What is insomnia?

What is insomnia?

Irshaad Ebrahim (Medical Director of The London Sleep Centre) gives expert video advice on: What is insomnia?; What happens to people who suffer insomnia, over time?; How many people suffer from insomnia? and more...

Insomnia refers to a condition, which may be a short term condition or a long term condition where there is an inability to initiate sleep - the opposite to <a href="http://www.videojug.com/interview/hypersomnia-2">hypersomnia</a>. In other words difficulty falling asleep or there may be difficulty maintaining sleep where people get up frequently after falling asleep or they have the problem of waking too early. It is usually considered as part of the diagnosis to have not enough sleep. In other words a reduced amount of sleep in order to have a diagnosis of insomnia and also to have symptoms during the day after having a night of insomnia. Insomnia may be classified as being acute which is a short term problem. And this is frequently associated with stressful life events or other forms of stress. Or insomnia may be chronic where it is becomes an established pattern of poor sleep over a long period of time.