10 Signs of Insomnia

To those who have never suffered from insomnia, it is a term that is often tossed about, likely incorrectly, and used to describe a difficulty in sleeping. To those who have or do suffer from this condition, it can be all-encompassing and have a negative impact on just about every aspect of their lives.

While there can be no doubt that insomnia is a sleep-related condition, it goes much deeper than that in its causes and the way in which it can present itself.

Medically speaking, insomnia is a sleep disorder that is distinguished by difficulty falling and/or staying asleep. This also includes waking up often throughout the night and has difficulty falling back asleep; waking up earlier than desired in the morning and feeling tried once you are awake.
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In order to better understand and in turn, more fully try and treat insomnia, doctors broke it down into two main types; primary insomnia and secondary insomnia.

Primary insomnia means that a person is having sleep problems that are not directly associated with any other health condition or problem. On the inverse, we have secondary insomnia, which means that a person is having sleep problems because of something else, such as a health condition. These could include everything from asthma to anxiety, medication to heartburn.

To further help diagnose and treat insomnia, doctors again divided insomnia into another two types; acute insomnia and chronic insomnia, which refers to the duration and the regularity of the insomnia. It was also through this division that doctors, researchers and health professionals where able to get a more complete picture of the causes of insomnia, both acute and chronic. Generally speaking, acute insomnia can last from one night to a few weeks, while chronic insomnia is when a person experiences sleepless three nights a week or more for longer than a month.

With insomnia being such heavily discussed and multifaceted condition, we have taken the time to sort through the facts and present you with indicators that might help you diagnose whether you are just having a bad few nights, or if there might be something bigger lying under the service. So without further ado, we present 10 Signs That You Have Insomnia.

1. Difficulty Falling Asleep and Waking Up

By now, if you didn’t know before it should be clear that insomnia is a condition characterized by an inability to sleep. For most, this usually thought of on only one end of the spectrum, which is falling asleep. While this is a symptom of insomnia, it is not the only way that it can present itself when it comes to your sleeping habits.

Sleeping is, in and of itself, a two-fold process. On the one hand, we have falling asleep, or in this case, difficulty falling asleep. But it is also important to remember the other side of the equation, which is waking up. Ideally, this happens after a straight 7-8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. However, as is often the case with people suffering from insomnia, waking up throughout the night and waking up in the morning still tired are both signs that you might be suffering from a bout of insomnia.

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