Common Concerns
Insomnia: Definitions
Insomnia is the term encompassing all complaints of poor, insufficient, or non-refreshing sleep.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th Ed.) provides the following criteria for diagnosing Primary Insomnia:
- The predominant complaint is difficulty inciting or maintaining sleep or non-restorative sleep for at least one month
- The sleep disturbance (or associated daytime fatigue) causes significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
- The disturbance does not occur exclusively during the course of another sleep disorder, another mental disorder (e.g., depression), or as a result of substance use or general medical condition.
Although some people experience Primary Insomnia, often insomnia is a symptom of other disorders or conditions(see "Possible Causes").
Surveys indicate that between 20% and 35% of all adults report having occasional or frequent problems falling asleep. Insomnia has been linked to decreased work efficiency, increased prevalence of emotional tension, domestic and vocational adjustment difficulty, more frequent health problems and hospitalizations, and even an increased mortality rate. Sleep experiences vary across insomniacs and from night to night in individual insomniacs. Because insomniacs often cannot predict whether or not they will fall asleep easily on any given night, their anxiety about their insomnia grows. This anxiety in turn contributes to the problem.
Treating insomnia often entails treating the condition causing the insomnia (e.g., stress, depression) and relearning healthy sleep habits.