Insomnia is the most common of all sleep complaints. Almost everyone has
occasional sleepless nights, perhaps due to stress, heartburn or drinking too
much caffeine or alcohol. Insomnia is a lack of sleep that occurs on a regular
or frequent basis, often for no apparent reason.
Inability to get a good night's sleep can affect not only your energy level and
mood but your health as well because sleep helps bolster your immune system.
Fatigue, at any age, leads to diminished mental alertness and concentration.
About one out of three people have insomnia sometime in their life.
Sleeplessness may be temporary or chronic. You don't necessarily have to live
with sleepless nights. Some simple changes in your daily routine and habits may
result in better sleep.
Types of insomnia
A person can have primary or secondary insomnia. Primary insomnia means that a
person is having sleep problems that are not directly associated with any other
health condition or problem. Secondary insomnia means that a person is having
sleep problems because of something else, such as a health condition (like
depression, heartburn, cancer, asthma, arthritis), pain, medication they are
taking, or a substance they are using (like alcohol). Insomnia can vary in how
long it lasts and how often it occurs. Insomnia can be short-term (called acute
insomnia) or last a long time (called chronic insomnia). It can also come and go
(or be intermittent), with periods of time when a person has no sleep problems.
Acute (short-term) insomnia can last from one night to a few weeks.
Causes of insomnia
Common causes of insomnia include:
• Stress. Concerns about work, school, health or family keep your mind too
active and unable to relax for sleep. Excessive boredom, such as after
retirement or during a long illness, also can create stress and keep you awake.
• Anxiety. Everyday anxieties as well as severe anxiety disorders may keep your
mind too alert to fall asleep.
• Depression. You may either sleep too much or have trouble sleeping if you're
depressed. This may be due to chemical imbalances in your brain or because
worries that accompany depression may keep you from relaxing enough to fall
asleep when you want to.
• Stimulants. Prescription drugs, including some antidepressant, high blood
pressure and steroid medications, can interfere with sleep. Many
over-the-counter (OTC) medications, including some pain medication combinations,
decongestants and weight-loss products, contain caffeine and other stimulants.
• Change in your environment or work schedule. Travel or working a late or early
shift can disrupt your body's circadian rhythms, making you unable to get to
sleep when you want to. The word circadian comes from two Latin words: circa for
"about" and dia for "day." Your circadian rhythms act as internal clocks,
guiding such things as your wake-sleep cycle, metabolism and body temperature.
• Long-term use of sleep medications. Doctors generally recommend using sleeping
pills for only up to 4 weeks, or until you notice benefits from self-help
measures. If you need sleep medications for longer, take them no more than two
to four times a week, so they don't become habit-forming. Sleeping pills often
become less effective over time. If you're taking sleeping pills every evening
and they help, keep taking them. If they lose their effectiveness, you might
sleep better by slowly withdrawing from them.
• Medical conditions that cause pain. These include arthritis, fibromyalgia and
neuropathies, among other conditions. Making sure that your medical conditions
are well treated may help with your insomnia.
• Behavioural insomnia. This may occur when you worry excessively about not
being able to sleep well and try too hard to fall asleep. Most people with this
condition sleep better when they're away from their usual sleep environment or
when they don't try to sleep, such as when they're watching TV or reading.
Insomnia becomes more prevalent with age. As you get older, three changes often
occur that may affect your sleep. You may experience:
• A change in sleep patterns. After age 50, sleep often becomes less restful.
You spend more time in stages 1 and 2 of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep and
less time in stages 3 and 4. Stage 1 is transitional sleep, stage 2 is light
sleep, and stages 3 and 4 are deep (delta) sleep, the most restful kind. Because
you’re sleeping lighter, you're also more likely to wake up. With age, your
internal clock often speeds up. You get tired earlier in the evening and
consequently wake up earlier in the morning.
• A change in activity. You may be less physically or socially active. Activity
helps promote a good night's sleep. You may also have more free time and,
because of that, drink more caffeine or alcohol or take a daily nap. These
things can also interfere with sleep at night.
• A change in health. The chronic pain of conditions such as arthritis or back
problems as well as depression, anxiety and stress can interfere with sleep.
Other sleep-related disorders, such as sleep apnoea and restless legs syndrome,
also become more common with age. Sleep apnoea causes you to stop breathing
periodically throughout the night and then awaken. Restless legs syndrome causes
unpleasant aches in your legs and an almost irresistible desire to move them,
which may prevent you from falling asleep.
Magnetic treatment of insomnia.
There are numerous causes of insomnia as mentioned above however there is one
common element that links all of these types of insomnia, and that is the body
clock (circadian rhythm). Essentially the body clock is one of the bodies
automated systems. It controls when we sleep and when we wake. If for any reason
the body clock becomes out of sync, then sleep/wake patterns will be disrupted.
The body clocks’ alignment is very delicate and easily disrupted, normally it
will realign itself over a period of a few days, for example after a long haul
flight, the body feels jetlagged because the time differences have disrupted the
body clock. You only feel jetlagged for 2-3 days and then as the body clock
resets itself the jetlag wears off.
However in chronic conditions such as depression, anxiety, stress, chronic pain
and the aging process the body clock has been out of sync for such a long time
that it becomes difficult to realign. This is often the root of the cause of
most chronic insomnia. In order to successfully treat chronic insomnia you first
have to reset the body clock.
The body clock is controlled by a hormone, that is made in the pineal gland in
the brain, called melatonin. Melatonin regulates the body clock and keeps it in
sync. When the body clock is out of sync the pineal gland is not producing
enough melatonin. The pineal gland is very susceptible to changes with in the
body and will stop producing melatonin when various changes are occurring in the
body.
To be able to understand just how important melatonin is to sleep I have
included a graph to show the different levels of melatonin in our bodies in a 24
hour period. You can clearly see that during waking hours melatonin levels are
at a minimum, during the late evening (at around 8pm) the pineal gland begins to
increase melatonin production. Production continues to increase through out the
night until they peak at around 3 am. This gradual steady increase in melatonin
levels during the evening and night allows the body to begin winding down and
prepare for sleep, at around 10pm-12 am the body’s hormone levels are high
enough to induce sleep. Once the melatonin levels have peaked during the early
hours of the morning they will stay at this level for the next few hours, this
maintains a deep sleep through the night ( if you were to wake during this peak
level period you would fall back to sleep straight away). From around 6-7am the
pineal gland shuts off and melatonin levels drop quite quickly, once they reach
the minimum level once more you are ready to wake up.
This is the normal sleep/melatonin pattern in a person who does not suffer with
insomnia. If the body clock is out of rhythm then this process will not occur.
Depending on how the body clock has readjusted itself out of sync you may find
that you can quite easily fall asleep but then find yourself waking at regular
intervals during the night, unable to get back to sleep, often feeling wide
awake. This is caused when the pineal gland produces enough melatonin to induce
sleep but when the levels reach maximum instead of remaining at the peak level
for the night they rapidly reduce back to a waking level. If this occurs and you
wake during the night you will have insufficient melatonin to fall back to sleep
again.
On the other side of the coin you may find it virtually impossible to get to
sleep and spend many of the night hours endlessly tossing and turning, finally
falling asleep in the very early hours only to have to wake up very soon after.
In this instance the pineal gland is producing very little melatonin at all and
the levels never achieve the peak that they should.
Melatonin is crucial in maintaining a healthy sleep pattern if you don’t have
enough melatonin you are not going to sleep soundly. Melatonin is a hormone and
can be taken in a drug form like many other replacement hormones, however it is
not licensed for prescription in his country as synthetic hormones do have side
effects plus if you take a substitute hormone the body can shut down production
of its own supply. Melatonin can be acquired via a private prescription form
some pharmacies or from various internet pharmacy sites.
The most effective way to increase your melatonin levels is to stimulate your
own body to produce more of it’s own supplies of melatonin. The pineal gland is
very responsive to electro magnetic fields. When a strong magnetic field is
placed around the head the pineal gland is stimulated to work harder and as a
result it produces more melatonin. Over a period of a few days-a couple of weeks
(depending on the individual) the body’s melatonin levels will have increased to
normal. Once melatonin levels have reached normal the body clock begins to reset
itself and insomnia will resolve.
The majority of insomnia sufferers will achieve very good results when using
magnets in their pillow every night. Tests have shown that magnetic pillow pads
reduce jetlag in long haul flight crews and they have been tested on chronic
insomnia patients. The pillow pad must be left inside the pillow case
permanently to prevent the body clock from becoming out of alignment again.
Case Study- Sam 33 years
Sam is a qualified nurse and is required to work night shift duty. This caused
him to suffer from insomnia. Since becoming a nurse in 1993, Sam had suffered
with a disrupted body clock. His shift patterns rotated so he worked 3 weeks of
day shifts followed by 1 week of night shifts. There was often only one 1 day in
between the day to night change. This disrupted his circadian rhythm and as a
result he suffered with insomnia. He found it very difficult to get to sleep,
often not dropping off until 2 or 3am. He would sleep for an hour or two and
then wake up and would find it impossible to get back off to sleep again. He
would eventually drop back off to sleep at around 5 am only to have to wake at
6.30am to go back to work.
Sam consulted his GP who prescribed a conventional sleeping tablet (Temazepam).
Sam found that he was unable to cope with the side effects of the Temazepam, he
could not get up easily and found his head felt heavy and he was lethargic for
the first few hours of the day. Sam then tried a range of herbal sleeping
tablets and had limited success, did not work at all and others gave him the
same headachy feeling that the Temazepam had. Relaxation methods helped Sam to
get off to sleep but did not stop him from waking and being unable to get back
to sleep.
Sam was first seen in our clinic in March 2001, it was clearly apparent that he
was severely sleep deprived, the arrival of children had only worsened his
insomnia and was only achieving 1-3 hours of sleep per night and sometimes even
less. Sam was prescribed a magnetic pillow pad and 4-6 glasses of magnetised
water per day. Sam was reviewed after 2 weeks and he reported that after just 5
days use he had had his first full nights sleep in 8 years. He was not sleeping
through the night every night but the amount of hours sleep he did get had
improved to 5-6 hours per night. After 4 weeks Sam was reviewed for a second
time and he reported that he was now able to sleep through the night 4 out of 7
nights and the 3 nights that he was unable to sleep thorough he commented that
once he woke it was only a short time before he could get back off to sleep
again. Sam continued to improve over the next few weeks and even during his
night duty he was able to achieve a reasonable amount of sleep. Sam still
continues to use the magnetic pillow on a daily basis but only drinks magnetised
water occasionally.
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Magnetic therapy treatments for relieving pain by using natural, healing medical rare earth magnets
