Prevent Chronic Insomnia By Spending Less Time In Bed

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This after researchers claimed that people were less likely to prevent chronic insomnia from happening by maintaining the regular sleeping patterns to avoid sleep disorders in the long term.

Prevent chronic insomnia by getting out of bed instead of just lying awake

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia discovered that about 80 percent of participants in their study with short-term or acute insomnia showed that their sleeping problems improved by restricting their time in bed, meaning if a person wakes up too early in the morning and could not get back to sleep, would just have to start their day and proceed with what they can do for the day instead of just lying in bed and waiting for sleep to set back in.

Study lead Micheal Perlis, director of the Penn Behavioral Sleep Medicine Program and an association professor in psychiatry, said that people who are likely to be at risk of chronic insomnia are those who extend their ‘sleep opportunity’.

“They go to bed early, get out of bed late, and they nap. While this seems a reasonable thing to do, and may well be in the short term, the problem in the longer term is it creates a mismatch between the individual’s current sleep ability and their current sleep opportunity; this fuels insomnia,” says Perlis, whose team also presented their findings during the 30^th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC in Denver Colorado recently.

The process of getting up early instead of staying longer in bed is now considered by sleep experts as a means to treat chronic insomnia called cognitive behavioral therapy.

This is also currently being endorsed by the American College of Physicians as a initial treatment for symptoms of chronic insomnia, as experts believe that CBT may still be able to prevent insomnia at an early stage.

The study involved 461 participants for a 6-month test period, where everyone started out as good sleepers without having signs or symptoms of insomnia.

Throughout the testing period, 394 participants maintained their good sleeping activities, whole 36 developed acute insomnia but were able to recover and 31 developed acute insomnia that progressed to a chronic state.

The test results revealed that in the good sleep phase, the good sleepers spent less time in bed than those that developed and got over with acute insomnia. Their time spent in bed at the start did not differ significantly between the two insomnia groups.

During the acute insomnia phase, however, the ones that recovered were those who reduced their time in bed while the one who progressed to chronic insomnia spent longer time in bed.

“It is understandable that sleeplessness has persisted as an adaptive response to such circumstances. In contrast, it’s hard to imagine how chronic insomnia is anything but bad – and the clinical research data support this position given chronic insomnia’s association with increased medical and psychiatric morbidity, ” Dr. Perlis said.

Between 20 to 50 percent of Americans suffer from acute insomnia every year, with some 10 percent progressing to chronic insomnia after 3 months.

Losing sleep can be very dangerous, according to experts, as chronic insomnia could impair mental functions and physical performance, as well as develop health risks like depression, substance abuse, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes and stroke.

Experts recommend that public awareness need to be given importance to prevent chronic insomnia and avoid long-term health repercussions.

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