isn't Always Found in a Pill

2006-08-09T18:29:00.000-07:00

INSOMNIA ARTICLES.

Help for Chronic Insomnia Isn't Always Found in a Pill

Recent reports of bizarre sleepwalking behaviors, including middle-of-the-night binge eating and even driving a car, among patients taking the popular sleeping pill Ambien have led some health professionals to focus on drug-free methods of treating chronic insomnia.

Sleep therapists have demonstrated the effectiveness of a brief form of psychotherapy called cognitive behavioral therapy. Through it, patients learn to restructure their thinking about sleep, which is often erroneous, and to change counterproductive bedtime habits.

Should insomnia recur after formal therapy ends, patients have the tools to make corrections on their own. Or, if self-help fails, they see the therapist for a refresher session.

Jack D. Edinger and his psychology colleagues at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Durham, N.C., reported five years ago that, among 75 patients with chronic primary insomnia, cognitive behavioral therapy — known as C.B.T. — produced "clinically significant sleep improvements within six weeks," and these improvements persisted for at least six months, the length of follow-up in the study.

It found the therapy to be significantly better than readjusting sleep habits or teaching patients progressive muscle relaxation to help them fall asleep and stay asleep.

Patients treated with cognitive behavioral therapy reduced by an average of 54 percent the time they spent awake in the night. Those undergoing relaxation therapy reduced awake time by only 16 percent. Those receiving the behavioral placebo therapy achieved a 12 percent reduction.

The patients were randomly assigned to groups and were unaware of the therapy they were receiving.

Plagued with chronic insomnia that for years had left her lying awake for hours, Dr. Rachel Norwood, a psychiatrist at the National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver, visited Dr. Edinger to learn his techniques. After successfully applying them to her own problem, Dr. Norwood adapted the method to help her patients.

She has found that not only does cognitive behavioral therapy produce startling results in people whose insomnia has no underlying cause (so-called primary insomnia), it can also help those whose insomnia is more complicated than simply being unable to fall asleep and stay asleep.

One of Dr. Norwood's patients, Karen Hagler, has suffered for three decades with restless leg syndrome that, she said, turned her bed into a battleground, left her tired and crabby all day, and hurt her marriage.

"I'm now able to have quality sleep for about six hours a night, and I'm no longer tired during the day," Ms. Hagler said. "C.B.T. has given me quality of life. I don't even have to think about it anymore."

Dr. Norwood explained that the therapy retrains the part of the brain that controls a person's sleep-wake cycle and helps patients become experts on their own sleep. Patients learn that they cannot talk themselves into sleep. They figure out how much sleep they really need and how to budget it.

Important to reprogramming an errant brain is establishing a regular bedtime and, even more important, setting a specific time to get up each morning.

Taking naps to make up for lost sleep at night can make insomnia worse, Dr. Norwood said.

With the therapist's help, patients explore what seems to help and what hurts their ability to fall asleep and stay asleep. Some patients need a dark, quiet, cool room; others may need a constant sound to help them sleep. If it takes more than 20 minutes to fall asleep, patients are told to get out of bed and do something distracting until they feel sleepy again.

Dr. Norwood said that most patients with insomnia harbor erroneous beliefs that impair rather than aid their ability to sleep soundly. For example, one patient thought that if she didn't sleep for seven hours, her next day would be ruined. Another believed that she could not sleep unless the bedroom temperature was exactly 65 degrees.

And while many insomniacs think they need a drink to help them fall asleep, alcohol is a common cause of middle-of-the-night insomnia, the experts say.

by Jane E. Brody at New York Times

INSOMNIA ARTICLES - Sleep Experts Debate Root of Insomnia: Body, Mind or a Little of Each

2006-08-03T20:16:00.000-07:00

INSOMNIA ARTICLES

Sleep Experts Debate Root of Insomnia: Body, Mind or a Little of Each

After a night of poor sleep, what could be more enticing than a nap the following day? But for insomniacs, even napping is difficult.

"Insomnia patients, when you give them a nap opportunity during the day, they can't fall asleep, even though they say they are tired," said Dr. Michael H. Bonnet, professor of neurology at Wright State University School of Medicine and director of the sleep laboratory at the Dayton Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

The observation is one piece of evidence that it is not just everyday worries that keep people from getting a good night's sleep. Dr. Bonnet said he believed that insomnia had a physiological component and that insomniacs tended to be hyper-aroused, accounting for their difficulty in napping.

Studies by him and others show that compared with sound sleepers, insomniacs have higher heart rates and body temperatures, as if they were in danger and preparing to fight or flee.

"Their furnace is turned up higher than control individuals," he said.

Dr. Bonnet simulated insomnia in healthy young sleepers by giving them the caffeine equivalent of 12 cups of coffee a day for a week. By the end of the week, they had become more anxious, as shown on a personality test. Some researchers suggested that lack of sleep caused the anxiety.

But Dr. Bonnet did another experiment involving healthy sleepers who did not take caffeine but were awakened every time an insomniac in the next room woke up, so that the sleep patterns were identical. At the end of the week, the healthy sleepers had not become more anxious. And they were able to fall asleep faster than insomniacs could.

Dr. Bonnet said he concluded that it was the body's arousal, from the caffeine in the first experiment, that had caused the anxiety, not the lack of sleep.

Not everyone supports the physical cause theory, however. Some believe insomnia is caused by worries about daily life. Others, like Dr. Michael L. Perlis, an associate professor of psychiatry and director of the sleep research laboratory at the University of Rochester, say that if worry is keeping people awake, it is worry about not being able to sleep.

Some people, Dr. Perlis said, "say you are awake because you are worrying."

"I would say you are worrying because you are awake."

Dr. Perlis said he thought insomnia was caused by a conditioned response that produces changes in the brain or central nervous system. After a while, he said, merely walking into the bedroom is enough to cause brain activation. "You're going to walk in that room and you're going to wake up," Dr. Perlis said.

Some people undergo behavioral therapy to treat their insomnia. To make sleep more likely at night, they are told not to compensate for lost sleep by going to bed earlier or napping. To associate the bedroom with sleep only, they are told not to watch television in bed and to leave the bedroom if they wake during the night and cannot get back to sleep.

Dr. Charles Morin, professor of psychology at Laval University in Quebec, found in an oft-cited study that patients getting behavioral therapy did better in the long run than those taking sleeping pills because the effects of the pills wore off after they stopped taking them.

"With medication we tend to get quicker results, but with behavioral therapy we get longer-lasting benefits," Dr. Morin said. But neither therapy works that well, he added. "Very few people actually become good sleepers with treatment."

by ANDREW POLLACK at The New York Times

2006-07-31T18:15:00.000-07:00

INSOMNIA ARTICLES.

Sleep-Inducing Drug Studied

The Food and Drug Administration is investigating an unusually high number of reports of unwanted side effects to the drug Halcion, a widely prescribed sleep medication.

The Food and Drug Administration is investigating an unusually high number of reports of unwanted side effects to the drug Halcion, a widely prescribed sleep medication.

An advisory committee of the agency will review the drug Friday to determine why more reports of adverse reactions are being received for Halcion than for other drugs in its class of hypnotic agents.

Halcion has been on the market since 1983 and is the Upjohn Company's second largest sales item. Variety of Side Effects

Spokeswomen for the company and the Food and Drug Administration said they did not know the nature or number of the reports. But the F.D.A. said that when the drug was approved, the agency was aware of a variety of adverse effects including confusion, agitation, hallucinations, amnesia and bizarre behavior. All except bizarre behavior were included in label warnings, the agency said.

An Upjohn spokeswoman, Florence Steinberg, said the company would review data at the meeting that ''indicate that side effects with Halcion are not different in number or kind when compared with other medications in its class.''

She said the higher number of reports of problems associated with the drug stemmed in part from ''sensational allegations in the media about Halcion,'' including a case in which a Utah woman who was using the drug killed her mother. Murder charges were dismissed.

by AP at The New York Times.

INSOMNIA ARTICLES - Sales of drug are soaring for treatment of hyperactivity

2006-07-26T04:56:00.000-07:00

INSOMNIA ARTICLES

Sales of drug are soaring for treatment of hyperactivity

LEAD: A SHARP increase in sales of the stimulant Ritalin has rekindled an emotional debate over whether the substance is being prescribed to help youngsters with a specific hyperactive disorder, or instead to sedate unruly pupils whom teachers cannot control.

A SHARP increase in sales of the stimulant Ritalin has rekindled an emotional debate over whether the substance is being prescribed to help youngsters with a specific hyperactive disorder, or instead to sedate unruly pupils whom teachers cannot control.

The Federal Drug Enforcement Administration, which regulates the production of all controlled substances, said last month that a growing demand forced the agency to increase its proposed 1987 Ritalin production ceiling to 2,682 kilograms, twice what it was two years ago.

Howard McClain, the chief of the drug control section, said that, although there was no evidence of increased illegal use of the stimulant, the agency had alerted officials in states with especially high consumption rates, a routine procedure when use of a controlled substance suddenly increases. Some state regulatory boards say they are now reviewing prescription practices.

When used properly, many physicians, psychiatrists and school oficials insist, Ritalin is the best treatment for youngsters with a brain chemical abnormality known variously as hyperkinesis, hyperactivity, minimal brain dysfunction and, most recently, attention deficit disorder.

The disorder, which is believed to occur in 3 to 9 percent of the nation's 45 million pre-adolescent children, most of them boys, manifests itself chiefly in impulsiveness and an inability to concentrate. Affected children often do poorly in school.

Ritalin allows pupils with the disorder to concentrate and focus their attention, and often results in improved academic performance, school officials and doctors say. But critics, including some parents, psychologists and state regulators, said they feared the drug is perhaps being used instead on students whose unruliness or school difficulties result from family problems, emotional difficulties or inadequate instruction, not a disorder. Some even said they feared teachers or parents might believe the drug helped to improve the concentration and academic performance of otherwise normal children.

Critics are concerned because the drug can have a number of troubling side effects, including weight loss, irritability, insomnia and nervousness. The reactions may be especially marked in children who do not suffer from attention deficit disorder.

The debate over the use of Ritalin and other drugs, like benzedrine, to calm hyperactive children is not new. In the 1970's, for example, lawsuits were filed charging school officials and doctors with ''coercion,'' amid suspicion that teachers and principals were dumping unruly, bored students on local clinicians who routinely prescribed amphetamine maintenance as a way out.

Those suspicions are now being replayed in Georgia, which currently ranks fourth nationally in its per capita consumption of Ritalin. Officials of the Composite State Board of Medical Examiners said they too wanted to know if some school officials, teachers and parents may be turning to Ritalin as a quick fix for behavioral or academic problems.

A recent survey by the board showed that 45 percent of the prescriptions for the drug in the state were being filled by pharmacies in the affluent suburbs north of Atlanta.

''Among these people there is an intense desire to have their child excel,'' said Andy Watry, the executive director of the board. ''For some teachers and parents, there may be a tendency to look at Ritalin as a cure-all, a magic pill, that will make the child succeed.''

In Utah, where the consumption rate is four times the national norm, the highest in the country, the state Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing is investigating.

''The problem is, we really don't know why we use so much here,'' said David E. Robinson, director of the division. He said the division was trying to determine whether the drug was being illegally diverted to street sales, or ''is Ritalin just trendy these days because doctors are overdiagnosing a problem?''

Dr. Paul Wender, a psychiatrist at the University of Utah and a recognized authority on hyperactivity, said growing awareness of attention deficit disorder was prompting wider use of the drug. ''Are we using the drug intelligently,'' he said, ''or are people just pouring on Ritalin to cure a large variety of psychological ills for which it may not be appropriate? I can't say that I know. My suggestion is we have to look at it carefully on a case-by-case basis.''

Ritalin, the trademarked name for methylphenidate hydrochloride, has been prescribed for more than three decades, although medical authorities do not know exactly how it works on the brain or even what causes attention deficit disorder.

''It's a problem in the brain's ability to filter out stimuli,'' said Dr. Michael Levine, a psychiatrist and child development specialist in San Antonio. ''In other words, the data bank is O.K., but the terminal has a problem.''

Ritalin's stimulant effect enables some children to focus more clearly on activities and increase their attention span. Although consumption of

Ritalin has gone up nationally, a handful of states, including Utah, Michigan, Georgia, Maryland and Iowa, have consistently led per capita consumption.

New York and New Jersey have generally been among the lowest states in per capita consumption. Connecticut tends to be close to the national norm. Utah consumes nearly twice as much Ritalin per capita as the next highest state, but its high consumption may result in part from its high birth rate and high number of children.

In Georgia, a state legislative committee will hold hearings on the drug, prompted by a group of parents from the northern Atlanta suburbs who complained to a state lawmaker that teachers were pressuring them to put their children on Ritalin.

Dr. Lucille Jordan, who is the state's associate superintendent for instruction, said teachers and schools might be facing unfair criticism in the debate. ''Teachers do not prescribe,'' she said. ''Teachers will often say to parents that they need to have the child checked physically. And when they take the child to a doctor, they diagnose and prescribe.''

But LaVarne Parker, a leader of one of the parents' groups, asserted that teachers pressured her to put her son, then 10 years old, on Ritalin. She said the drug caused him to suffer halluciations and made him suicidal.

''Schools want to medicate, not educate,'' said Mrs. Parker, who added that a survey of her parents' group disclosed that about half of the members reported they were pressured by teachers or school officials to have their children put on Ritalin.

Dr. Levine, the San Antonio specialist, said he was not sure whether Ritalin was being used too much. But he said he did believe many school districts were pressuring parents to obtain it for their children. ''I know of instances in Texas where school districts specifically told parents that they thought their children needed Ritalin, and then gave them the names of physicians they knew would prescribe it,'' he said.

Dr. Robert Slayden, a child psychiatrist in suburban Atlanta, said he also worried about the potential abuse of Ritalin among parents and some schools that see it, wrongly, as a way to give a modest achiever an extra edge, or to help a classroom teacher settle an unruly student.

''The first thing we have to remember is that in a highly competitive, upwardly mobile society, we are putting a lot of stress on kids,'' said Dr. Slayden. ''Not every troubled child is hyperactive.''

by William E. Schmidt at New York Times.

Insomnia Articles. Long island opinion; Arise! You can't sleep away

2006-07-03T23:06:00.000-07:00

Insomnia Articles.

Long island opinion; Arise! You can't sleep away

I AM an insomniac. ''Me too! Me too!'' cry 30 million bleary-eyed bedfellows from apartments, Cape Cods, bungalows, condos, mansions, igloos and lanais all over the United States. From China, using the same population ratio, 120 million voices would be elegible to join the ''Me too!'' chorale. Or is insomnia strictly a capitalist phenomenon?

In the master bedroom of our split-level, pillow talk and cuddling have concluded and now sleep-time is the time for aloneness. Envying those loving wives who sleep entwined with muscular arms or hairy legs thrown over their own, I watch as my husband climbs into his bed across the great divide. I have serious business to attend to - sleep.

Before I close down behind my eyeshades, I check the essentials - earplugs in, stack of boring books, itty-bitty night lamp, Perrier, three figs, the radio and the emergency number to Dial-a-Doze.

In the shadows of darkness I lie between the sheets, summoning the spirit of Morpheus to obliterate my mind. Do waves of nothingness drift from within? Does a curtain of blackness fall gently over me? No. A phantom aria from ''Carmen'' intrudes.

Scenes from the opera flash before my closed eyes. I realize that the women in the cigar factory are actually exploited employees. Let go of social issues, I tell myself. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Don Jose is so handsome. A look-alike of that fellow I dated years ago. I heard he married someone famous. Maybe Annette Funicello. Where would he have met Annette Funicello? Jimmy Dodd died so young. Is Annette Funicello a New Yorker?

Enough! Sleep. Sleep. Back to ''Carmen.'' ''Habanera.'' Bullfights. Too stirring for sleep. Let go of ''Carmen.''

Ballet is soothing. ''Swan Lake.'' The costumes. The music. Oooh! I'm still awake. Erase it all. Read awhile? No. Keep trying. While lying there in the stillness, awaiting that ''care-charmer, sleep,'' I ponder. Will the newspapers put out for trash actually be recycled or will some Girl Scout leader scoop them into her car for papier-mache animals? Should we name the new puppy Sylvester or Mookie? Is it Julia McGuinness-Johnson or Maginis or Migenes? Do all pigeons have red feet?

I yearn for descent into dreamland. I count 31 sheep. Switch to railroad cars. Twenty-seven coming east and going west; coming west and going east. Switch to birds. I count 18 pairs of cardinals landing and taking off from the crab apple tree in our yard. Soothing. Relaxing.

Drat. Drat! Drat! Drat! The invasion of the Garbage Snatchers. The compactor is transmogrifying the flotsam and jetsam of Milford Place. What a racket! I invoke voodoo incantations - to no avail.

Sleep has eluded me once again. With a minimum of movement, I munch a fig and wash down the seeds. A finger touch brings on soft music, and I snooze for an hour. Then my day begins.

In my quest for slumber I've tried everything I've ever read about, heard about or conjured up. I've turned in early, turned in late; not eaten after 7, 9 or 11; eaten before 6 or after 8; had oysters for breakfast and oatmeal for dinner.

I've tried medication, meditation, exercise and white noise. Herbal tea, TV, Mr. T., T-bone steak and tryptophan. Also carob and calcium. Plus phenylalanine, niacinamide and pantothenic acid. Caffeine, excitement and Trivial Pursuit have been eliminated from my after-dinner choices. The zebra-striped designer pillow cases that disturbed my repose have been replace with plain pastels.

In the face of my soporific struggle, no sacrifice is too great.

I've consulted chiropractors, doctors and faith healers. The gypsy fortune teller on the boardwalk in Atlantic City swore that only one drop of her secret potion in each eye nightly and I would sleep like a ''she-sheep.'' All it did was turn my brown eyes red.

Reflexology offered a promising cure. ''Massage the tip of the second toe at the outer edge of the nail.'' It worked once after I hadn't slept a wink for three nights.

I had hoped that after I stopped working, when the stresses and presses of the business world were behind me, I'd be catching z-z-z's more readily - that sleep would overtake me after rounds of nothing but swimming, creating bonsai, visiting shut-ins, arranging snapshots in photo albums and late-night games of solitaire. But alas, sleep was still a capricious quest. so I volunteered to help the handicapped and to drive Meals-on-Wheels.

But I still creep out of bed at 4 or 5 A.M. and pad onto the porch deck for a breath of damp, predawn air. I study the stars and listen for the early morning sounds - bird calls superimposed upon one another, leaves rustling, the cry of a newborn babe, worms turning.

After years of trial and error, study and experimentation, I've concluded that my circadian rhythms are out of synch. Fixing that is like wrestling with the wind. I remain a denizen of the dark.

by Marcia Goodman Nodiff Custer at New York Times

Insomnia Articles. In Sleep, Less Is More

2006-06-29T18:38:00.000-07:00

Insomnia Articles.

In Sleep, Less Is More

Less time in bed may mean more sleep for some insomniacs, researchers at the Mount Sinai Medical Center believe. They are testing this idea by prescribing sleep restriction therapy - less time in bed - to some long term insomnia patients who volunteer for the research.

''We think it works because much of insomnia, especially in the older group, is attributable to too much time in bed,'' said Dr. Charles O. Herrera, medical director of the sleep disorders center at Mount Sinai. Insomnia often starts with some stressful event in the patient's life, he explained, but later the sleeplessness takes on a life of its own. The insomnia sufferer often will try to force more sleep by spending more time in bed, but that effort is likely to make the insomnia worse.

Sleep restriction therapy tries to adjust the time in bed to the patient's actual time asleep by first determining how much sleep the patient really gets during a night and restricting the total time in bed to approximately that span. The time in bed is adjusted periodically by raising or lowering the time in bed by 15 minutes up or down. The objective is to give the patient a good night's sleep both in terms of number of hours asleep and a satisfactory ''sleep efficiency'' -the percentage of time in bed that is actually spent asleep. The researchers consider 85 percent a good figure. For some insomnia sufferers it is closer 50 percent.

The studies, a collaboration between researchers at Mount Sinai and Dr. Arthur Spielman of City College of New York, began with a small preliminary study about four years ago involving patients with a mean age of 46 all of whom had suffered from insomnia for at least 15 years. At present the research project, which is looking for more volunteers, is concentrating on insomnia sufferers over 55.

Insomnia Articles. Yoga - The Alternative Solution for Insomnia

2006-06-22T19:43:00.000-07:00

Insomnia Articles.

Yoga - The Alternative Solution for Insomnia

At one time, or another, all of us have experienced insomnia for any type of reason. There are times when lack of sleep just can't be helped, such as: the loss a loved one, going through a divorce, and losing your job.

These are some of life's serious crisis situations, where we have to let time heal, and try not to fall apart in the process. Some of the solutions below will help insomnia, but they will not heal grief.

However, if you are continually staying awake over trivial matters, these solutions will aid you to get a good night's rest. Remember - not every solution will work for everyone, so try the easiest ideas and make them fit into your lifestyle.

Do you have one or more problems, on your mind, that are troubling you at bedtime? If so, write it down and leave it on the kitchen table where you sit in the morning. This is a form of compartmentalization, where your subconscious mind works on a solution, and you and your conscious mind get some needed rest.

You will be surprised what happens the following morning. The problem is much less important or your subconscious found the solution. This technique is so powerful that many successful people use it, even when they don't really have a problem. This keeps you organized, on a daily basis, and you will get more accomplished in life.

That leads into the next idea, which is establishing a daily routine. Your body has a natural cycle, and most of us ignore it. Modern humans are more out of tune with their bodies than ever before, so we have to get back to basics and design a schedule for all tasks - including sleep.

You should exercise every day, but your exercise routine should end two hours before bedtime, at the latest. This allows your body and mind "cool down" time. If you can exercise earlier in the day, feel free to do so.

Exercise will give you extra energy during the day, and help you get a good night's sleep, when you need it. If you don't exercise, don't feel alone, but do take action. Gentle Yoga postures are a great way to start.

If you find the right Yoga teacher, you will learn controlled breathing (pranayama), stage-by-stage relaxation, and meditation. Each is a powerful technique for winding down before bedtime. You always practice controlled breathing with either, stage-by-stage relaxation, or meditation. Some people practice stage-by-stage relaxation in bed and fall asleep in the process. This is not a bad thing, if your ultimate goal is to fall asleep.

Now let's look at a few other ideas, such as alcohol and hidden caffeine. Alcohol has a way of getting you to sleep, but sleep is often interrupted during the night. One suggestion, if you enjoy drinking: Have one small drink; preferably wine, with your meal.

Caffeine is in coffee, many teas, many sodas, and a variety of other drinks. Drink water later in the day, and give your body a rest from caffeine.

Here are a few actions to take before bedtime: Eat very light, read a book about something peaceful, and take a shower or a bath. You don't have to do everything, but one of the above-mentioned ideas will work for you.

by Paul M. Jerard Jr. ar www.articlecity.com

Insomnia Articles - Why is it that you cannot sleep?

2006-06-09T01:00:00.000-07:00

INSOMNIA ARTICLES.

Insomnia or sleep deprivation causes, treatment & prevention tips. Why is it that you cannot sleep ?

Insomnia is mainly associated with people who cannot sleep at all, however there are many types of Insomnia which prevent people from sleeping. Types of insomnia include; inability to sleep through the night, difficulty in falling asleep,waking early in the morning & being unable to sleep again & more commonly lack of quality sleep.

On average adults require between 7-8 hours of sleep per night, however this figure can vary from person to person. As people get older they may tend to require less sleep at night but then nap during the day. Young babies spend most of their day asleep whilst school age children require about 10 hours sleep per night.

Insomnia has many symtoms including:

Lying awake a long time before falling asleep.

Waking up several times during the night.

Awaking early in the morning and then not being able to fall asleep again.

Feeling tired & un-revitalised.

Feeling irritable during the day.

Inability to concentrate or function correctly during the day.

Insomnia may result from many factors including:

Drug Use - Withdrawal from certain drugs can lead to insomnia, such as hypnotics -prescribed for short term insomnia, alcohol, antidepressants, diet pills, beta blockers & corticosteroids.

Psychiatric Problems - Stress, depression, dementia or anxiety can lead to insomnia.

Physological Problems - Your environment may cause insomnia, noise, light, jet lag, snoring or movement by a partner & physical activity before bedtime ( sports or reading ).

Physical Problems - Insomnia may be caused by physical conditions such as; headache, arthritis, hot flushes & parkinson disease.

In treating insomnia drugs should only be used as a last resort as they have side effects & can be addictive. The first cause of action in treating insomnia should be to eliminate any underlying causes. Steps you can take to eliminate these causes are:

Restricting your intake of caffeine, alcohol & Nicotine.

Taking regular exercise during the day.

Keeping a good sleep environment - quiet & not too light.

Educating yourself about sleep & relaxation.

Counselling - Talking to a professional may help you to get to the underlying causes of your insomnia.

Preventative action you can take to stop insomnia occouring include:

Do not eat a big meal before going to bed.

If noise is a problem wear ear plugs.

If you cannot sleep, get up and occupy yourself for a short time & then try again.

Try not to nap during the day.

Keep to a routine before bedtime so that you create a mindset for sleep.

by John Mac at articlesfactory.com

Insomnia Articles. Emotional Issues Behind Insomnia

2006-06-04T23:36:00.000-07:00

Insomnia Articles.

Emotional Issues Behind Insomnia

Insomnia is a common condition seen by family physicians. The usual short-term treatment for it is medication that involves hypnotics. These medications are habit-forming drugs and with long usage people can become dependent on them.

The problem can start for many reasons. In many people who work in shifts, the body rhythm is disturbed disturbing the normal sleep pattern. In many young mothers the sleep pattern gets disturbed waking intermittently at night to look after the baby's needs. Caring for an old relative at night can also disturb the sleep pattern.

In almost all of these cases, the subconscious mind has got the message that sleep would put someone at risk. So in order to deal with this perceived 'danger', the mind goes into an alert state and does not allow the body to sleep. No amount of conscious logic or reason can convince the subconscious to let the body sleep. This increases physical tension.

In order for the body to rest, the tension has to be reduced. When the perceived fears are addressed, the body goes into a state if tiredness and then it is allowed to fall asleep. One of the exercises that I have suggested to my patients is this: At bedtime, when you are going to sleep, sit in the bed. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath in and then through your nose push the breath out forcefully but slowly. Next, take a deep breath and this time breathe out slowly and easily through the nose. Continue breathing like this with alternate breaths till you start to fall asleep.

With simple sleep problems, this exercise works well.

The underlying reason for most of the sleep problems is fear. Fear of the future is the worry. If fear issues are addressed in counseling or psychotherapy, sleep can become better. The other reason of sleep problem is anger. Most of the people would be unaware that they are carrying anger in their bodies. They might feel that because they do not worry, sleep disturbance is simply a disturbance of the body rhythm. In almost all such cases that I have seen, anger has been an underlying issue. Addressing the anger benefits sleep.

Sleep disturbance is commonly seen in anxiety, depression, psychosis and mania. Many psychiatric conditions start with disturbed sleep. It is important to take insomnia seriously. It is good to address the issue as soon as it starts than to let it build up and cause complications.

by Pradeep K Chadha at http://www.ezinearticles.com

Insmonia Articles. Herbs For Natural Sleep - Kava

2006-05-30T01:39:00.000-07:00

Insomnia Articles.

Herbs For Natural Sleep - Kava

Insomnia has been with us since time began and affects the lives of literally millions of people across the globe. This article discusses the time-honored traditional use of herbal remedies and, specifically, considers the use of kava.

Insomnia has been with us since the dawn of time and affects the lives of countless millions of people across the globe causing mild irritation to some and severely affecting the quality of life for a significant number of us.

Finding a cure for insomnia and getting back to night after night of natural sleep can be difficult but, for many people, the solution lies in taking time-honored traditional herbal remedies such as Kava.

Kava is the name that the Pacific islanders give to both a shrub belonging to the pepper family and also to the beverage made from it. The shrub can be found growing in abundance principally in western Polynesia, particularly in Samoa and Tonga, and most of Melanesia, including Fiji. It can also be found on Pohnpei Island, in Micronesia.

People have traditionally prepared kava as a cold tea (an infusion made from straining a mixture of water and shredded and pounded dried or fresh root). One simple method for the preparation of kava tea involves placing two or more heaped teaspoons of kava root for each person into a clean stocking, tying a knot in it and then squeezing it repeatedly in a bowl of cold water.

The tea often produces a slight numbing of the lips and tongue initially, followed by mildly talkative and euphoric behavior, a sense of well-being and calm, relaxation and clear thinking. Sleep associated with kava is particularly restful and there are no after effects the following day.

Kava can be purchased at health food stores as a standardized extract and is a convenient method of anxiety relief as it is fast acting and highly potent. You can also purchase kava in tablet form.

Some vendors also package high-powered Kava mixtures in convenient mini spray bottles. These are handy to keep in a pocket or purse and are extremely effective for providing a quick burst of relaxation. Just one or two quick sprays under the tongue can do wonders for both tension and the jitters.

If you are planning to purchase the raw root, it is wise to buy whole, top grade lateral root.

The effective daily dose of kava ranges widely from 70 mg to 200 mg of kavalactones which are recognized as the major biochemical anti-anxiety constituents. For a deep natural sleep it is recommended that you should take a dose of from 150 mg to 200 mg about 20 or 30 minutes before retiring.

Some concerns have been raised recently about the safety of Kava after a small number of deaths from liver failure. As a result France and Switzerland have banned Kava, while Germany has made it available by prescription only. In north America the CDC (Center for Disease Control) has expressed reservations over its use.

Controversy abounds, fuelled by the economic interest of the kava exporting nations and disagreements between the medical establishment and proponents of natural medicine. Right now the 'jury is out' and only time will bring out the truth. You should note however that the Tongans have relied heavily on kava for many years and that it is of great importance within Tongan society.

One side-effect linked to the heavy use of kava is that of kava dermopathy - a scaly eruption of the skin. This disappears if use is discontinued and is harmless. In the past, Hawaiians drank large quantities of kava to produce just this effect as a means of cleansing the skin and giving themselves a smootherFeature Articles, clearer complexion.

by Donald Saunders at http://www.articlesfactory.com

Insomnia Articles. Curing Insomnia - 7 steps to better sleep

2006-05-23T18:07:00.000-07:00

Insomnia Articles. Curing Insomnia - 7 Steps To Better Sleep

Whether you are suffering from short-term, transient insomnia or longer-term chronic severe insomnia, curing insomnia is simpler than you might think.

Here are 7 simple steps that provide a natural cure for insomnia and that will set you on the road to better sleep.

Step 1. Set yourself a bedtime routine.

Set a time for going to bed and for getting up in the morning and stick to them. Experts agree that most of us need about seven or eight hours sleep a night, but this varies from person to person. You'll know yourself whether you can manage comfortably on six hours a night, or perhaps need as long as nine hours. Whatever the case, set your bedtime and wake up times accordingly and then keep strictly to them.

Step 2. Arrange your bedroom for sleep.

Your bedroom should only ever be used for sleeping (and for making love), so arrange it accordingly.

Set the temperature at a comfortable, cool level (ideally between 65 and 70 degrees), and make sure that your bedroom is well ventilated. If possible, sleep with a window open or, if this isn't practical, ensure that air can circulate through the room, perhaps by using a fan. Also, make your bedroom as dark as possible when it's time to sleep and avoid the common mistake of leaving a light on in case you need to get up during the night.

Step 3. Lower external stimulation.

Avoid doing anything that is likely to stimulate either your body or your mind in the hour or two before bedtime. Don't do your daily workout during this time, or decorate the spare bedroom.

Also, try to cut out television in the run-up to bed. I know, this is not easy and you might even say "it's impossible". If this is the case, then don't give this particular pleasure up but try to be selective in what you watch and choose programs that are relaxing.

Step 4. Lower internal stimulation.

If you're a tea or coffee drinker then try to cut these out of your evening routine. This also applies to other drinks that contain caffeine, or high levels of sugar, such as many colas and hot chocolate.

Also, avoid drinking alcohol. Although a drink before bed might well help you to get to sleep, it will certainly not help the quality of the sleep that you get.

Step 5. Avoid overeating.

If, like many people, you enjoy a bedtime snack then keep your late night meal small and avoid high protein foods and foods that contain a lot of fat or sugar.

Try a small bowl or cereal or a low-fat yoghurt.

Step 6. Clear out your worries and concerns.

If you're the type of person who goes to bed with your mind racing and runs over all of the worries and concerns of the day then here's a tip for clearing the clutter from your head.

Shortly before you go to bed, take a notebook and write down all your worries and concerns. The simple act of committing these to paper will allow your mind to let them go and relax.

Step 7. Take positive steps to induce relaxation.

It's easy to talk about the need to be relaxed when you settle to sleep, but how often do you actually take steps to relax yourself, rather than hope that relaxation will come.

Add relaxation, and perhaps meditation, exercises to your bedtime routine!

Climb into bed about 15 minutes before it's time to turn out the light. Get comfortable, close your eyes and practice one of the many relaxation or meditation exercises available. With a little practice you'll find yourself falling asleep before you've finished your exercise.

The natural remedy for insomnia

The seven steps outlined here are just a small sample of the many things that you can do to cure insomnia.

The secret to curing insomnia doesn't lie in the all too commonly used sleeping pills, but is to be found in a few simple changes to your lifestyle and in setting yourself a clear routine.

Make a few simple changes to your lifestyle today and start enjoying better sleep tomorrow.

by Donald Saunders (http://help-me-to-sleep.com/insomnia) at articlesfactory.com.

Insomnia articles - Insomnia medication side effects

2006-05-09T18:22:00.000-07:00

Insomnia Articles.

Insomnia Medication Side Effects

I seldom have a sleepless night but remember an occasion when I had difficulty falling asleep. Being awake when I should have been asleep was very annoying. Since I work at night, the problem may have been too much sunlight coming in through the window when it was time to go to bed. In the winter time the light isn't bright enough to bother me.

Light influences the production of a hormone that regulates when we get that sleepy feeling. Too much light tends to make us wake up. Unfortunately, light is only one of the factors that influences our ability to fall asleep. Stress, caffeine use and a host of other factors can also contribute to a case of insomnia.

Insomnia can be described as the inability to fall asleep, the inability to stay asleep or waking up too early. There are three categories of insomnia . Chronic insomnia is long term and happens most nights for a month or longer. Two to four weeks of poor sleep constitutes short-term insomnia and the transient form of insomnia lasts but a few nights.

Benzodiazepines could be prescribed to help one fall asleep on a short term basis. Long term use of sleeping pills can become addictive.

Lorazepam is a benzodiazepine used for insomnia and anxiety relief. Lorazepam also goes by the names Lorazepam Intensol, Loraz, Alzapam and Ativan. In Canada you might find the names Nu-Loraz, Novo-Lorazepam or Apo-Lorazepam.

There are a number of side effects that a Lorazepam user might wish to be aware of. Among them are clumsiness, drowsiness and dizziness. Other possible side effects include, decreased sex drive, difficulty urinating, nausea, constipation or diarrhea. There are more potential side effects, ask your pharmacist for more information.

The human body can be viewed as a system made up of other systems. There are a number of systems that work together to make up the miracle of human life. Whenever introducing an external force to one of these systems in the form of a drug, the potential to interfere with or cause problems in other systems always exists. For this reason, you should work closely with your doctor or pharmacist when taking any medication. If you are fortunate to have a doctor who is willing to entertain alternatives, this will broaden the arena of options that are available to you.

Keep in mind that many drugs are synthetic imitations of substances that occur in nature. Sometimes a doctor who is willing to utilize these natural alternatives can be of great benefit.

Consider that this article is for information purposes only. It is not intended to give advice. It is also not intended suggest treatment, diagnosis or prevention of any health condition. Consult your primary care physician for any health related issues you may be facing.

by David Snape at articlecity.com

Insomnia Articles - Staying In Bed Can Cause Insomnia

2006-04-27T22:39:00.000-07:00

Insomnia Articles - Staying In Bed Can Cause Insomnia

It would seem ridiculous to suggest that the reason you can't fall asleep is because you are in bed. As preposterous as this sounds, it can actually be the case. When a person is suffering from insomnia, and they continue to stay in bed, the problem can actually worsen.

It's happened to most people at least once in their lives. They feel tired in the evening, so they decide to go to bed. Once there they find that sleep is hard to find. Minutes turn into hours and then before they realize it they have been in bed for three or four hours without even a moment of sleep.

Insomnia is a common problem and although there are many medical ways to treat it, the answer might be found in getting out of bed.

Sleep is of course fundamental to a human being's existence and if we feel that we aren't getting enough it can create a great deal of stress and unhappiness. To counteract that we sometimes go to bed before we feel tired. The idea being that once we are in bed, in the peaceful darkness, our body will natural take the hint and drift off. This is especially true if we have to wake up early or we have something stressful to tackle the next day, such as beginning a new job or starting school.

The problem with that logic is that if you are not tired, being in bed is not going to change that fact. You cannot magically drift off to dreamland if your body is not ready yet. Instead you will become frustrated and even more determined to sleep. Insomnia sets in and your good intentions of getting a full eight hours of sleep turns into just an hour or two.

If you are in bed and you cannot fall asleep after thirty minutes you should get back up. It may be discouraging to realize that you are back where you started, out of bed and no closer to falling asleep, but getting out of bed can put a stop to the insomnia.

If you do get up there are a few things you can do that will help put you in the mind frame that you need to be to sleep. These include:

Watch television. It's important to pick a program that is not stimulating such as the news or an action movie. You don't want to be stimulated.

Listen to soft music. For some people music is very relaxing and if you sit in a darkened room with the music gently playing it can help your mind prepare for sleep.

Read. Again choice is important. You shouldn't choose something that you'll become too engaged in. You want to be able to close the book or magazine once you're tired.

Getting out of bed when you can't sleep doesn't mean that insomnia has already taken hold of you. It does mean that your mind isn't quite ready to shut itself off for the day. Instead get up, do something relaxing, and before you know it, you'll fall right to sleep.

by

Insomnia Articles - Fresh Air Can Beat Insomnia

2006-04-14T07:31:00.000-07:00

Insomnia Articles. Fresh Air Can Beat Insomnia

If you live in a climate where you are subjected to the four seasons in all of their glory, you might find that you suffer from insomnia at certain times of the year. Quite often people find it more difficult to fall asleep during the late fall and winter months. For some, they attribute that to the shortened daylight hours or perhaps a small case of depression as the temperature plummet and time spent outside is rare.

The cause of their insomnia might be the change in weather but the solution might be as easy as opening a window. Fresh air seems to help many people fall asleep.

Usually during the warmer months we tend to open the windows of our home. Having a gentle flow of fresh air into the room feels relaxing while we sleep and if the weather is pleasant it almost goes without thinking that we keep the windows open, even if just a bit.

In the colder months that becomes a bit more challenging. As we glance out the window to see a frosty scene before us, we don't even contemplate the idea of opening a window when we go to bed. Then we find ourselves tossing and turning as the night quickly becomes morning, and we have to start our day without any rest and feeling the effects of that.

When our home is closed up for winter, it becomes a world all of its own. The air doesn't circulate well and the air quickly becomes stale. As we lay in bed trying to sleep, it is that air that hasn't been circulated and is essentially used that we are forced to breathe in. For some people that is enough to keep them from sleeping.

There are several ways you can get the air moving again even when the temperature is cold outside. A few suggestions that you might try are:

An air purifier. You can purchase these at many online retail outlets as well as at many hardware stores. Many are portable and these allow you to use the purifier in your bedroom at night and then take it with you to another room during the day.

A ceiling fan. Ceiling fans are designed with a dual purpose in mind. They help cool a room during the warmer months and then help with the circulation of air during the colder months. Although they do come with detailed installation instructions, you might be wise to hire and electrician to handle the job.

Your furnace. Most newer model furnaces are designed to keep the air in a home in constant circulation. They also keep the air clean and for a climate where the temperature dips very low, having an efficient furnace is very important.

If you do happen to live in a climate where the temperature doesn't dip too low, you may be able to keep your window open a bit the entire year. Keeping that constant flow of fresh and new air entering the room will help lessen your chances of developing insomnia, because your body won't be breathing in the same stale air night after night.

by Brandon C. Hall at articlecity.com

Insomnia articles. The use of bright light therapy

2006-04-03T18:37:00.000-07:00

Insomnia articles - The use of Bright Light Therapy

Today, many thousands of people around the world are using bright light therapy as a simple and effective cure for insomnia. The use of light as a therapeutic tool has been known for hundreds of years but it only in recent years that its true value is beginning to be understood.

Many of the body's functions are regulated by an biological clock which operates on a pattern that repeats roughly every 24 hours and that gives a rhythm to our lives. Indeed, this is often referred to as the body's circadian rhythm, from the Latin 'circa dies' meaning 'about a day'.

Your biological clock is essentially a chemical clock and is powered by a variety of different environmental factors, the most significant of which is the alternating pattern between daylight to darkness. Biological clock is not like your kitchen clock or wrist watch, however, which are more often than not powered by batteries these days,

In simple terms, as your body senses the fall of darkness it sends out signals, shutting down many of your body's functions in preparation for sleep. Similarly, as daylight returns, signals are again sent out for these same functions to start up again.

So just how can we apply this knowledge to the treatment of insomnia?

There are three main types of insomnia – initial, or sleep onset, insomnia (difficulty falling asleep), middle insomnia (difficulty remaining asleep through the night) and late, or terminal, insomnia (waking too early in the morning). It is in the first and last of these three that light therapy can be particularly useful.

In the case of initial insomnia your body clock has often shifted so that, instead of sending out the chemical signals to start shutting down at say ten or eleven o'clock in the evening, your body doesn’t start sending out the necessary messages until perhaps one or two o'clock in the morning.

Similarly, at perhaps seven o'clock in the morning, when you should be starting your day, your body clock hasn't yet started to send out its 'wake up' signals and won’t be doing so for perhaps another three or four hours.

To solve this problem, and to re-adjust your body clock, bright light therapy can be used in the morning to get you up and going. If bright light therapy is used for perhaps thirty minutes to an hour each morning for several days, your internal body clock will gradually shift to align itself with your normal sleeping routine.

The same treatment can be applied in the case of late insomnia. In this case your body clock is set too early so that it is telling you to go to bed before it is time to do so and similarly to get up too early.

Here, bright light therapy can again be used to re-adjust your body clock, but now needs to be applied in the evening, rather than in the morning.

Insomnia Articles. Depression and Insomnia Relationship

2006-03-27T16:57:00.000-08:00

Insomnia Articles.

Depression and Insomnia Relationship

You've been lying for a couple of hours, your eyes closed and you wanted to fall into a deep sleep but can't make it. You tried a little more... and again... and again... it goes. At 2 o'clock you fell asleep but at 5 o'clock in the morning you wake up devastated because you found out that you only slept for 3 hours. You lied again but sleep is so elusive... so you get up and eat your breakfast but you wondered why your day is already spoiled... you are easily irritated, annoyed and you felt that everything was not in their proper order... the world again started to become topsy-turvy... then you ask yourself why can't I sleep?

If sleepless nights are bothering you, this may be a sign of insomnia or depression. Insomnia is a symptom not a separate disorder. A complaint of this needs a clinician to inquire further to disclose the underlying etiology of the complainant. Depression, conversely, is a serious medical condition that involves the body, mood, and thoughts. The main three depressive disorders are Major depressive disorder, dysthymic disorder and bipolar disorder.

Sleeplessness may be due to mood disorder, either depression or mania. Treatment of mood disorder leads to normalization of sleep. Some patients suffering from insomnia require a pharmacologic treatment. The long-term use of benzodiazepine or barbiturate hypnotics though is not advisable because it might develop into tolerance, dependence, or worst delirium.

Depression attacks without warning and creates desolation, chaos and negative effects. Twenty million Americans are enslaved by depression and at times this result to suicides. Whatever the result, everyone affected is a loser. Some of its symptoms are: pessimism, empty mood, guilt feelings, restlessness and irritability, suicide attempts, changes in appetite and weight, difficulty concentrating, decreased energy and insomnia or oversleeping. If you have five or more of these symptoms and are present for at least two weeks, you better seek professional help.

Another factor that contributes to sleeplessness is the food intake. Yes - the food that we eat! If you ate several bars of chocolate or sip a glass of rum the night before, chances are your bloodstream will be suffocated with extra sugar. Too much sugar or alcohol in the blood stream pulls out forces to fight the body's enemies. Your brain needs glucose and because of the "pull out" it results to glucose shortage. The brain reacts to the problem, that reaction grabs you out of sleep.

The next time you lack sleep, recall what you have eaten or drank the night before. You might be able to save a trip to your doctor by finding the real cause. You might even opt for a healthier lifestyle. Don't let depression and insomnia beat you down!

by Maricon Williams at articlesfactory.com

Aromatherapy tips for insomnia

2006-03-20T02:50:00.000-08:00

Insomina Articles.

Aromatherapy tips for insomnia

Aromatherapy tips enhance the way you look, for aromatherapy is the art of massaging volatile, non-oily essences of plants and flowers for enlivening mind, body and soul of all.

Aromatherapy oils include geranium, Rose, Neroli, Lavender, Lemongrass, Basil and Roman chamomile, which are mingled with base oils like almond, walnut, and grape seed and other vegetable oils to produce a wonderful effect on everyone.

Aromatherapy tips for using the oils

Since ancient times aroma is favorite to all. So the aromatherapy oils not only soothe your senses but also heal all physical pain and mental depressions. So before you start using aromatherapy oils, you should know how to use these oils. The aromatherapy massage oils are used in the spas and healing centers but you can also use it for self-massage in your own home.

In case of self-massage make your own personalized oils by blending neroli, eucalyptus, lavender, rosemary, nutmeg, and peppermint in the base oils and also add a few drops of basil to make a wonderful mixture. While bathing you can add oils like lavender, Roman chamomile and rose to the waters, so that you feel fresh. Diffuser means dispensing essential oils into the air. You can add the scented oils to a bowl of water placed on a radiator and inhale them to realize the effects.

Aromatherapy tips for insomnia

If you are spending some sleepless nights, then get massages instead of drugs to cure your insomnia.Following are the tips for insomnia:Use oils like neroli, ylang-ylang, marjoram, chamomile, patchouli, sandalwood, and lavender. Mix these oils in warm water and take bath before sleeping or sprinkle few drops in the pillow so that you can smell it for whole night.

source: Blair Gwilt at articlesfactory.com

Treating Insomnia Naturally

2006-03-14T17:07:00.000-08:00

Treating Insomnia Naturally.
Sleep is something that every human being requires. For some people they only need a few hours of sleep every night, but for others if they don't get at a minimum eight hours, they cannot function properly during the day. Their work, their relationships and their life is impacted. Sleep in fundamental to a healthy and happy life.

Insomnia is a problem that affects millions of people each night. If you are one of these individuals and you've spent a night filled with sleeplessness, you would most certainly welcome any method that would guarantee sleep. Having first hand knowledge of how difficult it is not to be able to sleep, gives a person an appreciation for how valuable resting our bodies is.

Insomnia can be a chronic condition for some people. It may begin as a symptom of an illness or during a particularly stressful time in someone's life and it causes such a drastic disruption in the individual's sleep pattern that they struggle to find a way to regain a normal sleep pattern. Spending years struggling to find a method to sleep is a frustrating experience.

Traditional medicine offers many alternatives for people who have suffered from serious insomnia. Sleeping pills are a commonly prescribed remedy. Although they do adequately treat the insomnia, they also often have serious side-effects. One of the most serious side-effects is that they are often addictive. It becomes a trade-off for those who choose this approach. Although their insomnia is treated, they become dependent on medication and in some cases have to stay on that medication for the rest of their lives.

There are natural alternatives that a person can take to treat the insomnia. Some of these are in the form of a pill or a tablet which consists of a combination of herbs. Herbal teas are another popular choice for people who suffer from sleep problems. You simply brew a pot of the fragrant tea and sip it shortly before bed. The soothing effects of the tea lull you to sleep without the chemicals associated with traditional sleep medication. There are a variety of these types of teas available and the taste is very welcome and pleasant.

An old stand-by that many people turn to when they suffer from the occasional bout of insomnia is to warm a glass of milk. There is a chemical that is released in milk once it is heated. This chemical is called tryptophan and it works to relax the body and help you to drift off to sleep. Besides being a natural remedy for insomnia, milk also has the added benefit of being a significant source of calcium.

Suffering from insomnia can change a person's life in many ways. Without the foundation of a steady and regular pattern of sleep, they aren't able to function to the best of their ability. By researching natural remedies for insomnia, the sleeper will once again find the rest they need and do so in a way that is healthiest for their entire body.

source: Brandon C. Hall, articlecity.com

Tips to have a good night sleeps

2006-01-18T01:52:00.000-08:00

TIPS to have a good night sleeps

Don't touch coffe or alcohol. Caffein can interrupt sleep ability. Alcohol makes you drowsy, but it tends to wake you up in the middle of the night.
No eating within 4 hours before sleep. You can have some fruits if you are hungry. Don't eat any heavy food.
Do daily execise to release tension. Breathing excercise also good to relax your body.
Try NOT to sleep and see if it is works. This has amazing effects on some peoples.
Train yourself to go to sleep and wake up at the same time everyday. Some insomniacs try to sleep any time they want. This practice ruins ther body clock and make their insomnia worse.

Insomnia or Just Temporary Sleep Problems?

2006-01-16T01:36:00.000-08:00

Insomnia or Just Temporary Sleep Problems?

Do you have Insomnia or Just Termporary Sleep Problems?
Insomnia is a chronic, long term condition, during which a person may have any or all of the following: difficulty getting to sleep, waking up and unable to go back to sleep, early waking patterns, restless leg syndrome. It is classified into two categories: secondary insomnia, which is unrelated to any physical or environmental causes such as illness, pain, medications, etc. and primary insomnia, the repetitive sleep difficulties that seem to have no real cause or identifiable origins.

Temporary sleep problems happen to almost everyone, and can be the result of heartburn, a bad day at work, hot weather, jet lag, and other relatively minor disruptions of your daily life or sleep patterns. Insomnia on the other hand, can impact a person's ability to function, resulting in sleepiness during the day, excessive irritability, and even depression.

Insomnia can occur for a few days, or even weeks, and on a sporadic basis where the sufferer sleeps well for months and it recurs again without obvious reasons.

It's unlikely that temporary sleep problems will cause any significant disruption in a person's life. However, some circumstances such as pain due to injury, accident or surgery, may require medication to allow you to get the sleep you need to recover both mentally and physically.

If you are suffering prolonged and repeated bouts of sleep disruptions, are unable to get to sleep, and finding yourself unable to concentrate during the day, it would be wise to consult your physician. They will ask about any changes in your personal life, diet, and other factors that could have an effect on your ability to sleep. Treatment will depend on their assessment of your condition.

Insomnia

2006-01-12T01:07:00.000-08:00

Insomnia is characterized by an inability to sleep and/or to remain asleep for a reasonable period. Most believe that insomnia is, itself, a sleep disorder, but it is not. It is a complaint, as insomniacs typically complain of being unable to close their eyes or 'rest their mind' for more than a few minutes at a time. As opposed to being a sleep disorder, insomnia is most often caused by sleep disorders, but they are not the only causes. Other causes include fear, stress, anxiety, medications, herbs and caffeine. An overactive mind or physical pain may also be the cause of the problem. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, approximately 60 million Americans each year suffer from insomnia. Insomnia tends to increase with age and affects about 40 percent of women and 30 percent of men. Whatever the case, it is important to find the underlying cause of the insomnia if it is to be cured.

Types of insomnia
There are roughly three different types of insomnia. Insomnia may be classified as transient, acute (short-term), and chronic. Insomnia lasting from one night to a few weeks is referred to as transient. This is generally the case for most people, as one often suffers from jet lag or short-term anxiety. If this form of insomnia continues to occur from time to time, the insomnia is classified to be intermittent. Acute insomnia is the inability to consistently sleep well for a period of three weeks to six months. However, after this time, the person does not experience insomniatic episodes. Insomnia is considered to be chronic, the most serious, if it persists almost nightly for at least a month.

Common causes of insomnia
A person can have primary or secondary insomnia. Primary insomnia is sleeplessness that is not attributable to a medical or environmental cause. Secondary insomnia means that a person is having sleep problems because of something else, such as a health condition, such as generalized anxiety disorder.
The most common sleep disorders which cause insomnia are:

Sleep Apnea - This is when a sleeping person's breathing is interrupted, thus interrupting the normal sleep cycle. With the obstructive form of the condition, some part of the sleeper's respiratory tract loses muscle tone and partially collapses. People with obstructive sleep apnea often do not remember any of this, but they complain of excessive sleepiness during the day. Central sleep apnea is where the normal central nervous system stimulus to breathe is interrupted, and the individual must actually wake up to resume breathing. This form of apnea is often related to a cerebral vascular condition, congestive heart failure, and premature aging.
Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) and Periodic Limb Movement (PLM) - The symptoms of RLS and PLM are often described as a tingling and creeping sensation in the legs which creates a powerful urge to move them. The individual continually moves in bed in an attempt to relieve these unpleasant sensations, resulting in restlessness and consequently lack of sleep. Fortunately for sufferers of the condition, current treatments for this disorder are effective in over 90% of those treated.
Jet Lag - this is seen in people who travel through multiple time zones on a regular basis, as the time relative to the rising and falling of the sun no longer coincides with the body's internal concept of it, and is also seen in people who consistently work night shifts. See also: circadian rhythm.
Parasomnia - this includes a number of disorders of arousal or disruptive sleep events including nightmares, sleepwalking, violent behavior while sleeping, and REM behaviour disorder, in which a person moves their physical body in response to events within their dreams. These conditions can often be treated successfully through medical intervention or through the use of a sleep specialist.

A common misperception is that the amount of sleep one requires decreases as they age. This is not necessarily the case. The ability to sleep for long periods, rather than the need for sleep, appears to be lost as people get older. Some elderly insomniacs toss and turn in bed and occasionally fall off the bed at night, diminishing the amount of sleep they receive.
Insomnia is a common side-effect of some medications, and it can also be caused by stress, emotional upheaval, physical or mental illness, dietary allergy and poor sleep hygiene. Insomnia is a major symptom of mania in people with bipolar disorder, and it can also be a sign of hyper-thyroidism, depression, or other ailments with stimulating effects.
Additionally, a rare genetic condition can cause a prion-based, permanent and eventually fatal form of insomnia called Fatal Familial Insomnia.

Treatment for insomnia
Many insomniacs rely on sleeping tablets and other sedatives to try to get some rest. Others use herbs such as valerian, chamomile, lavender, hops, and/or passion-flower.
Some traditional remedies for insomnia have included drinking warm milk before bedtime; taking a warm bath in the evening; exercising vigorously for half an hour in the afternoon; eating a large lunch and then having only a light evening meal at least three hours before bed; avoiding mentally stimulating activities in the evening hours; and paradoxically, making sure to get up early in the morning and to retire to bed at a reasonable hour.
Traditional Chinese medicine practitioners have been treating insomnia sufferers for thousands of years. A typical approach may utilize acupuncture, dietary and lifestyle analysis, herbology and other techniques, with the goal to resolve the problem at a subtle level.
Although they may seem unscientific, many of these remedies are sufficient to break the insomnia cycle without the need for sedatives and sleeping tablets[citation needed]. Warm milk contains high levels of tryptophan, a natural sedative. Using aromatherapy, including Lavender oil and other relaxing essential oils, may also help induce a state of restfulness.
The most commonly used class of hypnotics prescribed for insomnia are the benzodiazepines. This includes drugs such as diazepam, lorazepam, nitrazepam and midazolam.
The more relaxed you are the greater the likelihood of getting a good night's sleep. Relaxation techniques such as meditation have been proven to help sleep. They take stress from the mind and body which leads to a deeper more restful sleep.

Removing probable causes of insomnia
Please note that the advice given below is not a substitute for a professional medical specialist's advice.

Sufferers of insomnia should avoid all caffeine. Caffeine is often a factor in insomnia, including insomnia in night-shift workers. Caffeine is found in coffee, tea, yerba mate (Ilex paraguaiensis), guarana, cocoa (although cocoa does not contain any caffeine, it contains another stimulant, theobromine), Kola nut (this includes all cola drinks); it is also found in "energy" sodas like Red Bull and similar, chocolate bars and other candy. Drink herbal teas or plain water instead of caffeine-containing liquids. The bedroom environment should be conducive to sleep. Some people are very sensitive to light while others are sensitive to noise.
The bedroom should be dark and quiet at night.
Try to avoid thinking of worries, fears and perhaps phobias. Such concerns are likely to prevent the mind from resting and may be exaggerated. It is a good idea to write down any particular worries that are bothering you, keeping a diary or noting down your emotions and thoughts can be very cathartic and any particular worries can be revisited and dealt with at a more appropriate time. Write down plans for the next day, so you can go to sleep without fear of forgetting anything important.

For phobias try to clear them from your mind and repeat positive thoughts or imagine calming scenes (relaxing by a beach, waterfall, a happy memory etc)

Calm, relaxing music can help as it gives you something neutral to focus on and some are reported to relax you by tuning your brain in to certain rhythms, allowing you to fall into a deeper sleep.
Practice good sleep hygiene. Do not use the bed for too many activities besides sleep. Using the bed for reading, writing, watching TV and other such non-sleep-related activities will lower your association of the bed with sleeping. Similarly, try to keep to a regular schedule of what time to go to bed and what time to wake up. Try not to sleep during the daytime.
Sleep apnea can be a cause of insomnia. While a visit to the doctor will help in the diagnosis or ruling out of sleep apnea, a definitive answer will have to come from a study at a sleep lab.
Sometimes lack of sleep is indicative of an emotional problem that's not being dealt with. If a person is not happy with their lifestyle, or they are putting off problems that should be dealt with, it can often result in sleeping trouble. Just as the human body has nutritional requirements, all people have social and environmental requirements. Sometimes more social activities can help.
Patients with depression may suffer from insomnia. A doctor can treat this, sometimes by changing or adding prescriptions.
Sexual activity before sleep can help some.
Obscure allergies, such as dairy allergies, can sometimes cause sleeping disorders. Other symptoms may be very mild, such as slightly stuffed sinuses. A nutritionist can make helpful dietary and supplement recommendations.
If an alarm has been set, avoid looking at the clock during the night and cover the display if necessary. This prevents mental calculations of how much sleep has been lost so far and how little sleep can be obtained before the alarm will sound. Accepting that the amount of sleep obtained can only be determined upon waking, not while waiting to get to sleep, may also be beneficial.

A multifaceted approach
Most people who have cured their insomnia have done so by reviewing and experimenting with many different cures. Often, a combination of dietary and lifestyle changes is the most helpful approach. As with many similar health problems, a determined, across-the-board holistic approach to sleeping problems is the most effective solution.