What Is Insomnia?

What is Insomnia?

Insomnia is difficulty in initiating and/or maintaining sleep. It is a term that is used often to indicate any and all stages and types of sleep loss. Insomnia is not a disorder, it is a symptom.

There are different kinds of insomnia:

· Sleep Onset Insomnia (Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome): A disorder in which the major sleep episode is delayed in relation to the desired clock time that results in symptoms of sleep onset insomnia or difficulty in awakening at the desired time.

· Idiopathic Insomnia: A lifelong inability to obtain adequate sleep that is presumably due to an abnormality of the neurological control of the sleep-wake system. The insomnia is long-standing, commonly beginning in early childhood, sometimes since birth.

· Psychophysiological Insomnia: A disorder of somatized tension (conversion of anxiety into physical symptoms) and learned sleep-preventing association that results in a complaint of insomnia and associated decreased functioning during wakefulness.

· Childhood Insomnia (Limit-Setting Sleep Disorder): Primarily a childhood disorder that is characterized by the inadequate enforcement of bedtimes by a caretaker with resultant stalling or refusal to go to bed at the appropriate time.

Another kind of insomnia that generally affects children is called Sleep-Onset Association Disorder. This disorder occurs when sleep onset is impaired by the absence of a certain object or set of circumstances, such as being held, rocked or nursed; television watching, radio listening, etc. ( Could be true for the Peanuts cartoon character Linus and his blanket?)

· Food Allergy Insomnia: A disorder of initiating and maintaining sleep due to an allergic response to food allergens. It is typically associated with the introduction of a new food or drink, i.e., cow's milk.

· Enviornmental Insomnia (Enviornmental Sleep Disorder): A sleep disturbance due to a disturbing environmental

factor that causes a complaint of either insomnia or excessive sleepiness. (How about the garbage man or the leaf blower early in the morning!?)

· Transient Insomnia (Adjustment Sleep Disorder): Represents sleep disturbance temporally related to acute stress, conflict or environmental

change causing emotional