Insomnia: the main causes of sleep disorders and its prevention.

Get­ting enough sleep is as impor­tant to a healthy lifestyle as prop­er nutri­tion and phys­i­cal activ­i­ty. Adults need 6 to 8 hours of sleep to stay pro­duc­tive. But not every­one suc­ceeds in observ­ing this rule for var­i­ous rea­sons: late return from work, the need to put the chil­dren to bed, extra employ­ment or doing house­hold chores. As a result, sleep can last only 4–5 hours. It often hap­pens that a per­son is not able to fall asleep, con­stant­ly scrolling dis­turb­ing thoughts in his head.

Lack of sleep is one of the main problems of modern people.

Lack of sleep is a con­se­quence of the gen­er­al lack of free time in mod­ern man. The work­ing day starts at 9 or 10 am. Few peo­ple man­age to find a job near their home or at least 1 hour away. On aver­age, peo­ple spend 2–3 hours com­mut­ing to and from the office every day. At the same time, not every­one leaves work at 18–19 hours.

If a per­son does not have a fam­i­ly, then he does not always go home imme­di­ate­ly. He can go to the gym, take extra class­es, or meet up with friends. He can return home around mid­night. But even after that, it is not always pos­si­ble to fall asleep, because some can still watch TV or read the news on the Inter­net. Elec­tron­ic devices not only take time, but also neg­a­tive­ly affect the qual­i­ty of sleep.

The stress expe­ri­enced at work dur­ing the day, the inabil­i­ty to switch and relax, lead to the fact that a per­son toss­es and turns for a long time and can­not fall asleep. If dis­turb­ing and neg­a­tive infor­ma­tion obtained from the Inter­net is added to them, then a per­son gets enough sleep even worse. He wakes up slug­gish and bro­ken. Lack of sleep leads to the need to replen­ish the body’s ener­gy reserves from junk food or cof­fee, and from it — to the appear­ance of excess weight.

As a rule, sleep deprived peo­ple have a bad mood and unsat­is­fac­to­ry appear­ance: cir­cles under the eyes, pale skin. They become irri­ta­ble, worse at work. Thus, lack of sleep can lead not only to excess weight, but also to seri­ous men­tal dis­or­ders, up to neu­ro­sis and depres­sion.

Causes of insomnia: stress, disease and many others

The main cause of insom­nia is stress expe­ri­enced by a per­son dur­ing the day. An exam, pass­ing an impor­tant project, mak­ing a life-chang­ing deci­sion, dis­turb­ing news, con­flicts at work can make it impos­si­ble to fall asleep for a long time. Watch­ing TV or read­ing infor­ma­tion on social net­works, as well as the pres­ence of a glow­ing screen in the bed­room, wors­en the qual­i­ty of falling asleep.

Anoth­er cause of insom­nia is mus­cle ten­sion result­ing from stress. Despite fatigue, a per­son can­not relax for a long time, as men­tal activ­i­ty con­tin­ues. If at the same time there is a desire to get up and walk, then he no longer has a chance to sleep.

Improp­er nutri­tion also pro­vokes insom­nia. Heavy and high-calo­rie food, eat­en lat­er than 2 hours before falling asleep, pro­vokes indi­ges­tion. Unpleas­ant symp­toms of food poi­son­ing also inter­fere with sleep. With flu and colds, high fever, cough or run­ny nose pre­vent you from falling asleep. Any pain syn­drome inter­feres with sleep.

Loud nois­es and unpleas­ant odors also inter­fere with falling asleep and pre­vent unin­ter­rupt­ed sleep. The claim that TV helps you fall asleep is a mis­con­cep­tion. Even a low sound com­bined with a flick­er­ing screen leads to the fact that a per­son will wake up at night.

The use of cer­tain types of drugs or stim­u­lants makes it dif­fi­cult to sleep. Cof­fee and caf­feinat­ed drinks have a stim­u­lat­ing effect on the ner­vous sys­tem and pre­vent falling asleep. Con­trary to com­mon mis­con­cep­tions, alco­hol and tobac­co do not help you fall asleep, but only spoil the qual­i­ty of falling asleep.

Impor­tant fac­tors for falling asleep are the cor­rect selec­tion of a bed and air tem­per­a­ture. In extreme heat or cold, a per­son does not sleep well. Not con­ducive to falling asleep and improp­er­ly select­ed pil­low or mat­tress of poor qual­i­ty.

To suc­cess­ful­ly com­bat insom­nia, it is nec­es­sary to iden­ti­fy the cause that caus­es it. Insom­nia itself can be a symp­tom of some neu­ro­log­i­cal and men­tal ill­ness­es. If they are exclud­ed, then a per­son may well change the con­di­tions of falling asleep for the bet­ter.

Prevention and treatment of insomnia

In most cas­es, insom­nia does not require seri­ous med­ical treat­ment. Tablets should be tak­en only in espe­cial­ly severe cas­es and as pre­scribed by a doc­tor. In the absence of dis­eases, pre­ven­tion will help to over­come insom­nia, includ­ing the rejec­tion of bad habits that pre­vent you from falling asleep.

One of the most effec­tive mea­sures to pre­vent insom­nia is to avoid stim­u­lat­ing foods such as cof­fee, choco­late, and alco­holic bev­er­ages. At night, it is also not rec­om­mend­ed to eat fried meat and oth­er indi­gestible foods. It is bet­ter to drink a cup of tea with chamomile or mint. A glass of milk also has a calm­ing effect on the ner­vous sys­tem.

Helps to fall asleep and phys­i­cal activ­i­ty in the late evening. But it does­n’t have to be a trip to the gym or too intense a load. A leisure­ly walk or sim­ple yoga asanas is enough. It is rec­om­mend­ed to turn off all elec­tri­cal appli­ances and put the smart­phone away as far as pos­si­ble. If you man­age to med­i­tate, then this helps to get rid of dis­turb­ing thoughts and bet­ter relax­ation.

Pre­ven­tion of insom­nia also involves the use of nat­ur­al ingre­di­ents. A bath with spe­cial addi­tives or a spe­cial pil­low with sooth­ing herbs inside relax­es well. You can lis­ten to clas­si­cal music, nature sounds or spe­cial melodies for med­i­ta­tion and relax­ation.

Anti-anx­i­ety drugs should be tak­en with cau­tion. If there are no dis­eases requir­ing med­ical treat­ment, then the doc­tor may rec­om­mend mild herbal prepa­ra­tions that are not addic­tive. If there is a dis­ease, it should be treat­ed first of all.

A per­son­’s abil­i­ty to sleep enough and con­tin­u­ous­ly depends on his health, per­for­mance and good men­tal and phys­i­cal con­di­tion. There­fore, it is impor­tant to give up bad habits that pre­vent falling asleep and learn how to relax.