Insomnia and Hypersomnia: Some Sleep Hygiene Guidelines

Are you having trouble sleeping? Do you wake up in the middle of the night? Are you excessively sleepy during the day? You may have a sleep disorder and don't know it. The sleep disorders they are quite common and have disabling consequences on a day-to-day basis. For example, they cause fatigue, poor performance, social unrest, low spirits and can be the cause of traffic or work accidents.

In this PsychologyOnline article, we talk about the insomnia and hypersomnia and we show some guidelines for improving sleep hygiene and get a good night's sleep.

Index

1. The insomnia
2. Hypersomnia
3. Factors influencing the quality of sleep
4. Guidelines for good sleep hygiene

Perhaps the best known sleep disorder is insomnia, something that we have all suffered at some time. Insomnia can be common in specific high-stress situations (exams, health problems, vital changes important, etc.) but it can become chronic that is no longer directly related to the problem that caused. In order for us to speak of insomnia at the level of illness or disorder, it must occur commonly (3 or more nights a week). Indicators of insomnia can be waking up involuntarily before resting six and a half hours, waking up several times during the night without being able to fall asleep again for more than half an hour or taking more than half an hour to fall asleep when lie.

Insomnia is defined by a lack of nighttime sleep and can be two types mainly:

• Conciliation insomnia: Difficulty getting to sleep
• Insomnia from early awakening: He falls asleep easily, but wakes up very early, unable to fall asleep.

Causes of insomnia

• Depression: The characteristic is insomnia of early awakening
• Anxiety: The characteristic is conciliation insomnia
• Environmental Factors (excess light, ambient noise, shared room, bed and pillow different from the usual ones, interruption of the sleep to administer medication) that usually cause insomnia from frequent awakenings with great difficulty to reconcile the dream.
• Excessive time in bed
• Daytime naps
• Boredom with lack of activity and / or daytime stimuli
• Nocturia (urinating at night), pain.

Insomnia treatment

• Pharmacological: It is up to the doctor to prescribe them and in his assessment he must have correct information from the affected person and his family. This treatment should be limited to a short period of time. The chronic taking of hypnotics generates dependence and sleep disorders caused by the medication that later will be very difficult to correct.
• Non-pharmacological: Sleep hygiene rules.

Sleep hygiene measures

• Lie down to sleep only when you are sleepy
• Do not do any activity in bed other than sleep (avoid reading, watching TV, listening to the radio, do not think about problems or activities that you must do the next day).
• If 10 minutes after you went to bed you have not been able to fall asleep, get up and do a relaxing activity (listening to music, reading)
• Lie down again when you feel sleepy again
• If you are still unable to sleep when you are back in bed, repeat the same operation as many times as necessary.
• If you wake up during the night after falling asleep and do not fall asleep again for 10 minutes, follow the instructions above.
• Always get up at the same time, regardless of how long you have slept.
• Don't sleep during the day

Other useful measures

• Avoid exciting or large meals during the afternoon
• Perform gentle exercise throughout the day. Do not do it before going to bed as it excites
• Maintain a comfortable temperature in the room and inside the bed (neither excess nor lack)
• Perform relaxation measures prior to sleep with a quiet musical environment in the background and without forcing the act of sleeping

Less known are the hypersomnias, that is, the excess sleep during the day: there are different syndromes and manifestations with different causes. For example, in the narcolepsy-cataplexy syndrome It is characterized by uncontrollable sleep attacks, episodes of paralysis during sleep, hallucinations when falling asleep and / or cataplexy (loss of muscle tone).

Another syndrome, Sleep apnea, affects mainly (although not only) hypertensive and obese. In apnea, breathing ceases for longer or shorter periods of sleep, which can lead to heart, neurological and social problems. There are medical treatments for apnea, such as the application of a continuous intake oxygen mask.

Other disorders are related to sleep-wake rhythms. For example, there is the world famous Jet lag that occurs when making a long trip, usually by plane, which involves changing the time zone. This means that the body has to readjust to the new hourly cycles, something that costs some people more than others. A related problem is the one that occurs in work shift rotations, in which people have to work some days during the day and others at night. The only solution here is to try to organize your shifts and sleeping hours.

People can adopt practices that help minimize the incidence of sleep problems and promote normal sleep. First of all, say that there are a number of factors that affect the quality of sleep, such as the environment, physical exercise, diet or the use of substances:

1. Substance use: Everyone knows that caffeine affects sleep, as it is a stimulant. In fact, we all associate coffee with "waking up", not with "falling asleep." Nicotine has a similar stimulating effect. On the other hand, alcohol produces an effect that can go unnoticed by most. Although it is a depressant and can make it easier to fall asleep in a moment, the quality of sleep is worse, so its abuse should be avoided.
2. Atmosphere: Our body needs a certain environment of noise, light, temperature and humidity suitable for sleep. The temperature should oscillate between 18 and 22 ºC and the humidity between 40 and 70%. Of course the light must be dim and we must avoid excessive noise.
3. Exercise: Although this depends on the intensity of the activity that is carried out, it is recognized that physical exercise favors the sleep when done in the morning or mid-afternoon, while it can be negative if we do it before Go to sleep.
4. Diet: A diet rich in carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals increases the quality of sleep, while proteins promote wakefulness. Strong meals before sleep decrease their quality.

Starting from this, we can have a series of guidelines that facilitate sleep:

1. Do not abuse substances such as coffee, tobacco or alcohol, especially before going to sleep, and do not take drugs to sleep without medical supervision.
2. Eat dinner a reasonable time before going to bed (between 2 and 3 hours before) and make sure that the dinners are neither too few nor too abundant.
3. Create a sleep habit, always getting up and going to bed at approximately the same time.
4. The bedroom must have the appropriate environmental conditions. The bed should be comfortable for us (not too soft and not too hard). The temperature, light, humidity and noise conditions must be controlled.
5. Exercise often, this is healthy in general, not just for sleep. If possible, do it in the morning and avoid doing it at the last minute.
6. Avoid spending a lot of time awake in bed, as we must prevent the body from getting used to it.
7. Slow down your mental and physical activity as bedtime approaches. For example, read something light or listen to relaxed music, but don't watch action movies or play video games.

Think about the importance of this, we spend a third of our lives sleeping, is it not worth it that we do it in the best possible conditions?

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

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