Print this pageAuthor: Alvaro Castillo
Insomnia is so much part of "the blues" that problems with sleep are actually described as 1 of the major identifying symptoms for diagnosing depression. More than 90% of all patients with depression report that they have difficulty falling and or staying asleep.
The problem is particularly severe for patients with recurring depression. Early identification and treatment of insomnia in a depressed patient is important.
Proper treatment not only helps the insomnia, but resolving sleep problems also seeps to help patients to do a better job of sticking with their treatment plans. Alleviating insomnia also improves overall functioning and performance for depressed patients.
Tell your doctor if you're depressed and having trouble sleeping. You should avoid certain popular antidepressants. They stimulate serotonin receptors in the brain and change sleep patterns, producing insomnia.
However, antidepressants that block the stimulation of serotonin receptors actually help people with depression get to sleep more quickly, and sleep better longer.
Classifying the types of insomnia
Treating insomnia isn't easy. Insomnia is a blanket term that actually covers many variations of sleeplessness. Make sure your doctor determines what type of insomnia you have so that he can prescribe the most effective treatment.
Insomnia can be classified in several different ways, according to what part of the night's sleep is disturbed, how long the sleeplessness lasts, what causes sleeplessness. If you conjure up an image, you probably picture someone counting sheep but never getting sleep.
This picture is misleading. Several different patterns of wakefulness can interfere with your slumber and all can keep you from getting a refreshing night's sleep. When you can't fall asleep when you want to, the problem could be related to a number of factors
This may include stress, environmental factors like a hot room or a coexisting condition like depression. A very common cause of sleep-onset insomnia is a circadian rhythm disorder called delayed sleep phase syndrome (DSPS).
Whatever the cause, the longer you go without being able to fall asleep easily, the more difficult falling asleep seems to become and for the condition to become chronic. People who can't fall asleep when they go to bed have sleep-onset insomnia.
Among healthy adults ½ fall asleep in 5½ minutes or less, and the other ½ requires at 10 minutes. Several studies have shown that a person with sleep-onset insomnia requires an average of 60 to 90 minutes to fall asleep after going to bed.
If you continually awake for no discernible reason during the night, you have sleep-maintenance insomnia.
If you fall asleep easily, but can't stay asleep, or if you keep waking up throughout the night and lie awake for at least a half hour before going back to sleep, or never seem to fall back into a truly refreshing deep sleep at all, you have a general form of sleep-maintenance insomnia.
This type of insomnia produces particularly poor sleep quality and sufferers may feel exhausted and unrefreshed upon awakening in the morning
If you awaken too early (sometimes as early as 3 of 4am), and have difficulty getting back to sleep you have early morning awakening insomnia, or what's also called terminal insomnia because it takes place at the terminal or end stage of asleep.
You can fall asleep, but you just can't stay asleep for the entire night. After you're awake, you're tremendously frustrated. As a result, you can't get back to sleep again no matter what you do, so you end up sleeping fewer hours than you need to feel restored, which results in extreme fatigue and daytime sleepiness.
If you have this type of insomnia, you may wake up in the middle of the night and remain wide awake for a few distressing hours before falling back to sleep. But when you wake up at your normal time you're groggy from having missed those restful hours.
Alvaro Castillo has been writing health articles for five years. One of his specializations has been on nighttime health, such as insomnia, as well as stress and headaches. To get the best out of your sleep, or if you want to get rid of stress check out his website at http://www.mynighttimehealth.com
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