Every night 70 million people in the United States struggle to stay asleep or fall asleep, according to statistics. Though people have already heard of this condition, there are several things that they might not know yet about this disorder. To shed light on this condition, people with chronic insomnia enumerated five important things that they wished everyone knew about.
Members of Huffington Post Lifestyle Facebook community who have chronic insomnia were asked with the things they wanted other people to know about their condition. Here are the five things they said:
- Insomnia affects how they live their lives each day. According to Susan Rutigliano, it affects every aspect of her day-to-day life, describing the conditions as really depressing. She added that there are some nights where it is just herself alone together with her thoughts, crippling tiredness and just waiting for the yellow sun to rise for her to start preparing to go to her work and feel like hell the whole day.
- There are only a handful of things insomniac people have not tried. A member named Jeanne Bucky shared that she wished individuals who don't have insomnia would stop asking her if she has tried melatonin. According to her, she had many nights where she wakes up, can't go back to sleep and just end up reading some books till she can return to sleep, which is usually about the time she is supposed to wake up.
- Insomnia can make one asleep till noon. "I wish everyone knew that when I'm asleep at noon, it's not because I'm a 'bum' or 'lazy,' Brianna Martinez commented. She added, "It's because five hours prior my body shut down from exhaustion - the only way I can get some shut eye." Martinez has insomnia for around five years.
- Insomnia can wake up one at 2 or 3 a.m. "I wake up at 2 or 3 am EVERY morning." member Valerie Clark told Huffington Post. She also said that insomnia affects her life and she was very frustrated about it.
- They would not want insomnia to happen to anyone. A member who has been insomniac for almost 12 years shared that she would not wish insomnia to happen to anyone as she has experienced how frustrating insomnia can be. Fay Ranshaw wants everybody to know that insomnia is a constant struggle with pointless thoughts and can be frustrating.
As per guidelines prepared by a group of doctors which were posted in National Sleep Foundation, insomnia is a sleeping disorder characterized by trouble in staying or falling asleep. Insomniac people can feel discontented with their hours of sleep and regularly experience symptoms like low energy, fatigue, decreased performance in school or at work, difficulty concentrating and mood disturbances.
