safety
Some medical drugs cause insomnia for their users. Dr. Saleh Al Damas, consultant chest and intensive care diseases and sleep diseases consultant at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Riyadh confirmed that insomnia is one of the most common symptoms among people, especially with age, and he explained that it usually occurs due to an organic or psychological disease. Insomnia is defined as the inability to fall asleep at the usual time or sleeplessness due to frequent awakening.
It is known that the human need for sleep decreases with age, as a newborn child needs up to 20 hours of sleep per day and decreases until it reaches 7 8 hours per day in adults in the third decade of life, then it reaches 5 6 hours per decade Seventh and eighth year old. Researchers believe that it is the body''s ability to fall asleep and stay asleep for longer hours that decreases with age, rather than the body’s need for sleep
Dr. Saleh Al-Damas explained that healthy sleep is defined as the number of hours that a person sleeps, after which he feels physical and mental comfort, and that activity is renewed throughout the daylight hours until it is time to sleep the next day.
He also mentioned that the causes of insomnia are many: including organic and psychological ones, unhealthy sleep, taking drugs or diseases related to the sleep mechanism.
Organic diseases that result in insomnia, which are usually associated with pain or difficulty breathing, and the most important examples of this type of disease are: chronic cardiomyopathy resulting from smoking, chronic insufficiency in respiratory function, or chronic kidney or liver failure as well as Diabetics may suffer from insomnia, which may be caused by nerve pain that affects the extremities, especially the legs, resulting from peripheral neuropathy or frequent awakening due to high blood sugar level. In addition to the enlargement of the prostate gland in elderly men, which in turn leads to frequent awakening to urinate. Here, these cases must be treated instead of taking hypnotic drugs.
And Dr. Al-Dammas said: As is the case with mental illnesses, insomnia may result from depression, schizophrenia, or chronic anxiety and tension situations, and the patient in such a case must visit a psychiatrist to prescribe the appropriate treatment.
Insomnia usually results from unhealthy sleep by following unhealthy habits, which are often common among adolescents, such as irregular sleep hours and failure to commit to a specific time to wake up. Other bad habits include excessive consumption of stimulants such as coffee and tea, caffeinated soft drinks, or smoking.
In this case, the person suffering from insomnia should stop taking stimuli and establish a regular schedule of sleep hours, and these people usually respond well if they follow the steps of behavioral therapy.
Regarding the effect of taking drugs, Dr. Al-Damas believes that insomnia may occur as one of the side effects of some medications that are used to treat mental or physical illnesses.
As for sleep diseases, there are a number of ailments that occur during sleep that lead to insomnia, and among these diseases are respiratory sleep disorders that usually affect overweight people, and its symptoms are snoring, interrupted sleep, interrupted sleep during sleep for several seconds and feeling tired and exhausted during the day. Among these diseases also paresthesia in the legs involuntarily during sleep, nightmares and a number of other sleep disorders. The patient must be presented to a sleep specialist and a night sleep study should be conducted to diagnose and then treat these conditions.
In the conclusion of his speech, Dr. Al-Damas advised people who suffer from insomnia to organize sleep and wake times and not disturb them at the weekend, as well as reduce or quit drinking stimulants such as tea, coffee and soft drinks containing caffeine. And also to quit smoking, and to be careful to exercise regularly, and not to do any violent exercise immediately before bed, and dinner should be eaten early and preferably light, and in the case of sleep difficulty, it is preferable to leave the bed and do any other work such as reading, for example until feeling the desire once again. Other things in sleep, and by continuing to recite before sleep as recommended by the Messenger, peace be upon him.
