Lack of sleep

If you usually sleep only a few hours a night, it doesn’t mean that you have a lack of sleep. People usually vary in their need for sleep. Insomnia may cause problems during the day, such as tiredness, a lack of energy, difficulty concentrating, and irritability.

There are certain conditions which seem to make people more likely to experience a lack of sleep, among others:

• old age (insomnia occurs more frequently in those over age 60)
• women
• people with a history of depression

Take these and add to them stress, anxiety, a medical problem, or the use of certain medications, and you have a ready made recipe for lack of sleep.

By themselves there are many direct causes of a person experiencing transient (for a short period of time_ and intermittent (on and off) lack of sleep.

• stress
• environmental noise
• extreme temperature
• change in the surrounding environment
• sleep/wake schedule problems such as those due to jet lag
• medication side effects

If you’re having a chronic insomnia, the causes are more complex, resulting from a mix of factors including some physical or mental disorders, such as depression.

Other underlying causes include arthritis, kidney disease, heart failure, asthma, sleep apnea, narcolepsy, restless legs
syndrome, Parkinson’s disease, and hyperthyroidism. However, chronic lack of sleep, or insomnia, may also be due to behavioral factors, such as misuse of caffeine, alcohol, or other substances; disrupted sleep/wake cycles as may
occur with shift work or other nighttime activity schedules; and chronic stress.

There are some additional behaviours that enforce the lack of sleep symptoms in people, such as:

• expecting to have difficulty sleeping and worrying about it
• ingesting excessive amounts caffeine
• drinking alcohol before bedtime
• smoking cigarettes before bedtime
• excessive napping in the afternoon or evening
• irregular or continually disrupted sleep/wake schedules

As you can see, these behaviors may prolong existing lack of sleep, and they can also be responsible for causing the sleeping problem in the first place. As I mentioned before, stopping these behaviors may eliminate your lack of sleep altogether.