Insomnia Facts

What Is Insomnia?

Insomnia, which is Latin for "no sleep," is the inability to fall asleep or remain asleep. Insomnia is also used to describe the condition of waking up not feeling restored or refreshed. Insomnia refers to the inability to get the amount of sleep you, as an individual, need to wake up feeling rested. Some people with insomnia may fall asleep easily but wake up too soon. Other people may have the opposite problem, or they have trouble with both falling asleep and staying asleep.

The majority of researchers recommend that grownups need to sleep between six and eight hours nightly. Many people, however, are unable to accomplish this. Up to 20 million people in the United States alone have serious difficulty sleeping nightly.

Insomnia is a term used to describe several types of sleeplessness. With insomnia, you experience a significant lack of sleep on a regular or frequent basis. Insomnia usually takes one or more of the following forms:

Difficulty falling asleep - more common among young people.

Difficulty maintaining sleep (sleeping lightly and restlessly, waking often, lying awake in the middle of the night) - more common in people over 40. In younger people it may be associated with depression.
Waking early and being unable to get back to sleep - this is more common in older people and anyone worrying about something in particular.

There are two broad insomnia categories:
Chronic insomnia - lasting for several weeks, months or even years.
Transient insomnia - lasting for a few nights or weeks only, usually connected to a stressful event.

Insomnia is also classified into primary and secondary insomnia.
Primary insomnia is insomnia that is not caused by other health problems. This is the most common type of insomnia.
Secondary insomnia is a symptom of another underlying condition that causes the insomnia. When you receive effective treatment for the underlying condition, the insomnia usually goes away.

The end result is poor-quality sleep that doesn’t leave you feeling refreshed when you wake up. Insomnia can cause excessive daytime sleepiness and a lack of energy. Long-term insomnia can cause you to feel depressed or irritable; have trouble paying attention, remembering and learning; and not do your best on the job or at school. Insomnia also can limit the energy you have to spend with friends or family. Women and the elderly are the most common targets of this sleep disorder.

People tend to sleep more lightly and for shorter time spans as they get older, although they generally need about the same amount of sleep as they needed in early adulthood. About half of all people over 65 have frequent sleeping problems, such as insomnia, and deep sleep stages in many elderly people often become very short or stop completely.