Definition
Problems in falling asleep and associated insomnia are characterized by a discrepancy between the need for sleep and subjective sleep ability. They are the most common form of insomnia. In order to speak of insomnia and insomnia of falling asleep and staying asleep through the night, symptoms must occur during the day and last for at least four weeks.
Epidemiology
More than 30% of the population suffer at least temporarily from problems falling asleep and sleeping through the night.
Symptoms
Characteristic symptoms of this are Over the day complaints like: Severe problems with falling asleep and sleeping through can cause somatic symptoms such as
- Increased sleep times
- Increased nocturnal waking phases
- Twitching when falling asleep
- Early morning awakening with sufficient bedtime
- Also a subjectively reduced recovery function
- Performance limitations in the form of attention and memory disorders
- Tiredness
- General indisposition
- Exhaustion
- Reduction of motivation, drive and initiative
- Tendency to work mistakes or accidents in road traffic
- Mattness
- Irritability
- Increased irritability
- Mood impairments
- Professional restrictions
- Social retreat especially in the evening hours
- Concern for sleep disorders
- Muscle aches
- Headaches
- And gastrointestinal problems
Classification
The primary problems of falling asleep and difficulty sleeping through can be divided into eight different forms:
- Primary forms, which are independent sleep disorders that are not caused by other diseases
- Secondary forms, where the sleep disorder is a symptom of another disease
- Adaptation-related or acute difficulties in falling and staying asleep are triggered by a specific stressor
- Psychophysiological insomnia and insomnia in the context of a psychophysiological complex of symptoms that occur in connection with learned or sleep-inhibited behavior patterns
- Paradoxical insomnia is characterized by complaining about a sleep disorder without objective evidence of one
- Idiopathic insomnia and insomnia caused by falling asleep in childhood without any apparent cause
- Insomnia and insomnia in the context of a mental disorder is a symptom of an underlying mental illness
- Insomnia due to inadequate sleep hygiene means that it is a disorder with mostly unconscious sleep-incompatible behavior
