What is insomnia?

Insomnia is a sleeping disorder that happened when a person finds it hard to fall asleep when he or she has the chance to do so. Insomnia is a persistent disorder that can cause you usually awaken with the feelings of unrefreshed or unrested which could affect your daily function (Clinic, 2014). Insomnia will cause you lack of energy and concentration,  health problems, your work performance, and more. According to research, more than 30 percent of the population experience insomnia which means 1 in 3 people suffers insomnia (Sowder, 2016). Insomnia can be seen at any age but mostly in adult females than males. That is because women have some biological conditions that are different from men, like the menstrual cycle, pregnancy and menopause. The developing of hormones like estrogen and progesterone will impact the sleeping quality of women (M.A., 2015).

Insomnia can be separated into 3 main types:

1.       Transient insomnia – Symptoms continuing for a few days to a week (e.g. jet lag and environment noise).

2.       Acute insomnia (also known as short-term insomnia) – Symptoms continuing for several weeks.

3.       Chronic insomnia – Symptoms persist for at least months to years. 

Biopsychosocial theory or model

                

Biopsychosocial theory or model is a model that has been used for identifying the links of a disease between biological, psychological, and social factors. By using this model, we can identify the cause of a disease under its perspective.

Transient insomnia and acute insomnia (biological, psychological, and social factors)

SHORT-TERM

Biological factors

Illness-  Sickness and illness can affect a person’s quality of sleep. For instance, Liwen is having fever since 3 days ago and she couldn’t sleep well these nights because she keeps having headache. She recovered after a few days of time and able to sleep well again.

Caffeine-  In order to get rid of tiredness, a lot of people choose caffeine and it’s the most common way to them. When you take the proper amount of caffeine is fine, but if when you take over than 500 to 600 mg per day it will cause us a lot of side effects include insomnia. That is because caffeine will keep us awake and raise our alertness to block sleep-inducing in our brain and increase our adrenaline levels which will make us more energized. So, take the right amount of caffeine a day and do not have any caffeine intake before you go to bed.

Menstruation - For women, menstruation will affect their quality of sleep as they keep waking up every 2 or 3 hours. That is because the changing levels of hormones like estrogen and progesterone will increase the temperature of your body hence preventing REM sleep in you and you tend to be more sensitive and moody about things. So, you will tend to have negative feelings and thinking at night. Besides that, if the level of progesterone isn’t high enough to make you drowsy, your need to sleep will be disturbed.

Psychological factors

Anxiety – the feelings of worry will affect your quality of sleep. For example, you are having an interview tomorrow and you scared that you will fail to impress in the interview. The nervousness will cause you couldn’t have a good nigh sleep.

 Stress – Insomnia can easily link to stress because stress causes hyperarousal, which will imbalanced the needs to fall asleep and wakefulness. For example, an assignment deadline is coming and you haven’t finish it, you will tend to put stress on you and it will affect your quality of sleep. Although stress is just temporary, but it can become a long-term disorder, depression.

Social factors

Jet lag –  When we travel to a different country with different time zone, we tend to have the higher risk of getting insomnia. The reason is our internal biological clock is mismatch with the external environment. In other words, our internal clock is desynchronizing between the new time zone schedule and the time that we should sleep. For example, Debbie travels from Malaysia to United Kingdom and her internal clock says that she should sleep now during the daytime at there and should stay awake during nighttime since the time zone has changed.

Environment conditions- Noise, light, or room temperature can disturb your sleeping quality. For example, a dog keeps barking outside out of your house and the sound of barking keep waking you up thus causing you insomnia.  

Chronic insomnia (biological, psychological, and social factors)

LONG-TERM

Biological factors

Long-term health problems-  Sometimes our health problems could affect the quality of our sleep, like arthritic, headache disorder, asthma, restless legs syndrome, chronic pain and more.

Smoking- Insomnia can be found easily in smokers especially a chain smoker. The nicotine that cigarettes contained will cause a person decreased in sleep efficiency and affect sleep fragmentation.

Alcohol -  A lot of people think that drink a little bit of alcohol before bed will improve their sleeping quality because it makes them drowsy, which is not exactly true. Yes, alcohol makes you feel drowsy, but when your body metabolizes the alcohol, this process will disrupt your sleep and you may suddenly wakeup in the middle of the night.  

Psychological factors

Lifestyle- Lifestyle plays an important role in our needs to sleep because irregular routine you go to bed will affect your quality of sleep. Besides that, when you consuming large meals before bed, it will affect your quality of sleep by increasing the chance of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). Then, people tend to drink a lot of water before bed. PLEASE DON’T DO THAT SO THAT YOU WONT HAVE TO GET OUT OF BED TO URINATE SO OFTEN.

Depression - When we are having stress for a long time, we may have depression. Depression may cause us sleeping more or less as usual thus affecting our sleeping routine. Besides, you will tend to feel more anger and rage, having a lot of negative thinking and hard to fall asleep.

Social factors

Financial stress –  The unstable economy may cause a person losing his or her job and they tend to find it hard to sleep because they keep worrying about bills and how they going to keep their income coming.

Family relationships – The loss of someone or divorcement can cause a person having insomnia That is because they tend to feel sad and missed their partner or family members that has passed away. Lack of family support and love and belongingness may affect their quality of sleep too.

 

REFERENCES

Mayo Clinic (2014). Insomnia. Retrieved October 5, 2016, from http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/insomnia/basics/definition/con-20024293

Peter, C. (2015). Sleep / Sleep Disorders / Insomnia. Retrieved October 5, 2016, from http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/9155.php

Sowder, J. (2016). Insomnia Statistics. Retrieved October 5, 2016, from http://www.better-sleep-better-life.com/insomnia-statistics.html