Identifying The Causes Of Chronic Insomnia

It’s bad enough that some people experience an occasional bout of insomnia. And occasional bout of insomnia will result in their spending a few days not being able to sleep, but eventually their body rhythms even out and they are able to resume a normal sleep pattern.

However, there are more serious cases of people having to cope with insomnia for extended periods of time. It gets very difficult to cope with. In order to be able to treat chronic insomnia, the causes of  chronic insomnia have to be identified and dealt with.

What Are The Causes Of Chronic Insomnia?

The causes of chronic insomnia are often the same things that cause occasional bouts of insomnia that eventually clear up. However, in people who have chronic insomnia, these causes persist for months and maybe even years at a time, so their condition becomes chronic.

Anxiety causes chronic insomnia. Everybody knows it – people start to worry about things like paying their bills or their personal relationships or work-related stress –  and all of their worrying prevents them from sleeping. When these worries persist, as sometimes they can especially in tough times, they cause chronic insomnia. People have trouble either falling asleep or staying asleep for days on end, and they are then diagnosed with chronic insomnia.

Higher levels of stress also cause chronic insomnia. When someone can’t let go of their anxiety, their worry then turns into stress. Stress hormones play havoc with the body. In particular, when the level of cortisol – which is linked to stress – in the body rises, it affects what’s called REM sleep.

Something else that causes chronic insomnia is problems with growth hormones. For most of a person’s life, their growth hormone cycles remain unchanged, but as they age, oftentimes the cycle gets thrown off course. Growth hormones are typically secreted throughout the body late at night so they can greatly affect an older person’s sleep cycle. Growth hormones also affect what’s called deep, slow-wave sleep; the older a person is, the less slow-wave sleep they typically achieve.

Another medical cause of insomnia is depression. Nearly everyone who suffers from depression reports they experience some sort of trouble sleeping. In fact, nearly 90% of people who suffer from depression also suffer from insomnia. Some people with depression have trouble falling asleep altogether, while others have disrupted sleep. Depression, stress and hormones are among just a few causes of chronic insomnia, but they are among the most common.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.