[Davy]

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/01/170127113010.htm

[Martin Reed]

“Researchers took blood samples from 11 pairs of identical twins with different sleep patterns…”

So, the study did not involve individuals with chronic insomnia. Therefore, that study does not support the idea that chronic insomnia suppresses the immune system.

I’m going to withdraw from this discussion now since it’s not constructive for me to evaluate all the sleep-related studies out there in order to demonstrate why they do not apply to chronic insomnia!

Insomnia is awful. It makes you feel lousy. It can make the day harder. It can make you feel frustrated, worried, anxious, and alone. However, there is no evidence that chronic insomnia causes any disease or health problem. Such concerns are natural and understandable (after all, we are bombarded with inaccurate sleep messages on a near-daily basis by the media) — but they are not accurate and they are certainly not helpful.

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If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.

The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.

[Daf]

Thanks for the comments Martin. Very useful and fair.

[Deb]

Hi Frozen Sun – Yes! You can be your own therapist. Here’s some books to check out that will be helpful:

“The Effortless Sleep Method” by Sasha Stephens

“End the Insomnia Struggle” by Colleen Ehrnstrom

“The Sleep Book” by Dr. Guy Meadows

You can find them all at http://www.Amazon.com.

The last one has a different approach to treating insomnia than the first two mentioned. You can see which method appeals to you and then try it. All say that drugs and medications are NOT the answer! This is because the cause of insomnia is mental and not physical. Therefore, taking a chemical to change your brain chemistry does not solve the problem. Your thinking needs to change, not something in your body.

 

[jazzcat22]

Deb, I do agree that there is a psychological component to insomnia (it can be said that there is a psychological component to everything we experience), but don’t you think there can be a physiological component as well?  I admit I was convinced that I had too much cortisol at night since I was never getting sleepy and a cortisol test showed that wasn’t the case.  But what about older people making less melatonin?  What about hormonal changes at menopause? Restless legs?  Sleep apnea?  Research is just starting about adenosine, the neurotransmitter that makes people sleepy—very possible that people have differing levels.  And research has already shown that people with insomnia have 30% less GABA:

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2579978/

[Martin Reed]

Thanks for your contribution, jazzcat.

Sleepiness and adenosine levels are linked — higher levels of adenosine mean higher levels of sleepiness. The only way to create sleepiness is through wakefulness and daytime activity. One reason why CBT-I is so effective is that it helps strengthen sleep drive through bedtime restriction and stimulus control. So, you go to bed when sleep drive (and adenosine levels) are high enough for sleep.

The study you linked to did not conclude that people with insomnia have 30% less GABA. It only involved 16 individuals, the study findings were preliminary, and they still need to be replicated. It is also worth mentioning that the research was funded by a drug company (perhaps no surprise since many sleep medications target the GABA system).

If GABA deficiency was the cause of insomnia, then insomnia would be cured with GABA supplements. However, GABA deficiency is not the cause of chronic insomnia and so insomnia does not get cured when people take GABA supplements (or sleeping pills that target the GABA system).

(Another study published in 2012 — four years after the study you shared — found that people with insomnia had higher GABA levels!)

There are only three causes of chronic insomnia disorder. These are:

1. Homeostatic disruption (ie, reduced sleep drive)

2. Circadian disruption (ie an inappropriate or inconsistent sleep schedule)

3. High levels of arousal (physiological arousal, cognitive arousal, and/or conditioned arousal)

There can be an unlimited number of initial triggers of sleep problems, but every case of chronic insomnia disorder is down to one or more of the above three causes. These are the issues that need to be addressed if someone with chronic insomnia wants to improve their sleep for the long-term!

—

If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.

The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.

[Deb]

Agree with Martin. If you address all the physical issues, then you’re left with the mental. My husband has Parkinson’s and gets up a lot due to restless legs, needing to go to the bathroom often, and muscle aches and pains. He is also older. Yet he does not have insomnia because he deals with things, and then goes back to bed and falls asleep right away. He does not worry about his sleep.

[frozensun]

I was very ill yesterday,I felt exhausted,tired but couldn’t sleep,and I almost felt like I don’t feel legs anymore.

A friend of my took me to local doctor and I had high blood pressure,not normal for me,since I always have low blood pressure.

Me and doctor spoke about all what I went through my life.

She said that insomnia is kind of my secondary problem,and it won’t go away until I don’t find somehow a way to beat it,no doctor can help me unless I make some changes in my life.Hmm weird.

I read a lot about insomnia and because I work in rotating shifts,one thing which came to my mind was shiftwork sleep disorder.But then again I couldn’t sleep when I was off-work for more then a year,which is awkward.Seems like the brain is somehow stuck in some weird circadian disorder maybe.

She suggested me to try hypnosis.Anyone tried it,did it help?

Btw thx for your support guys.I should go tonight to work but I took day off,I feel very exhausted and tired,with lack of concentration and almost like in some dream state,like a drunk person.

I went to hospital to ask my psychiatrist about this condition cuz I was affraid I got psychosis and she told me no,i’ts some dissociative symptoms,like nothing so serious.

I am so afraid of getting psychosis from insomnia because some psychiatrist told me it can sadly happen,and I worry about it.

[Davy]

psychoses i think rarely occur.    my longest i been awake one time was 4 days.    my symptoms were like the flu my heart was beating faster .   i had fever chestpain you name it but i did not start to hallucinate.           my concentration was less I could hardly make sentences or I had to concentrate hard.    and my vision was getting blurry because my eyes feel like the where burning. but before you go in to a psychoses stade i think you need to be awake for even much longer. i hope this gife you some confort

[Daf]

I tried to be hypnotised twice but I did not “go under” at all. Did not work for me

[frozensun]

I do suffer a lot from memory loss.I constantly loose things around house,I sometimes even don’t know where I parked a car.This is frustrating and agony.

But the worse thing is loosing expensive things like wallet,keys,cellphone.I somehow do manage to find them,but I forget where I put them.

One thing which worries me,I did blood test because I feel very exhausted,tired these days.

And there was one analysis which indicates I have allergy.

Is there any correlation between allergy and insomnia?

I read somewhere that allergy makes your body to produce histamine which makes you awake.

So I don’t know if this is true or not.I did some basic tests on allergy and got result that I’m allergic to dust.

[frozensun]

I feel tired in the past few days,very tired,exhausted,so I’m afraid if something bad is happening to me maybe tyroid problems or must be sleep deprivation?

[GoldenOllie]

Hi frozensun. I’m in this forum because my boyfriend cried for you. He also has insomnia for 3 years now and lives with sleeping pills every night. He was really depressed and lived in fear in the first 2 years. Very moody, often to have gastric pain and chest pain (due to panic attack), and sometimes flu.

But the good news is, he is ok now. Some nights he has sleepless night, but he is not as frantic as he was. He’s learning to accept his condition and surrender to God. After all, his life is in His hand. The more you hold your life, the harder you breathe.

I just want to ask,

[GoldenOllie]

What would you do if you know your health problem is caused by your insomnia? Wouldn’t it make you more depressed? You would spend your day pitying yourself.

What im trying to say is stop focusing on your sleep.

do you live by yourself? Anything you like to do or what are you passionate about?

Maybe you can share it with me.

 

[frozensun]

Well since insomnia started back in 2015,last year I started having serious health issues.

What first hit me was gastric problems like your boyfriend,gastritis,constant nausea,loss of apetite,bad digestion.and above all I know I have hiatal hernia.The more stress I had the bigger problems I had with my stomach.

Back in 2018 problems started with lungs.I went 2-3 times to ER because of loss of breath,given corticosteroid inhalations and it only helped temporary.Did X-Ray of lungs and it wasn’t good and I never smoke cig in my life.It took them 3 months of my sore cough that they figure out via MRI od lungs I had pneumonia and got allergy to those micro organisms which live in dust,don’t know how to spell it in english.But there is not much to do about it.The diagnosis: alergic asthma

Insomnia kept hitting me,I could lay in bed over day tired as hell,my brain simply won’t shut off.

Psychiatrist kept presribing me antidepressants I took them all,no help for insomnia,and I told them they even make my insomnia worse and my mood don’t improve at all so after 3 years I insisted to took me off them.

Now I take 1 mg of klonopin+7.5 mg of mogadon which makes me fall asleep for like 5 h but I feel very tired,sleepy when waking up,like I didn’t sleep at all.But that combo is the only solution to skip taking neuroleptic drugs for insomnia.

But very often I feel so depressed that I want to commit suicide but I don’t have fucking guts to to so.

I went to like 20 doctors didn’t get any help,they only told me the problem is ME,my life.

I live with 2 sick parrents,which I love them so much,but seems like they take all energy from me,beeing so sick

My passion is everything with computers,I’d like to build them,I have many notebooks and desktop pcs,but I lost will for life,so I don’t pay attention to them anymore.

I like to play pc games too,but nowdays they make me so tired so I skipped playing them because insomnia makes me so tired,and that little energy what is left I need to save for job obliggations.

The only possibly solution is maybe change city,country,find a new job,but even after that I’m not sure if it would help,seems like my brain is stuck in some kind of circadian sleep disorder and can not reset it self.

What I was told is that first step would be to quit job,but I really can’t find another one,because this is my forth job,and personally I’m not sure if this insomnia hell would end up even with that,because as I wrote you before I was off-work for more then a year,I couldn’t fall asleep.

Now doctors can’t do anything to help me,I’m left by myself,and I’m so close to commit suicide,because I can’t find a way to help myself and I keep getting more and more sick,and I want to end up this AGONY.

[Author]

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