Living With Chronic Insomnia

Chronic insomnia is defined as sleeping poorly or not at all for a long series of time, such as a few months or more. There is a variety of causes of chronic insomnia that are known to physicians and, in all likelihood, a wider variety of causes to this illness that are not known. Stress, anxiety, depression, other diseases, pain, medications and their side effects, other related sleep disorders, or poor sleeping and poor lifestyle habits can all have a contributing piece to the insomnia puzzle. You should examine your life for these factors if you are experiencing insomnia on a chronic or even minute basis.

One of the best ways to combat chronic insomnia is with the replacement of bad sleep habits with good sleep habits. The first thing that needs to happen is the establishment of a regular sleeping schedule. Go to bed and rise at the same time every day of the week, including weekends and days where you do not have a place to be at a certain time. This established regularity will create a pattern in your biochemical reactions that could contribute to a better sleeping ideology within. Do not attempt to move your sleeping patterns around without carefully establishing them with some regularity, especially if you have insomnia.

Other Factors

Another factor to consider in the fight against chronic insomnia is to eliminate caffeine from your diet, especially after noon. With this, you should also exercise regularly. Regular exercise means a daily form of exertion that will use up your body’s energy cells and require rest to recuperate. You should not exercise too closely to your established sleeping period time. As nicotine is a stimulant, you should also consider giving up smoking for the benefits not only of your health overall, but also to your chronic insomnia and the symptoms related to it.

Use your bed only for sleep and sexual activity. If your body begins to associate the bed with other things, such as eating or reading, it may not know how to react when you are in it. Hopefully training your body to see the bed as a place of sleep does not impede your sexual activity in bed, but if it does you can try other areas for that activity as well. Treating chronic insomnia is about making compromises and tough decisions, and your sex life may have to suffer for some time before it is cured.