Nature s second course
despite intensive research for over 50 years, very little is known about sleep. One thing, however, is clear: it is not a luxury. Everybody needs sleep. But how much sleep one needs is also not clear. No biological signal has been found so far that indicates exactly when you have slept enough in a given 24-hour period. Physicians who deal with this growing problem say an adequate sleep is that which produces a full degree of daytime alertness and feeling of well-being the following day.
Among sleep-related disorders, insomnia is the most common complaint, with about 30 per cent of urban adults suffering from it occasionally and 10 per cent reporting chronic insomnia. Not surprisingly, urban chaos has more than something to do with insomnia. The National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, usa , define insomnia as the perception or complaint of inadequate or poor-quality sleep. Insomnia is not defined by the number of hours of sleep or how long it takes to fall asleep. The reason could be one or more of the following:
- difficulty in falling asleep;
- waking up frequently at night and having difficulty returning to sleep;
- waking up too early in the morning; and
- unrefreshing sleep.
Failing to get good sleep at night not only makes a person less efficient the next day but can also slow down the recovery from an illness or lead to emotional or mental problems. When problems in sleeping last more than a few days or persist after a stressful event, it may signal a sleep disorder.
A recently published study offers some effective options to get a good night's rest. Charles Morin and his team from Laval University in Quebec, Canada, report that in the short-term, behavioural treatment accompanied by drug treatment can be effective for dealing with insomnia in older people. But improvements in sleep are better sustained over time with behavioural treatment. Adopting a few basic habits like limiting the amount of time you spend in bed works better than pills in controlling chronic insomnia ( Journal of American Medical Association , Vol 281, No 11).
Yet, much remains mysterious. Despite thousands of hours measuring the brain waves of unconscious subjects, monitoring their breathing and noting the effects of sleep deprivation, scientists still do not know the answers to some of the most basic questions, such as why we need to sleep in the first place.
Insomniacs are so desperate that they are prepared to try out anything to get a few hours of undisturbed sleep. Everybody experiences a sleepless night or two at some point. The subjects in Morin's study