If an insomnia demon rears its ugly head from your pillow, seek help sooner rather than later, sleep experts say.
Though 30% of the nation complains of disturbed sleep patterns, according to a survey by the National Sleep Foundation, most people can cope with a few sleepless nights. But stretches of chronic insomnia for months or years -- as news reports have said Michael Jackson had -- are preventable.
If you don't nip it in the bud, experts say, breaking the cycle will become a challenge.
Both cognitive behavioral therapy and prescription drugs are proven to bring on sleep, says Katherine Sharkey, an assistant professor at the Alpert Medical School at Brown University.
"One of the tenets of behavioral therapy is that insomnia becomes a learned behavior," Sharkey says. "You want to break the association between being in bed and trying to sleep and not sleeping. Insomnia can take on a life of its own."
Sleep is when the body detoxes and the immune system rejuvenates, says Lisa Shives, an internist and medical director at Northshore Sleep Medicine in Evanston, Ill. Insomnia over the long term wreaks havoc with the body and mind. Shives says insomnia may be linked to diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer. It can lead to depression and cognitive difficulties, and it can shorten life.
A six-year study of more than 1 million adults ages 30-102, published in 2002, found that people who slept fewer than four hours a night had higher mortality rates compared with people who slept six to seven hours.
An evaluation for insomnia -- which is characterized by difficulty getting to sleep or maintaining sleep or waking up in the morning and not feeling refreshed -- takes into account underlying conditions such as depression or pain.
"I almost always try to get people to try the behavioral treatment first," Sharkey says, "but I have patients who are on long-term hypnotic medicines who do great on them. But there are other people for whom they have stopped working. It can be hard getting them off of it, and they're only getting a couple hours sleep anyway."
Also, medications, whether over-the-counter (antihistamines) or prescription hypnotics (Ambien, Lunesta), can have side effects in some patients. And Michael Perlis, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, says medications undermine behavioral therapy, which can take eight weeks to be effective.
Behavioral specialists teach people how to get a full night's sleep, stressing the importance of exercise, good habits, environmental factors and relaxation techniques.
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