• Once asleep, sleeps like a "dead" person: difficulty awakening
• Gets drowsy when sits still & quiet even when well-rested
• Regularly falls asleep while reading even when rested
• Awakens in middle of night and difficult to get back to sleep
• Awakens too early in the morning and can't get back to sleep
• Fearful of going to sleep (being alone in bedroom)
• Physical tension prevents sleep onset
• Nightmares or night terrors
• Sleep walking or sleep talking
• Nocturnal enuresis (bedwetting)
• Disrupted sleep cycle
From time to time all of us have experienced some of these symptoms. In deciding if there is a problem, one must consider how often and how severely the symptoms are revealed. Only a thorough clinical evaluation can determine if there is a condition requiring treatment.
A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow. ~Charlotte Brontë
Insomnia, difficulty falling or staying asleep, is a symptom of many sleep disorders rather than a stand-alone diagnosis or disease. The three most common types of insomnia are transient (lasting days to weeks), acute (poor sleep for 3 weeks to 6 months), and chronic (lasting for years). There can be many causes of insomnia, which affects 1 in 3 people, and the pattern of insomnia may be initial or onset (difficulty falling asleep at the beginning of night), middle (waking during the night, difficulty maintaining sleep), and terminal or late insomnia (early morning awakening). When you suffer from insomnia, knowing which type you have is little consolation. You want relief, and medications are not a good long-term solution.
Avoid expensive sleep studies
Professional sleep studies done in sleep laboratories can cost thousands of dollars and require you to sleep in a strange environment to determine what is wrong with your sleep. If we are unable to determine what is wrong with your sleep through a careful history, we can arrange to send you home with a Zeo, the personal sleep coach that enables us to record your sleep patterns throughout the night while you sleep (or not) in the comfort of your own bed.
Counting sheep doesn't count
Medications are not the answer for long-term relief from sleep disorders, if they work at all. Temporary relief may be obtained from diet or supplement changes, but for long-term relief research shows that cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and neurofeedback provide the lasting relief from annoying sleep disorders that most people seek.