As with many other “conditions”, like obesity, diabetes, and sleeplessness, those who do not have the problem tend to look on those who do as being somehow at fault for their problems. If they only ate less, or watched their diet or got to bed earlier, they wouldn’t have those problems, the theory goes. Although in our minds we actually know that these are often medically-based disorders, we’d like to think that we have control of our own lives enough to be able to prevent such things from happening. So if someone else has them, it must be their own fault. Otherwise, those problems may belong to us someday. Ahhh…the human tendency to self-protect is natural.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a big proponent of lifestyle changes. Many researchers on aging have revealed that the way we age is about 25-30% biology and genetics, and 70-75% lifestyle. We do have a measure of control over some of the diseases we acquire and the speed and nature of our own aging process. It’s a well-known fact that good diet, adequate exercise and not smoking are significant assets to better heart health. But what of insomnia? Is that “our own fault” or something that can readily be fixed by simple sleep hygiene? For the many chronic insomniacs, who are as they are for a variety of poorly-understood reasons, things are not so simple.
While the state of sleep science is advancing greatly through research and practice, and in many ways through the professional efforts of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, there remains much that we don’t know. The relatively new field of chronobiology aims to study those with Sleep Phase Disorders, the severe night owl, who’s out-of-sync with the 8-5 work world, and the early evening sleeper, whose normal sleep cycle begins about the time most of us are getting home from work. For these individuals, we have to ask, is the world out of sync, or is it their sleep cycle? Unfortunately, many such individuals are required to conform to the hours and demands of a work world that begins too early or ends too late for their biology.
And is this, after all, a question of biology? We can help many go to sleep whose worries or anxieties keep them from getting into a normal nighttime sleep routine. We can help those who manage to go to sleep, but spend many useless hours trying to get back to sleep in the middle of the night when they awaken. We can help those where depression and sleep are close bedfellows. We’re making some great advances in the sleep-disordered breathing field. We can help those with sleep hygiene problems overcome the habits that lead to greater worries of going to sleep that compound what their original sleep problems were. As a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the American Psychological Association, Dr. Marcia Lindsey coaches by phone at www.thesleepdiva.com those with sleep problems to better, more targeted solutions to their sleep problems.
We are on the right track, but are really in the early stages of understanding some of the more complex and longstanding sleep disorders, and the sleep disorders in discrete populations. We know the consequences of poor sleep. But as one commenter to a recent sleep blog said, “patience and understanding are required” until research advances reach a place where we can help many other varieties of insomnia that are just emerging.
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