Signs and symptoms that contribute to INSOMNIA

Insomnia itself may be a symptom of an underlying medical condition. However, there are several signs and symptoms that are related to insomnia.

There is a list of symptoms that associated with insomnia. However, every person may experience different symptoms than the another person who have insomnia problems, all the specific symptoms are depends on individual's conditions. Following table is the list of symptoms associated with insomnia.

Signs and symptoms	Description
1) Anxiety  (Psychological & Psychosocial factor)	Lack of sleep or poor sleep quality will significant change in the level of neurotransmitter and affects the brain activity like over activation of sympathetic nervous system (SNS), so it will increase the level of anxiety. It will lead to serious issue for those who have these sign such as nervous breakdown that causes by over activation of SNS.
2) Compromised performance  (Physiological factor)	People who have insomnia is having difficulty to focus well no matter in school, work or simple task. They are lacking of the mental and physical energy to bring out the best of their ability. Insomnia leads to poor sleep quality that shutting off the prefrontal cortex of the brain, if the person is operating a heavy machinery like driving a lorry, it is high chance to get in accident.
3) Cognitive impairment: (Physiological factor)	Many of the insomnia-induced neural alteration is a common symptoms in the cognitive impairment (Mental Healthy Daily, 2015). It will results the changes in the level of neurotransmission, regional activation and epigenetics. The person who have insomnia with cognitive impairment may be not able to think critically with clear mind and often appear “blur” or “confused”  by suffer from attentional deficits.
4) Daytime sleepiness (Physiology factor)	Some people who experience insomnia will often sleep lesser hours (total sleep quality is low) than other person who don’t, they could not fall asleep at night. This impairment associated with insomnia will leads a person to feeling tired and unrefreshed no matter how he or she sleep for how many hours or severe hours throughout the whole day.
5) Depression (Psychological and Psychosocial factor)	For some people who experience depression will results a direct cause to insomnia. Insomnia will allow you turn off your brain especially the part of prefrontal cortex and lead to sleep restriction, so you will wake up severe times and feeling sad.
6) Difficulty falling asleep (Physiological factor)	People with insomnia feel exhausted when they go to bed, no matter how tired they are, whether is physically or mentally, there are something that will keep them awake all the night. This might cause by behavioral factors like using drugs (marijuana, cocaine ,etc.) , consume caffeine, drinking alcohol, Wi-Fi radiation and bright screen.
7) Fatigue (Physiological and Psychosocial factor)	Majority with insomnia report feeling extreme fatigue and tiredness during the daytime. Symptom of insomnia may be showing if you feel lethargic both, mentally and physically.
8) Gastrointestinal distress (Physiological factor)	Gastrointestinal distress will lead to person associated with insomnia who experience stomach cramps, aches, digestive problems these serious medical condition. They often suffer from the pain in GI distress that results insomnia and difficult to fall asleep.
9) Grogginess (Physiological factor)	Feeling “dazed” can make difficult to get out from the bed or after getting out of bed will result in a feeling of tiredness throughout the day. This may indicate that you are out of tune with your body’s natural sleep cycles and circadian rhythm.
10) Headaches (Physiological factor)	Serious headaches such as migraines contribute to the extreme pain  in head that keeps them awake during the night.
11) Prolonged sleep-onset latency (Physiological factor)	If you encounter a prolonged sleep-onset latency, it means that a long time is needed for you to fall asleep after lying down on the bed.  Sleep-onset latency refers to the duration of time it takes to accomplish the transition from wakefulness to sleep.  .
12) Waking up in the middle of the night (Psychological factor)	If you cannot maintain your sleep throughout the night, meaning that the frequency of waking up during the night is high without any apparent reason, you may have sleep-maintenance insomnia. Those with sleep-maintenance insomnia have medical conditions, psychiatric illnesses, and/or a sub optimal sleep environment.
13) Feeling worry and anxious about sleep (Physiological factor)	A constant feeling of worry and anxiety about whether you will be able to fall asleep at night , whether you are going to get enough sleep, or whether you are going to stay asleep throughout the night – this could be a sign of insomnia.

In conclusion, consult a doctor or health professional if insomnia is interrupting your daily activities. Receiving treatment may help you get rid of those symptoms and problems related to insomnia as finding and treating those problems could improve your overall health and sleep.

REFERENCES

Peter Crosta M.A. MediLexicon International Ltd (2015). Insomnia: Causes, Symptoms and Treatments.  Retrieved October 06, 2016, from http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/9155.php?page=2

Mental Health Blog (2015). Insomnia Symptoms & Signs .Retrieved October 06, 2016, from http://mentalhealthdaily.com/2015/05/25/insomnia-symptoms-signs-list/

How is insomnia diagnosed?

Have you ever wonder how is insomnia diagnosed? The answer is a doctor will basically diagnose patients who have insomnia based on the observation of the symptoms as well as the degree of functional impairment that the symptoms present on him or herself.  However, the diagnosis can be made by a sleep expert or by a general practitioner as well.  You have to work with a team of the general practitioner and sleep experts which related insomnia to ensure that the diagnosis and the results is accurate and is tested in the correct experimental methods. 

1) Blood tests 

Generally a general practitioner will encourage patient to get a set of blood test to identify the potential medical conditions, hormone imbalances and nutritional deficiencies that contributing to insomnia. For examples, a doctor can identify the health condition such as hyperthyroidism which is overactive thyroid , so they able to target the main problem and prescribe a list of medication according to his problem. 

2) Overnight sleep study

The professional sleep expert may encourage the patients who have insomnia to participate the program of overnight sleep study (polysomnography) to sleep overnight in a laboratory in a comfortable environment. When this experiment is conducted, the technologist will stay awake for 24 hours to monitor the brains waves as well as gather information about transition through sleep cycle like oxygen levels, number of movements, heart rhythms and breathing patterns by EEG (electroencephalograph). During the night, a low-light video camera may also record your sleep for later review. This will allow the doctor to detect any unusual movements or behavior that may occur during you sleep. Important brain and body functions are measured and recorded while you are sleeping.

3) Questionnaires 

The patients who have insomnia may need to fill out a set of questionnaire that records the subjective perception of the insomnia.  The questionnaire is briefly about why you have difficulty to fall  asleep, stay awake for long periods at night, wake up a few times during the night, do not feel refreshed when get up, feel tired and irritable during day and night, hard to focus, and wake up early in the morning and not able to return to sleep. This questionnaire is generally a list of question that conducted by the experts and professionals to assist the doctor to have more insight into the severity of the insomnia. 

4) Sleep logs

Sleep logs are designed for the individual to record down the details about their sleep habits in a diaries or logs for doctor to record and justify the root problem of insomnia. It generally include things like when the individual went to bed, such as how long they took to fall asleep, the total duration they slept, when they woke up, how they felt during the day and so on. This log or diaries may also report whether the person felt sleepy throughout the day and any uncomfortable symptoms they may experience for example, tension headaches. (Mental Daily Health, 2015)

5) Verbal questioning

A series of questions such as “How hard is it for you to fall asleep?”, “How difficult for you to stay asleep during the night?” or "How long do you take to fall asleep?" will be asked by a doctor or sleep expert in order to help them to get a better idea and understanding as to how debilitating the insomnia is, as well as how long it has been occurring.

These scientific methods are designed for people who suffer from insomnia, sleeping supposed to be the most relax and comfortable activities in our daily life. A sleep study is a reliable, scientific, and painless way in figuring out the reason why you do not sleep as well as you would like, it can provide you the understanding about your problems and answers based on the results.  According to the results, a sleep expers and doctor will be able to plan a treatment in helping those people with insomnia to finally get the kind of sleep they want and need.

REFERENCES

Mental Health Daily (2015) Insomnia Symptoms & Signs. Retrieved from http://mentalhealthdaily.com/2015/05/25/insomnia-symptoms-signs-list/