Short-term insomnia has a duration of one to three weeks.
– Most often it occurs with adjustment disorder : experiences about the death of a loved one, a chronic disease, including severe pain, skin diseases accompanied by itching. This type of insomnia is a consequence of severe and prolonged stressful situations: unemployment, change of place of residence (problems of refugees or IDPs), etc.
– Chronic somatic diseases such as angina pectoris, arterial hypertension, thyrotoxicosis, chronic respiratory and peptic ulcer diseases, prostate hypertrophy, Parkinson’s disease, arthrosis are often accompanied by short-term insomnia. With the positive results of the treatment of these diseases, pain or itchy dermatosis sleep is restored.
Other common causes of short-term insomnia are: sleep disturbance, snoring, restless legs syndrome and other disorders.
Chronic insomnia
Chronic insomnia lasts more than three weeks and is mainly associated with other diseases.
– If present, the likelihood of latent depression or anxiety disorder of the nervous system is increased .
– In addition, this type of insomnia is most common in older people , because with age, the duration of sleep normally decreases, and the psychological need for it remains the same.
– Quite often, chronic insomnia is a consequence of substance abuse (hashish, LSD, etc.) and alcohol . Psycho- stimulants , nootropics , some anti-depressants and antipsychotics include psychotropic drugs that cause insomnia .
Thus, the causes of insomnia are as follows:
– behavioral (non-compliance with the rules of sleep hygiene);
– medical (somatic diseases, pain);
– drug (stimulant drugs);
– circadian rhythm disorders;
– mental illness and neurosis;
– sleep disorders.
In this regard, the optimal approach to the treatment of insomnia is to eliminate the situation or illness that led to persistent sleep disturbance.