Many people in life feel that they can’t sleep well and simply classify themselves as having insomnia and use some random Valium pills. In fact, when insomnia occurs, it is important to identify the cause of insomnia properly, and sometimes it is not as simple as just using sleeping pills. Therefore, when insomnia occurs, it is important to identify the cause of insomnia and give the right treatment in order to obtain satisfactory results.
First of all, what is insomnia? Insomnia: It is a subjective experience of not being able to fall asleep or stay asleep, resulting in lack of sleep. It can be caused by various reasons such as difficulty in falling asleep, short sleep depth or frequency (light sleep insomnia), early awakening and insufficient sleep time or poor quality sleep.
Insomnia performance
1.Difficulty in falling asleep, lying in bed for more than half an hour and still cannot fall asleep.
2.Decrease in sleep time.
3.Wake up early and cannot fall back to sleep after waking up.
4.Often wake up from dreams and feel like having nightmares all night long.
5.After sleep, you feel that your energy is not restored the next day.
6.The onset time can be long or short, and the short one can get better in a few days, while the long one lasts for several days and is difficult to recover.
Causes of insomnia
Insomnia caused by environmental factors.
Changes in the environment often cause physiological reactions, such as insomnia when someone takes a car, boat, plane or night shift, due to changes in the sleep environment; some people have insomnia due to too much light, too loud, too cold or too hot in the bedroom; some people have strong adaptability to the environment, while others are very sensitive and poorly adapted, and they do not sleep well when the environment changes.
Insomnia caused by somatic factors.
Many somatic diseases can easily lead to insomnia, such as: heart disease, kidney disease, asthma, ulcer disease, arthritis, bone and joint disease, gastrointestinal disease, hypertension, sleep apnea syndrome, hyperthyroidism, nocturnal myoclonus syndrome, brain disease, etc.
Insomnia caused by psychological and spiritual factors.
In modern life, people face a lot of pressure, and many psychological factors such as tension, anxiety, irritability or depression, unhappy mood, etc. are important causes of insomnia. Various life event strikes, pressure of work and study, attempted will and changes in the social environment can cause psychological and physiological reactions that lead to abnormal functioning of the nervous system and cause dysfunction of the brain, thus causing insomnia.
Insomnia caused by drugs and other substances.
Some women who love beauty, use amphetamines as a weight loss drug, not knowing that amphetamines are central stimulants that can lead to insomnia. Tea, coffee, cola drinks, etc. contain central nervous stimulants – caffeine, evening consumption can cause insomnia. In addition, long-term use of sleeping pills, once you quit, you will also experience withdrawal symptoms – shallow sleep and more nightmares. Alcohol interferes with a person’s sleep structure and makes sleep shallow, and once you quit drinking alcohol, it can also cause insomnia due to withdrawal reactions.
Insomnia caused by fear of insomnia.
Some people have high expectations of sleep, thinking that if you sleep well, your body will not be invaded by all kinds of diseases; if you sleep badly, you will be prone to various physical problems. This misconception about sleep increases the pressure of sleep, which can easily cause insomnia.
In fact, in real life, people inevitably have bad sleep, but some people are too worried about this temporary poor sleep and its impact on the body, the thought of sleep, it will be conditioned to fear, always thinking that we must sleep well, but make it more difficult to fall asleep. This will form a vicious circle of fear of insomnia – committed to sleep – insomnia – more fear of insomnia. In the long run, it is likely to turn into chronic insomnia.
Misconceptions about insomnia.
1. Exercise before bed. Not only can not help sleep, but will make the already tired muscles more tense, the brain will also be more awake, but can not sleep.
2, take some sleeping pills. Sleeping pills can not be taken indiscriminately! The sleep after taking sleeping pills is different from physiological sleep, but passive sleep. Therefore, it is important to decide whether to use sleeping pills under the guidance of a doctor and according to the specific situation.
3.Read before bedtime. If you read some novels with a tense plot before going to bed, it will only make the brain more excited and dream floating after falling asleep. So, if you want to read before bed, or easy prose is good.
4, drink to help sleep. This is a stupid idea, sleep is asleep, but it is easy to breathe, sleepless, stomach pain, thirst, wake up head heavy chaos.
5, forced to sleep enough 8 hours a day. In fact, occasionally one or two sleep time is not enough to produce too much impact, so do not worry about the lack of sleep time and nervousness, which is more sleep, or even lead to a vicious circle. Sleeping less is not necessarily insomnia, the length of sleep varies from person to person, some people sleep 9 hours a day is not enough, some people sleep 5 hours to be energetic.
Treatment of insomnia
1, maintain a good attitude of optimism, contentedness and longevity. Have a full understanding of social competition, personal gains and losses, etc., to avoid psychological imbalance caused by frustration.
2.Establish a regular daily life system and maintain the normal sleep-wake rhythm.
3.Create a conditioned reflex mechanism that is conducive to falling asleep. If you take a hot bath, soak your feet, drink a glass of milk, etc. half an hour before bedtime, you will establish a good “sleep conditioned reflex” if you insist on it for a long time.
4, if you participate in moderate physical exercise during the day, which will help you fall asleep at night.
5, to develop good sleep hygiene habits, such as keeping the bedroom clean, quiet, away from noise, avoiding light stimulation, etc.; at the same time to avoid drinking tea, alcohol, etc. before going to bed.
6, self-regulation, self-referral. Can play some relaxation activities, but also repeatedly count, sometimes a little relaxation, but can speed up sleep.
7, limit daytime sleep time, in addition to the elderly can be appropriate nap or snooze for a moment during the day, should avoid napping or snooze, otherwise it will reduce the sleep and sleep time at night.
8, the bed is the place to sleep, do not read in bed, watch TV, work. Normally, we should adhere to the habit of regular rest, go to bed on time at night and get up on time in the morning.
9, for insomnia due to physical diseases or anxiety, depression and other psychological factors, should actively seek medical advice, under the guidance of the doctor in accordance with the different conditions of the patient, given the correct drug treatment, such as antidepressants, Chinese medicine Wu Ling capsules, sleeping pills, etc., which may achieve faster and better therapeutic results.
Insomnia prevention
About one-third of a person’s life is spent in sleep. The good or bad sleep is closely related to one’s psychological and physical health. Therefore, the prevention of insomnia is even more important. The following are the four elements of scientific sleep, which have a great impact on the quality of sleep, and the correct treatment of the four elements of sleep will help in the prevention of insomnia.
Sleeping appliances
Whether it is a bed in the south or a kang in the north, when placed or repaired, it should be oriented north-south, with the head north and feet south when people sleep, so that the organism is not disturbed by geomagnetism. The hardness of the pavement should be moderate, too hard pavement will make people have to turn over from time to time due to its stimulation, it is difficult to sleep peacefully, and the body aches and pains after sleeping; pillow height is generally appropriate for one shoulder of the sleeper (about 10 cm), too low easy to cause cervical spine physiological bone spurs. In the summer, the pillow should often turn the sun, so as not to let the germs into the mouth and nose, lung diseases increase.
Sleeping position
People with heart disease, it is best to lie on the right side, so as not to cause heart pressure and increase the chances of morbidity; brain pain due to high blood pressure, should be properly padded pillow position; lung disease patients in addition to high pillow, but also often change the side of sleep, in order to facilitate the discharge of phlegm, stomach distension and liver and gallbladder disease, to sleep on the right side is appropriate; limbs with pain, stress avoid pressure on the pain and lying. In short, the choice of comfortable, conducive to the condition of the sleeping position, help to sleep peacefully.
Time of sleep
Sleep time should generally be maintained at 7 to 8 hours, but not necessarily forced, should depend on individual differences. Those who fall asleep quickly and sleep deeply, generally without dreams or less dreams, can fully recover their energy after 6 hours of sleep; those who fall asleep slowly and have many light sleep eyes and often have many dreams and nightmares, even if they sleep for 10 hours, it is still difficult to be refreshed, they should go through various treatments to get effective sleep, just prolonging the sleep time is harmful to the body. Since everyone has different physiological rhythms, the arrangement in sleep morning and night should be different from person to person! In fact, the different physiological rhythm makes two kinds of sleep, namely “night owl” and “lark”. This physiological rhythm is conducive to improving efficiency and quality of life, and vice versa, is not good for health.
The environment of sleep
Sleeping well is closely related to the sleeping environment. In the temperature of 15 to 24 degrees, you can get a peaceful sleep. Smoke left by smoking after closing the windows in winter, as well as the leakage of incomplete combustion of gas, can also make people unable to sleep peacefully. In the emission of high-frequency ionizing electromagnetic radiation near the source of living, long-term poor sleep and not due to their own disease, it is best to move far away from the residence. To sum up, if people can master the four elements of scientific sleep, they can effectively improve the quality of sleep and put more energy into work. Scientific sleep is the new demand of modern life.
Finally, I hope that through the understanding of insomnia, people will develop good sleep hygiene habits and have a sweet sleep every night.