Why Can’t I Sleep? Do I have Insomnia?

October 9, 2006 

A commonly believed misconception is that insomnia simply means that a person is not ale to sleep for days at a time.  However, that is not entirely the case.  Insomnia refers to anytime time that a person is having trouble with their sleeping habits.  Whether the problem is falling asleep, staying asleep, waking up earlier than you’d like to in the morning, or when you do wake up in the morning, you still feel tired and as if you didn’t get enough rest.  Having only one or more of these sleeping problems is enough to say that you have insomnia. Insomnia isn’t necessarily your fault.  The human body is programmed so that it gets tired at night time and is alert and awake during the day.  This pattern of sleep and alertness is known as the sleep-wake cycle.  This natural cycle can sometimes be easily disturbed or disrupted because of numerous different factors.  Insomnia can be induced by things such as the stressors of everyday life, being sick, anxiety, jet lag, and other factors such as these.  Insomnia is not uncommon, and it is not something that you can just make up; it happens to millions of people every year.