Dangers of Lack of Sleep; Why it is Important to Deal with Insomnia

The last few weeks I have found myself needing to deal with insomnia. This is something that hasn't been a problem for me in years, but the dangers of lack of sleep are already impacting my life. There are two main reasons for my current problems; one is that my two year old son keeps waking up in the night and the other reason is that I regularly need to pay early morning visits to the toilet. Once I wake up it can take me ages to get back to sleep. If I wake up and it is after 4am I just get up. This reduction in my sleeping hours means that I feel tired a lot and just don't have the same energy as usual.

What is insomnia?

There are actually a few forms of sleep disorder.

- Chronic insomnia means that people have a long history of not being able to sleep properly.

- Acute insomnia is where people have had the problem for more than three weeks

- Transient insomnia is where people have only needed to deal with insomnia for a short period

What are the dangers of lack of sleep?

I have previously seen how needing to deal with insomnia can really make people miserable. I have seen how it not only has physical impacts but can also lead to mental health problems. Here are some of the other dangers of lack of sleep.

- One of the first noticeable effects is that we feel tired and irritable all the time. It also means that we are less able to deal with stress. People with chronic insomnia can develop social problems and people can find them hard to be around.

- It leads to reduced mental performance and memory. I have noticed that working on the computer can be slower and more error prone when I haven't had a good night sleep.

- One of the dangers of lack of sleep is that it can lead to the development of type two diabetes. This is due to hormonal changes that happen due to lack of sleep.

- Lack of sleep can make people more prone to illness and disease.

- Studies suggest that those who don't get enough sleep tend to die younger.

The dangers of lack of sleep are enough to concern me. I am lucky in that there is a lot that I can do deal with insomnia. I am not sure how much I can do to about my son's sleeping habits but that is only part of the problem. I need to stop drinking coffee so near to bed time; it is just a habit that I'm finding hard to break. Caffeine is a diuretic and this is why I need to go for early morning visits to the toilet. Another bad habit I have is bringing my iPod touch with me to the toilet and checking my email. This usually gets my mind ticking and makes it hard to go back to sleep.

Dealing with insomnia is important for all of us. Some people will find it harder to deal with than others and those who suffer from chronic insomnia really do struggle with it. There does seem to be a lot of good advice out there on the web that people can use. I think the important thing is to stop transient insomnia from turning into chronic insomnia by doing all we can to deal with it quickly.

Sources

http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Dangers-of-Lack-of-Sleep&id=1585305

http://ezinearticles.com/?Lack-of-Sleep-Effects---The-Dangers-of-Sleeping-Troubles&id=2775954

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insomnia