So, more times than not, but not every time, it can be linked to a medical problem, such as menopause, cancer, chronic pain, it can be linked to anxiety and depression. Those are the more common causes.

Shelby Harris

Categorized in : Pain Cancer Medical Problems

There are some patients who just have insomnia and they've had it since they were a kid and we don't quite know why. So when we look at the cause, we definitely want to treat whatever else is going on, but insomnia often because it becomes its own diagnosis and that requires its own treatment.

want insomnia kids

So there's a few different ways that we treat insomnia. The first thing that we always do is we look at the cause.

different insomnia looks

When they [people with insomnia] start worrying about not sleeping, I'll say, "Say the mantra to myself; if I don't sleep tonight, I'll likely sleep tomorrow, and if not tomorrow then definitely the third" because our body has a way of naturally catching up.

worry insomnia sleep

We've looked at sleep diaries of patients with insomnia, and they'll say that they don't sleep for one or two days. And the body actually has a natural function, after about the third day to start catching up and you get a little bit more sleep the third night. And that's usually what I tell my patients.

insomnia sleep night

Some patients are still having insomnia, but it's seems worse to them than actually it is. So, if they say they're sleep deprived, they haven't slept at all in three days; if we actually take them into a lab, most of the time we actually do see they're sleeping on and off here and there.

here-and-there insomnia sleep

In general, there are patients with insomnia who - many patients with insomnia will actually over report the lack of sleep that they are getting.

patient insomnia sleep

When you are more awake at nights, they'll toss and turn, they'll think more, they get frustrated. And when that starts to happen, you really don't sleep even more because you're making your body tense and your mind is getting more and more active.

sleep night thinking

So, it's not every patient that I see, but I'd say a good 70% to 80% of the patients when they go to bed it's like a stereo is playing at an 11 or 12 and they can't turn it down, at all. So it makes it very hard for their body to down regulate to be able to go to bed at night.

bed body night

Well, the actual function of the brain, not so sure yet. There's a lot of different theories about it, but when you talk about psychologically in your brain, a lot of people with insomnia, though not all, report that they can't turn their minds off.

brain insomnia people

There's a new line of research showing that people who don't get enough sleep, they're body doesn't metabolize as well. And so they actually - it leads to weight gain. So if you're not getting enough sleep, you might have difficulty losing weight.

lines sleep people

There's some debate as to whether you need to awaken from them because there are some patients who are actually starting to say, "I had these horrible nightmares, but I never woke up from them." But they can still recall them when they get up in the morning. So there's still some debate in the field.

fields morning needs

So you have it, you awaken from it and you can recall, in detail, what just happened, that's a nightmare. So it's very different from a dream where you generally don't wake up from it and you don't have this dysphoric emotion.

details different dream

It's uncommon, but there are some people who just have a delayed circadian rhythm and they just - they sleep better during the day then they do at night. So they've - a lot of those people with delayed sleep phase disorder they start to work in bars, they work some of the late night shifts, they sort of adjust to doing it more and more as time goes on.

sleep night people

Jet lag depends on which direction you're going and it can be a little complicated, but there are a few different treatments. So one would be if you're going somewhere - sorry it's hard to think about it.

different sorry thinking

If you're going somewhere East from here, generally what you want to do is you want to try to have your bed time earlier and earlier so what we'll do is I'll have someone adjust for a week or two by going to be 15 minutes earlier and getting up 15 minutes earlier every night. So that can be a really simple thing.

simple night two

Honestly, what we use a lot is melatonin. So we use lower dosages of melatonin, taking it at different times, depending upon where we are traveling and that can really help adjust the body's rhythm to wherever you are going.

different body use

So the older models, when you look at Freudian, when you look at Jungian thought, and there's still people who really - who really use the Jungian thought of dream analysis, is really that you would analyze the dreams. The dreams are there for a purpose.

analysis dream people

For some people they say, it's about wish fulfillment, it's about the things you are never able to do in your day you are actually fulfilling at night. There are other people who will say that it's actually telling you something.

wish night people

If there's a lot of fear that's going on, if there's a lot of anxiety, it's manifesting itself in your nocturnal world so that analyzing it can help open up basically thoughts about what you need to do during the day. So a lot of people who subscribe to the psychoanalysis, the Jungian thought will really focus a lot on dreams, the meaning, and how it can be used to help you during the day.

focus dream people

There are some people who believe that dreams really are just kind of a throwaway thing. They are just a way of your brain processing what's happening during the day, but there's really no meaning to them; a lot of imagery of just flashes of what happened.

dream believe people