How to End Your Insomnia and Enjoy Wonderful Sleep without Expensive Drugs or Greedy Therapists

August 27, 2008

Nothing makes you angrier… You know you should be asleep. You’ve dedicated the last three hours in the dark to trying to get some sleep. But you’re wide awake. The irony is that you swear your eyes were just in pain from remaining open too long, like someone super-glued your eyelids open. You know your bodies tired - yet you can’t get a good night’s rest.

You suffer from insomnia. Insomnia is one of the most frustrating experiences anyone can go through. Yet 1 out of every 4 people experience some level of insomnia that effects the way they function every day of their lives. However, if you knew the little things that you are doing to cause your own insomnia… the little, natural things that you could be doing to encourage your body to fall asleep you could end your insomnia within a week.

A recent discovery has un-covered the true cause of insomnia, anyone can use these simple tools to cure insomnia without expensive drugs, or therapists who insist you buy… expensive drugs!

If you suffer from insomnia, reading this short eBook is a MUST! When you read this eBook, you’ll find the startling NLP discovery that led me to understanding chronic insomnia, to the point where I removed it from my life forever. If insomnia has been a problem in your life, I don’t know if you can imagine what this information will begin to do for you.

It will explain to you exactly what YOU may be doing to cause your own insomnia - without even knowing it - and exactly what you can do to remedy your sleeping habits once and for all.

Hypersomnia - Oversleeping disorder

August 21, 2008

Most people don’t realize they oversleep when they have a condition called hypersomnia and that’s due in part to recurring episodes of excessive daytime sleeping and prolonged nighttime sleep. This is different from the average person taking that midday nap when they do it at sometimes the most inappropriate times like at work, during meals, or even in conversation with people.

Hypersomniacs are also diagnosed with narcolepsy, which can be quite dangerous because some individuals are behind the wheel of cars or even cooking in their home and aren’t aware that they fell asleep. Some hypersomniacs and narcoleptics can fall asleep and then wake up and resume where they left off in conversations with people. Usually daytime naps usually provide no relief or symptoms to the problem(s) and will result in the individual(s) having increased difficulty in waking from a long extended period of sleeping, disorientation, anxiety, decreased energy, increased fatigue, restlessness, slow thinking, slow speech, loss of appetite, hallucinations, and problems with memory functions.

Some individuals also experience losing the ability to function in normal family, social, occupational, and other settings familiar to that person.

Hypersomnia can be triggered by sleep apnea or narcolepsy, where it can lead to dysfunction of the autonomic nerve system, which can be brought on, by acute alcohol and/or drug abuse. In some cases rare or not it can also be triggered from physical problems such as tumors, head trauma or injuries to the nervous system. Specific medications or withdrawal of medications and/or drugs may contribute to someone having hypersomnia. Medical conditions such as multiple sclerosis, depression, encephalitis, epilepsy, and obesity can contribute to hypersomnia as well.

It’s also been noted that those who have hypersomnia are also genetically dispositioned to this problem whereas in others there’s no known or documented cause. Hypersomnia typically affects adolescents and young adults in their 20s and 30s. Although the most common causes of this disorder differs in the age brackets. Information can be located on the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes website if you’re seeking a more thorough clinical explanation to this problem. This isn’t a substitute for medical advice from a licensed physician so it’s ideal to educate yourself, but leave the diagnosing and treatment to a doctor so that you condition can be monitored closely.

People who are not seeing a doctor when they identify problems that are not normal for them to experience are misdiagnosing too many issues with sleep. Persons who are severely obese can also have a difficult time losing the weight because of the fact that lack of sleep can increase the body’s metabolic rate, which can trigger excessive hunger in those who are trying to lose weight.

This is why so many people who are obese are eating more than they should because a lot of them sleep so much that they wake up wanting to eat when they should be sleeping like normal people do and not up at all hours of the night wanting to eat. This is why it’s harder for people who are obese to lose weight when they sleep too much and not training their body to rest instead of wanting to eat food.

Illnesses That Can Cause a Sleep Disorder

August 21, 2008

Many times a sleep disorder can be caused from an illness or from the medications used to treat an illness. Some of the common health conditions that can cause a sleeping problem are cardiovascular disease, endocrine disorders, neurological disorders, respiratory disease, mental illness, gastroesophageal reflux disease, kidney disease, and arthritis.

Cardiovascular disease includes congestive heart failure and coronary artery disease. These  are the two most common heart problems that affect sleep and can cause a sleep disorder. Congestive heart failure occurs when the heart can no longer pump enough blood fo the body’s needs. Blood backs up in the veins of the heart which lead to the kidneys and edema eventually damages the lungs and other organs. People suffering from congestive heart failure have a very high risk of developing the sleep disorder of obstructive sleep apnea. Coronary heart disease is the build up of fatty deposits in the arteries that supply blood to the heart, called atherosclerosis. This condition also can lead to obstructive sleep apnea.

Sleep disorders can occur from endocrine disorders such as diabetes and thyroid disease. Diabetes is a disease that affects the way the body processes and uses carbohydrates, fats and proteins. People that have uncontrolled diabetes often develop the sleep disorder of restless leg syndrome. Thyroid hormones regulate the body’s energy levels. Hyperthyroidism can make it difficult to fall asleep, and cause night sweats the person to wake.

Neurological disorders include Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, and strokes. Parkinson’s disease is a central nervous system disorder. This disease causes problems with body motion, including tremors, unstable posture, slowed body movements, muscle stiffness, and difficulty walking. Sleep disorders that occur with this disease include REM sleep behavior disorder and sleep onset insomnia. Alzheimer’s disease impairs the brain’s intellectual functions and is the most common cause of dementia. This disease causes sleep fragmentation. Epilepsy causes recurrent, sudden, brief changes in the normal electrical activity of the brain. People with this condition are twice as likely to suffer from the sleep disorder insomnia. People that suffer a stroke usually also have obstructive sleep apnea.

People that have respiratory diseases, such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,
usually also have a sleep disorder. Asthma is a chronic lung condition that makes breathing difficult when air passages become inflamed and narrow. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, known as COPD, refers to a group of disorders that damage the lungs and make breathing difficult. Many people with these conditions suffer from insomnia and sleep fragmentation.

Mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and seasonal affective disorder can also lead to a sleep disorder. People with these mental health disorders often suffer from sleep fragmentation and insomnia.

Gastroesophageal reflux disease, known as GERD, causes the stomach’s juices to flow backwards into the esophagus. This causes the sleep disorder of sleep fragmentation.

Kidney disease causes the kidneys to lose their ability to filter the proper amount of waste products from the blood and regulate the body’s balance of salt and water. This can cause the sleep disorders of restless leg syndrome and insomnia to develop.

People with arthritis often find it difficult to fall asleep because of the pain. This often results in insomnia.

If an illness causes a sleep disorder to develop, the sleep disorder is secondary to the illness. Successful treatment of the primary underlying cause will usually diminish the effects of the sleep disorder.

Insomnia in popular culture

August 21, 2008

Insomnia has been a featured disorder from many factors such as books and movies. This seems to be the most common form of sleeping disorder to the point that movies and songs were made about this problem.

People aren’t aware that this is a problematic issue for those who suffer from this. It’s not healthy to go without sleep because it can affect your immune system making you prone to catching things like the flu and colds. Not getting any rest can cause severe disorientation because your body wasn’t given an opportunity to rest and recuperate.

This is what drove the designer coffee movement up like the sprawl of coffee shops from Starbucks, Gloria Jeans, Seattle’s Best, and Caribou Coffee since you had a lot of late nighters consisting of mainly people working in hospitals and college students who had to pull late nighters and cram sessions and needed to stay awake so when coffee wasn’t working they bought this over the counter pill called Vivarin which is equal to about 2 cups of coffee when you take the prescribed dosage.

It’s usually not a good idea to take Vivarin because it can interfere with your body’s ability to sleep and rest normally. You’ll find more college students getting sick a lot because they’re forcing their bodies to do things that isn’t normal like staying up super late and not getting at least 6 hours of sleep. Rest also provides your body’s digestive system to rest which makes up about 70% of your immune system so it’s ideal to sleep when necessary and taking short naps also work as a re-energizer to give you a burst of energy that works much better than coffee or caffeine pills.

That can become resistant since a lot of coffee drinkers tend to get very tired after a certain point and that’s due in part to the fact that you build up a resistance after having a few cups of coffee or cans of Coke so meaning it won’t keep you awake it will accelerate the rate of how fast you’ll start to feel sleepy.

So seeing pop culture idolize such a disorder is unknown unless the person who wrote the book or penned the song has a problem with it and decided to write or sing about it. The reason for it is unknown, but it’s rather interesting since a song can tell a story and the same of a book, but it’s obviously influenced a slew of songs, a few movies and a series of books where the characters are suffering from some kind of sleeping disorder from mild to severe.

Insomnia - The worst Form of Sleep Disorder?

August 21, 2008

Insomnia, a most common sleep disorder, affects about one third of the American population and is classified two different ways. It can be classified by how long it lasts. Transient insomnia lasts for only a few days, short term lasts for a few weeks and chronic lasts for more then three weeks. The other way insomnia is classified is by its source. The main two classifications of this sleep disorder by source are primary and secondary.

Transient insomnia is experienced by most people at some time throughout their lives. It can be caused by stress such as worrying about the first day school or an illness in the family. Sometimes this sleep disorder occurs due to a disruption of their circadian cycle, which is a persons natural sleep cycle, caused by jet lag or a shift change at work. Transient insomnia goes away one the stress issue has passed. Short term insomnia is often caused by similar stressors as transient insomnia. If the sufferer of this sleep disorder cannot break the cycle of poor sleep, it often develops  into chronic insomnia.

Primary insomnia develops without any obvious cause. Sometimes it starts as early as infancy.
Often it is the result of high metabolic rates or an overactive nervous system.

Secondary insomnia is the direct result of another cause. This sleep disorder can come from illness, medication, drugs or alcohol. Addressing the underlying cause of secondary insomnia often gives the sufferer relief. For example, if arthritis pain keeps you from sleeping, then treating the arthritis is the best way to cope with the sleep disorder.

Insomnia is not a single disorder. It is a general symptom and could have many potential causes. In order to qualify as a sleep disorder, insomnia has to meet three specific requirements. First, the person has to experience poor sleep in general, or have a problem falling or staying asleep. Second, if given the proper sleep environment and an adequate opportunity to sleep, the problem still occurs. Third, the result of the poor sleep causes some type of impairment while awake. Examples of an impairment are;  fatigue, body aches and pains, inability to concentrate, mood changes, lack of energy, poor concentration, or developing an unnatural amount of worry about sleep.

Often insomnia is treated with medication, such as sleeping pills. These can be prescription medication or bought over the counter.

However, there are several other methods of treatment for this sleep disorder. Behavioral treatments include meditation, progressive muscle relaxation, deep breathing, visualization, biofeedback, sleep hygiene,  cognitive behavioral therapy and reconditioning sleep restriction. These methods are often very successful.

Common signs of a sleep disorders

August 20, 2008

  • It takes you more than 30 minutes to fall asleep at night.
  • You awaken frequently in the night and then have trouble falling back to sleep again.
  • You awaken too early in the morning.
  • You frequently don’t feel well rested despite spending 7–8 hours or more asleep at night.
  • You feel sleepy during the day and fall asleep within 5 minutes if you have an opportunity to nap, or you fall asleep at inappropriate times during the day.
  • Your bed partner claims you snore loudly, snort, gasp, or make choking sounds while you sleep, or your partner notices your breathing stops for short periods.
  • You have creeping, tingling, or crawling feelings in your legs that are relieved by moving or massaging them, especially in the evening and when you try to fall asleep.
  • You have vivid, dreamlike experiences while falling asleep or dozing.
  • You have episodes of sudden muscle weakness when you are angry, fearful, or when you laugh.
  • You feel as though you cannot move when you first wake up.
  • Your bed partner notes that your legs or arms jerk often during sleep.
  • You regularly need to use stimulants to stay awake during the day.

Also keep in mind that, although children can show some of these same signs of a sleep disorder, they often do not show signs of excessive daytime sleepiness. Instead, they may seem overactive and have difficulty focusing and concentrating. They also may not do their best in school

Insomnia types

August 20, 2008

Chronic insomnia is defined as having symptoms at least 3 nights per week for more than 1 month. Most cases of chronic insomnia are second­ary, which means they are due to another disorder or medications. Primary chronic insomnia is a distinct sleep disorder; its cause is not yet well under¬stood. About 30–40 percent of adults say they have some symptoms of insomnia within any given year, and about 10–15 percent of adults say they have chronic insomnia. Chronic insomnia becomes more prevalent with age, and women are more likely than men to report having insomnia.
Insomnia often causes problems during the day, such as excessive sleepiness, fatigue, a lack of energy, difficulty concentrating, depressed mood, and irritability. Due to all of these potential consequences, untreated insomnia can impair quality of life as much as, or more than, other chronic medical problems.

Chronic insomnia is often caused by one or more of the following:

  • Another disease or mood disorder. The most common causes of insomnia are depression and/or anxiety disorders. Neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease can also have insomnia as a symptom. Chronic insomnia can result from arthritis, asthma, or other medical conditions in which symptoms become more troublesome at night, making it difficult to fall asleep or stay asleep.
  • Sleep-disrupting behavior such as drinking alcohol, exercising shortly before bedtime, ingesting caffeine late in the day, watching TV or reading while in bed, or irregular sleep schedules due to shift work or other causes.
  • Another sleep disorder, such as sleep apnea or restless legs syndrome.

Some people, however, have primary chronic insomnia. This condition is linked to a tendency toward being more “revved up” than normal (hyperarousal). These people may have heightened secretion of certain hormones, higher body temperatures, faster heart rates, and a different pattern of brain waves while they sleep.

Insomnia

August 19, 2008

Insomnia

Insomnia

When you think of insomnia you’re thinking of someone who can’t sleep for a reasonable amount of time. A typical complaint from an insomniac is not being able to close their eyes or rest their mind for over a few minutes at a time. There are many reasons for this ranging from anxiety to bipolar disorder. Yet sometimes there’s no real causes and can just happen for any given reason, but too much activity and physical pain can be causes for someone not to be sleeping at night.

Finding the underlying causes is key to finding a cure for this problem. It’s also been found that not eating has contributed to someone not sleeping. There are 3 types of insomnia and they are transient insomnia which lasts anywhere from a single night to several weeks, acute insomnia is the inability to sleep well for a single period of 3 weeks to up to 6 months, and chronic is deemed the most serious where it’s happening nightly for at least a month or longer.

There are options to treat insomnia the most common is medicinal since there’s commercials on, for people dealing with sleeping disorders.

It seems in this day and age that sleeping disorders are becoming more common and prevalent because with the new line of sleeping pills coming out explains clearly shows that there is an increase of sleeping disorders of many variations. Some of the medications out there that’s used in treatment of insomnia have proven that it was effective in helping insomniacs wake and sleep at the right time, but it lacks the data information to prove the theory as truth and factual. Lunesta and Ambien are noted to having a high psychological dependence than the older brands of sleeping pills and now cognitive behavior therapy is one of the many options widely used in someone dealing with insomnia and using the medication Rozerem because of the like hood of getting hooked to the drug is reduced and is widely prescribed for people who have a history of overusing their medications.

Some insomniacs have used herbs like chamomile when drunk in tea and lavender for aromatherapy as a means to relax. Insomnia can also result in a deficiency of magnesium and getting the right amount has proven to improve the quality of a person’s sleeping patterns.

Pomegranates are also good for insomniacs since there’s a nutrient in the fruit key for everything from immunity to cardiovascular health and are good for improving sleep. Insomniacs are also advised to eliminate a lot of the stress and tension in their lives because this is a triggering problem in the everyday life on an insomniac. Chinese medicine has also been introduced into helping those with sleeping disorders and other issues surrounding that. According to statistics taken from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services it’s estimated that 60 million Americans suffer from some type of insomnia and is noted to increase with age. 40% of women and 30% of men suffer from this.

Women tend to deal with this more because of increased level of responsibilities in their lives since more and more households in the United States are becoming single run homes and 75% of women are the heads of them which makes them the sole bread winners and taking on the role of mother and father which makes their lives increasingly difficult when they don’t have a partner or spouse to give them the support they need.

Identify the insomnia issue

August 18, 2008

Identify the insomnia issue. Americans average seven hours of sleep a night and 60% of us report difficulty sleeping at least several nights a week. The bigger problem is, many people leave it at that, never examining why they are awake long before the alarm clock goes off or everyone else is sound asleep.

Where do I begin?
The first thing you need to do to cure your sleep struggles is determining if you have trouble falling asleep, staying asleep or both. If you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep all night, you’re experiencing insomnia.  If you can fall asleep with ease but wake up in the middle of the night regularly, you may have the more-specific issue of “sleep maintenance insomnia”.  Most of us have short-term sleep issues like these at some point, but a solid 10-15% of people suffer from chronic insomnia.

Insomnia often occurs during periods of stress and may be impacted by depression, sleep apnea or restless leg syndrome. Rather than focusing on the irritation of being sleep-deprived, try to take a look at both the patterns of insomnia and things going on in your waking life that could be preventing your rest.