Insomnia

Insomnia is a sleep disorder that affects about 10% of the population of America, with about 30% having symptoms. The main characteristics of Insomnia are the inability to fall asleep, and/or stay asleep.

Chronic sleeplessness has been around since the beginning of time, but only in the late Victorian Era, was there a term to describe it as a disorder. The funny thing is though, that before generally more recent times, Insomnia- or a form of it- was considered normal. Before the early 20th century it was normalized for people to sleep in intervals, usually consisting of a “first” and “second” sleep throughout the night, with about an hour of wakefulness in between. This now would be considered one of the most common traits of insomnia: not being able to sleep through the whole night. So this begs the question, could the modern societal convention of what sleep should look like be one of the reasons we don’t get enough sleep?

In 1809 with the invention of artificial light, the population slowly transitioned to one consolidated sleep period, and around the same time, the term “Insomnia” emerged, and there was a sudden epidemic. Some historians believe that Insomnia is, in fact, a remnant of pre-industrial sleeping patterns and that another contributor is that after segmented sleep became less popular, it was deemed as “strange”. 

Nowadays because of the “normal” sleep pattern, and the fact that we no longer naturally go to sleep at sundown, waking up in the middle of the night is seen as problematic, and can in fact cause problems with focus and energy levels in the day. 

Insomnia is something we are seeing more and more in teenagers recently. The recommended amount of sleep for people ages between about 13 and 18 is 8 to 10 hours per night, though most people in this age group don’t get that much sleep. So… why?

Well, everyone has something called a circadian rhythm, which is the natural time that your body wants to go to bed for the night, and wake up in the morning, and it used to depend on when the sun set and rose but that’s not true anymore. When humans go through puberty, the time their body produces the hormone melatonin (the hormone that makes you sleepy) is set back by about 2 hours. And so teenagers can no longer be expected to go to sleep at the same time as they did when they were younger.

Now, the average time that public high schools and middle schools begin is between 8 and 9 AM in North America, and with the time needed to get ready in the morning, and the time needed to commute to school, most teenagers are forced to wake up sometime between 6 and 7 AM, but because of their circadian rhythm, and the time that their bodies produce the hormones necessary for them to go to sleep, this bedtime is often unattainable.

Now Insomnia is a disorder that affects your everyday life because sleep is directly tied to how your brain functions, in fact, a 2023 study found that sleep has a housekeeping function that removes toxins that your brain builds up while awake. Chronic Insomnia Disorder has an even bigger effect on us. Think about how you feel after a night with minimal sleep, then think about feeling like that all the time. When you don’t sleep and have too many toxins in your brain, it will be harder to concentrate and your thoughts may feel foggy. Sleep, and lack of it, also has an effect on your amygdala which often controls your mood, and you may find that when you’re tired you have less patience. This is also an extension of having less energy and being unable to do everything that you would normally do in a day.

Being tired and easily distracted often makes people with insomnia come across as rude or cranky. This stereotype comes with many disorders that affect your mood. I think we also have to keep in mind that, though of course there is a limited amount of slack to give in a workplace, people struggling with sleep disorders should be approached with the mindset that they are struggling to do their best, with low energy. 

Insomnia is a disorder with quite a bit of undeserved stigma surrounding it. As I mentioned earlier people with Insomnia are often stereotyped and misjudged, as well as the fact that though for some time Insomnia has been a medically valid disorder, lots of people are still doubtful. This mindset is potentially harmful to people who struggle with the disorder. Disorders and medical conditions concerning sleep are often unfortunately dismissed as something that the patient can control, and that “they just aren’t trying hard enough” or that “everyone has trouble sleeping sometimes.”

There are some things that can be done about Insomnia but there is unfortunately no cure. The method that works best to treat it depends on the patient. For some people altering their sleeping environment, and closely following healthy sleep guides may help, but this often doesn´t work for chronic Insomnia patients. For some people over-the-counter drugs may work, such as melatonin gummies, or prescriptions for melatonin, but once again it´s case-to-case. There are other more serious medical treatments for Insomnia, such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (or CBT-i)

But what if we didn’t need treatment for insomnia? What if we simply went back to our previous ways of segmenting sleep? Some think this could be the answer to the problem, but unfortunately, there is yet to be a mainstream scientific study on the thought. For now, it’s just something to think about. 

Works Cited

American Academy of Sleep Medicine | AASM | Medical Society, https://aasm.org/. Accessed 3 January 2025.

Verywell Health - Know More. Feel Better., https://www.verywellhealth.com/. Accessed 3 January 2025.

Martyr, Philippa. “A short history of insomnia and how we became obsessed with sleep.” The Conversation, 9 October 2023, https://theconversation.com/a-short-history-of-insomnia-and-how- we-became-obsessed-with-sleep-211729. Accessed 3 January 2025.