Do you sleep well? This is an essential question because insomnia is more than just feeling tired after a night of poor sleep. It is also a significant cause for many illnesses. The National Sleep Foundation states that between 30 and 40 percent of adults in the U.S. report having insomnia in the previous year, while 10 to 15 percent report chronic insomnia (trouble falling or staying asleep three or more nights per week). If you don’t sleep consistently well, it can lead to obesity, anxiety, depression, irritability, memory problems, a weak immune system, and various pain conditions. Insomnia is not a symptom to take lightly. But what’s keeping you awake? It could be any of the following issues.
Common Causes of Insomnia
There are many possible causes. Do you identify with any of these?
- Noisy/snoring partner
- Restless legs syndrome
- Jet lag
- Feeling too hot or too cold
- Working swing/graveyard shift
- Sexual craving
- Pregnancy
- Imbalanced hormones estrogen/progesterone/thyroid/cortisol
- Media technology devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, and others carried to bed have been proven to disrupt sleep patterns in children.
Medications
Medication side effects are a widespread underlying cause of insomnia. This extensive list of prescription medications has been proven to cause insomnia significantly:
- Alpha-blockers
- Beta-blockers
- Corticosteroids
- SSRI antidepressants
- ACE inhibitors
- ARBs
- Cholinesterase inhibitors
- H1 antagonists
- Glucosamine/chondroitin
- Statins
Moreover, numerous medical conditions can directly cause insomnia:
- Acid reflux often keeps you awake due to coughing.
- Arthritis and other types of chronic pain
- Asthma, nasal/sinus congestion, allergies, or sleep apnea – difficulties in breathing keep you awake.
- Depression is usually a combination of thoughts, emotions, and medications that can cause insomnia.
- Hyperthyroidism – thyroid hormone is energy-stimulating to your body and mind.
- Neurological conditions (e.g., Parkinson’s disease).
- Restless legs syndrome (affects as many as 10 percent of the US population).
- Foods – allergies to foods can cause an activation of neurochemicals that are activating in the brain, such as caffeine.
- Anxiety disorder (Generalized Anxiety, Post-Traumatic Stress, Obsessive-Compulsive, and Panic Disorders).
Stress and Insomnia
Everybody has some degree of stress in their lives, and it’s challenging to “turn off” those stressors and let your brain rest at night. If that’s your case, consider how you deal with stress during your waking hours. Take a moment to reflect on how you feel most of your day. While there may be moments when you feel great, is there a predominant worry thought you carry with you? Your mind tends to capture these predominant thoughts and worries/tensions, holding tight to them. Insomnia is the emotional “hangover” that occurs at the day’s end as you try to sleep.
These are just a few examples of the types of concerns that can dominate your thoughts on a consistent basis:
- Fear of financial troubles
- Stress in a relationship
- Worry about self-image
- Illness: the possibility of losing your health or early death
These subtle fears infest your mind and disrupt your ability to fall into a normal sleep state or stay asleep in the quiet night hours. Fear can be defined as False Expectations Appearing Real (FEAR). Fear and worry are a normal part of being human. Notice that it is easy to fall into fear about various topics. Your mind wanders and fixates, for a moment, on that fearful thought – the thing you don’t want to become real.
If you entertain fearful and worrisome thoughts longer than 17 seconds, you’ll create your worries, and they enter your physical body as anxiety and insomnia symptoms. In effect, you allow that fear thought to become your actual belief. That’s because the thoughts you keep thinking become your beliefs. Internal stress originates from incorrect beliefs and misinterpretations about your circumstances and yourself, according to Bruce Lipton, Ph.D., of Stanford University.
Your hormones, cortisol (the stress hormone), and melatonin (the sleep hormone) are counter-balanced with each other. When too much stress hormone is produced, your sleep hormone diminishes, and you can’t sleep.
Quieting the Concerns
Simply saying, “I’m not worried” does not remove the worry or the harmful physical feelings this creates in your body. Controlling stress starts with mind control. Fill your thoughts with the great possibilities of success and keep creating more options and possibilities in your mind of how it will all work out fine. Notice in hindsight that things always do work out somehow and for your best good. Unwanted thoughts that come into your mind can be politely discarded and immediately replaced with a positive alternative thought. Holding these new thoughts for at least 17 seconds will cause you to feel peace and happiness inside. Simultaneously, you may need to breathe slowly and deeply to calm your body.
