Sleep. We all need this. We feel good in the morning when we get enough of it. However, we feel grumpy all day without enough of it. So, what causes someone to have sleep insomnia and what happens if you don’t get enough z’s? Patricia Morrisroe, a journalist with her own sleep insomnia, went from Las Vegas, Nevada to the Arctic Circle and chronicled her story in her new novel, Wide Awake. She talked to TIME magazine and told the organization about the journey she had.
Patricia Morrisroe said that people with chronic sleep insomnia are usually people who had a harsh history, like an ugly divorce or a bad childhood. However, as she stated, “The person who broke the record for longest time awake in 1964(approx. 11 days) seemed to be doing just fine.”
Sleep has also evolved over the years. James McKenna, a doctor who specializes in infant sleep at Notre Dame, claims that people probably slept in trees in the dawn of human society. Today, we have everything from race car styled beds for the little ones to luxury made types, like Temperpedic.
In addition to the way we sleep, scientists have discovered more on how we sleep over the past one hundred years. Sleep study started to grow some interest when one of the richest men in America, JP Morgan, wife died when she went to sleep one day and eight weeks later was pronounced dead. The oil tycoon donated a tremendous amount of money to research this rare sleep disorder.In the 1950’s, Rapid Eye Movement was discovered. REM is the movement of eyes during the night, and is surprisingly the normal way to sleep. For the next thirty years, the science of sleep was a somewhat respected field, but in 1981, the topic skyrocketed. The CPAP was invented, which still used today to help treat sleep apnea. This invention really put sleep medicine on the map.
In addition, Patricia Morrisroe stated that people who complain of sleep troubles never really have any. For example, Morrisroe went to sleep lab in Las Vegas and met a women who complained of sleep trouble. In the women’s sleep test, it was revealed that she had seven hours of sleep. On the contrary, after the test, she complained that she “didn’t sleep a wink.” This is because people think that the time they spend awake at night is more than the time they spend sleeping, which is usually not the case. Someone with real sleep insomnia would usually wake up every 90 minutes after he or she goes back to sleep.
Finally, Morrisroe said that increased industrialization has caused sleep problems. The many hours we spend on the television, radio, and the computer cause us to lose concentration at night and therefore cause troubles at night.
In my opinion, sleep insomnia is a major problem in today’s society. It is overlooked and not talked about that much. When a child complains about sleep insomnia, most parents would just say that it’s not a big deal but when sometimes it is. However, it usually is really no big deal. I used to think that I had sleeping problems, but after reading this article, I think that I don’t really have any major problems. I used to think that I spent more time awake than asleep, when probably I sleep around seven to nine hours a night and spent little time awake. I hope that many people read this article and truly see if they have a sleep disorder or not.
For more information on this article, go to:
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1989451,00.html