Can't Sleep? Common Causes Of Insomnia

The human body can function optimally if along with the other basic fundamental needs such as clean air, water, and food you allow yourself adequate good nights’ sleep. During sleep body rests and recover from the stresses of the day. Lack of sleep or disturbed sleep interferes with this recovery process thereby, making you susceptible to a wide variety of stress-related health issues.

Everybody experiences sleep disturbances at some point in their lifetime. Hectic schedule, personal or professional duties may drive anybody to have sleepless nights. But, be wary of these occasional sleep troubles becoming a routine affair. 

We know that disturbed sleep even for a single night can bring about certain biochemical changes in the body to significantly affect the cognitive and physical functioning thereby resulting in a wide range of impaired daytime functions across emotional, social, and physical domains. Compared with good sleepers, people with persistent sleep troubles are more prone to accidents, decreased quality of life, have higher rates of work absenteeism, and increased health care utilization.

Insomnia causes would differ from person to person depending upon the variety of factors like lifestyle, concomitant medical conditions, and life situations they are subjected to, but here are the :

• Stress and worry, as well as mental disorders such as anxiety and depression, can interfere with sleep. The relationship between sleep and depressive illness is complex, depression may cause sleep problems and sleep troubles may contribute to depressive disorders. Abundance of research indicates that people who experience disrupted sleep are more likely to develop depression and other psychiatric disorders. 
• Chronic pain -- Pain can make it hard to get to sleep. It’s estimated that 50-80% of chronic pain patients report sleep disturbances. Severe pain associated with arthritis, fibromyalgia, and gout can keep people awake and other painful conditions like back pain, headaches, menstrual cramps can significantly compromise the normal sleep.
• Chronic health conditions such as cardiac failure, thyroid problem, renal disorders, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease may have associated insomnia. Moreover, long-term use of certain medications like thyroid preparations, corticosteroids, antidepressants, blood pressure medications, stimulant medicines for ADHD can cause insomnia as a side effect.
•  Shift workers who work outside traditional 9 to 5 day time work hours; frequent Travellers who travel in different time zones; and any schedule change that keeps the person up too long is likely to impair the normal biological circadian rhythm. Impaired circadian rhythm is clearly associated with abnormal cortisol secretion profiles. Chronically elevated cortisol is a biomarker for stress and is associated with many chronic diseases of the modern day.
• Excessive use of common stimulants like caffeine, nicotine, and recreational drugs may hinder the normal sleep pattern. 

     Be cautious, make wise lifestyle choices, be physically and socially active, seek help to address the stress and last not but not the least sleep well to avoid getting caught in the vicious cycle of sleeplessness and high stress.

Sleep well...