|
ANNOUNCER: Getting a good night's sleep is an important part of a healthy lifestyle but for many Americans that restful break is hard to achieve.
GARY ZAMMIT, PhD: Probably more than half of all Americans experience a sleep problem at some time in their lives. Somewhere between 9 and 17% of the adult population will experience chronic or more ongoing difficulties with their sleep.
We know that insomnia affects older people more than it does younger people. It's more often reported in women, and it may be associated with certain medical or psychiatric conditions.
ANNOUNCER: A poor night's sleep can mean more than just tossing and turning.
GARY ZAMMIT, PhD: People with insomnia often complain of impairments in intellectual abilities like attention, memory or concentration, impairments in their mood, feeling depressed or irritable or anxious and impairment in their ability to function in the workplace, at home or even at school.
ANNOUNCER: Insomnia can manifest itself in a variety of ways.
DANIEL BUYSSE, MD: Insomnia as difficulty sleeping during the night can occur at any point during the night really, although some people will have mainly difficulty falling asleep, other people will have mainly difficulties because of frequent awakenings during sleep. And in many cases, people will just have difficulty returning to sleep once they have awakened in the middle of the night.
ANNOUNCER: But what is a good night's sleep? The answer is different for everyone.
DANIEL BUYSSE, MD: The amount of sleep is not defined by a certain number of hours, because different people need different amounts of sleep. There are certainly short sleepers and there are long sleepers. But the thing that categorizes adequate sleep is that the person's able to remain awake and to function well during the day.
ANNOUNCER: Many sleep problems are temporary, usually caused by a particular event or poor sleep environment.
DANIEL BUYSSE, MD: Transient insomnia is defined as something that lasts less than two or three weeks. And it's usually a problem that occurs in the context of some other stress in the person's life. Whether it's a stress in terms of their life situation, problems at work, problems in their family or perhaps a stress in terms of a medical problem, an acute medical illness.
ANNOUNCER: Chronic or more persistent insomnia can result from several factors.
DANIEL BUYSSE, MD: Virtually every chronic medical illness can cause insomnia. Things that cause pain, things that impair our ability to move at night, things that cause difficulty breathing are common examples of medical conditions that may be associated with insomnia.
Psychiatric conditions of just about any sort can also be associated with long-term insomnia. The most common example is clinical depression, but certainly people with serious anxiety disorders including panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, those can also be associated with insomnia.
ANNOUNCER: A number of specific sleep disorders can also cause chronic insomnia, among them sleep apnea and restless leg syndrome.
DANIEL BUYSSE, MD: Sleep apnea is a condition in which the individual stops breathing during sleep. And generally speaking there can be two reasons for that. One is that there's an obstruction somewhere in the airway that prevents breathing. The other is that the brain stops giving signals to breath to the lungs and the breathing apparatus.
Restless leg syndrome is a neurological disorder characterized by uncomfortable feelings in the legs at night. Individuals with restless legs usually complain of creepy crawly feelings or the need to move their legs at night. And very commonly they will have repeated jerking movements in their legs that further disrupt sleep.
ANNOUNCER: Sleep specialists have learned that many people suffering from insomnia often need help breaking bad habits.
GARY ZAMMIT, PhD: Sleep hygiene is really the development of good sleep habits. This refers to doing things like going to bed at the same time every night, getting up the same time every morning, no matter what happened the night before. For most people, avoiding daytime naps, avoiding stimulants such as caffeine and nicotine, avoiding alcohol just prior to bedtime. Although it's a sedative, it can truly disrupt sleep. Not going to bed too hungry or too full. Both of those conditions can disturb sleep.
DANIEL BUYSSE, MD: Not surprisingly, the best environment for sleep is one that's quiet, dark and sealed off from any light. All of those factors can certainly disrupt our sleep.
GARY ZAMMIT, PhD: People who use nonpharmacologic therapies often report that they work very well for them. They experience a subjective sense of improvement in their sleep. One of the problems with behavioral therapies or nonpharmacologic therapies for insomnia is they often take time to work, and patients don't want to wait. They're suffering. Their lives are impaired, and they want some immediate relief.
ANNOUNCER: For many, relief is found with both over the counter and prescription medications.
GARY ZAMMIT, PhD: In years past, many doctors were concerned about offering a prescription medication to their patients. They were rightly concerned about problems of tolerance, dependence, misuse of the prescription and adverse effects. But the newer medications that are available now have really offered real alternatives to the older class of medications, effective and safe alternatives which now offer physicians an opportunity to prescribe something that they know is effective for sleep.
ANNOUNCER: Whatever the strategy, it's vital to recognize the problem.
GARY ZAMMIT, PhD: We know that insomnia is associated with a number of significant problems in daytime functioning, in health and so on, so there's no need really to go on with the problem unattended. So talk to a doctor whenever insomnia results in distress or results in impairment in daytime functioning.
|
SUMMARY
