Insomnia as a Mind-Body Disorder

In my clinical and research experience, I have been surprised how often chronic insomnia is linked to physical sleep problems. In particular, we have found that many insomniacs suffer from sleep-disordered breathing. The biggest surprise, though, is how often insomniacs believe their sleep problems are only due to mental or psychological factors or due to some chemical imbalances in the brain.

Having suffered from insomnia myself, I've always been impressed with how well drug-free, psychological therapies work. They are far superior to medications. However, I was amazed when I realized that treating my sleep breathing problems almost completely cured me of insomnia.

I think it is important for more patients with chronic insomnia to realize that their bouts of sleeplessness may be directly linked to physical sleep problems, which they might never have imagined possible. Yet, in my work, I find sleep breathing problems in more than 50% of my patients with a primary complaint of insomnia. And, remarkably the majority of these individuals have no awareness of any obvious sleep breathing symptoms such as snoring or apneas. When we test them in a sleep lab, though, they usually suffer from obstructive sleep apnea or upper airway resistance syndrome.

Hoping you have a great holiday, a happy new year, and a lot more Sound Sleep in the years ahead.

For me, "insomnia" is cause by a mental problem wich may be produced by a thought or past remember of an extreme experience of any kind, wich causes your body not wanna go asleep, I control it with mariguana or simply I dont sleep because sleeping for me is just a "state" of the mind, actually your brain never stops working, so for me its the same lying in my bed thinking with my eyes open than with my eyes closed.