INSOMNIA HAPPENS
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine discusses insomnias as health issues in and of themselves at http://www.aasmnet.org/... At the far end of the continuum that begins there, are socioeconomics (nowhere safe to sleep, longer daily struggles than allow enough hours for sleep) beyond the scope of anything but enforced humanist law to remedy.
In between on the continuum are familial demands and dysfunctions, sicknesses/ injuries with sleep-wrecking pain and other sensory hell, medical treatments that add health problems (adverse effects) or do the opposite of what they should (paradoxical effects), and other material/physical obstructions to sleep. Add also the griefs, anxieties, soul-deep angers, and daily troubles large and small that keep us awake worrying, rehearsing in our minds how to handle them tomorrow, and impelling us to get out of bed and try to solve them right now! And the many side-trackers that keep us from even going to bed timely. No wonder sleep deprivation http://en.wikipedia.org/.... http://web2.med.upenn.edu/... is often an article topic in newsstand magazines and medical journals. https://www.google.com/... A lot of people are short on sleep and searching how to solve that.
I'm one of them, since childhood, from many causes. Years later in what seemed desperation, before I knew much about drug, I accepted my then-doctor's prescription (Rx) for a medication he said would help everything by getting me good sleep so I'd heal up fine. For some people, that works. Rx and over-the-counter (OTC) meds that induce sleep, and meds with that side-effect (e.g., most antihistamines, some of them sold as sleep aids, many pain Rxs) are among the most-purchased drugs in the U.S. But medical consensus is growing that a tremendous range of them with this effect can cause harm, notably cognitive impairment.
For many reasons, more and more folks seek other ways to cope, and I'm one of those too, because that desperate time, of one Rx after another the doctor changed every week or two, ended me up wrecked even more, including the total loss of the career into which I had put every resource I had for years. Turned out there was worse to come, a common result but not the point here, which is:
WHAT ARE THE OPTIONS OTHER THAN DRUGS?
The historical remedy is vigorous physical exertion, which I stumbled into starting around age eight. It really helped for about fifteen years, but as job hours, familial demands, and health issues increased, the day became too short for enough physicality. I turned to the central theme in alternative/ complementary medicine http://nccam.nih.gov/... - stress-reduction techniques. They often help sleep by inducing relaxation. These days collectively called "mindfulness", http://marc.ucla.edu/... they drew upon eastern disciplines http://scholar.google.com/... popularized in the U.S. in the 1960's through '80's as offering major benefits for minimal time invested (interesting discussions in Benson & Klipper's Beyond the Relaxation Responsehttp://scholar.google.com/...).
BUT NOT ALL OF US HAVE THE CIRCUMSTANCES THESE PRACTICES REQUIRE
Click on "CONTINUE READING" and scroll down past the orange cotton-boll, for something simpler and easier that may help.
