What is your occupation and position?

What are some of your major professional accomplishments? For example: positions, publications or awards?

What is Insomnia, and how would you know if you had it?

You would have had difficulty trying to get to sleep, remaining asleep or you would feel lousy when you woke up. All this would impact you beyond the morning and throughout the day. It makes you tired, irritable, and sleepy. You cannot get things done that you might normally be able to do. You can get sick more often, miss work or school more often. You might also have difficulty remembering or concentrating.

Why is Insomnia of importance to teenagers?

The other reason it is so important to teenagers is because insomnia can be self-perpetuating. So when you are young it is important to take care of it rather than have a lifetime problem. So the two main reasons it is of importance to teenagers is:
1- It is reasonably rare, so if a teen has insomnia it can be significant.
2- There are a lot of years ahead and it is a problem that only get worse not better if it is not taken care of.

What is sleep hygiene, and what does it have to do with Insomnia?

When you go to school you get a lot of education about what is good nutrition and good exercise, well there is good sleep nutrition as well. It is a reflection on what we learned about sleep.
So if you have insomnia you want to go to bed and get up the same time everyday. We’ve learned that you need about 8 hours of sleep over the course of 24 hours. What that means is if you nap for 2 hours during the afternoon you are going to sleep less at night, so if you cannot sleep at night then you should not nap during the day.

We’ve learned that caffeine make sleep worse, so a practice of sleep hygiene would be, do not drink caffeine in the afternoon.

Alcohol, while it puts you to sleep, it wakes you up in the 2nd half of the night, so you should avoid alcohol.

Basically sleep hygiene is good sleep practices in terms of environment. It is also very helpful to people with insomnia. Very much like people with high blood pressure know what kinds of foods they should eat and what kinds not to eat.

Can Insomnia be a sign of other problems in teens?

What does bad insomnia do to your health?

1- Several studies have shown that bad insomnia is a risk factor for developing depression later on in your life.

2- Bad insomnia has been known to be associated with memory difficulties, and increased rate of accidents. A person will have more illnesses or at least more days of being absent from work or school.

When should a teen that can’t sleep at night seek help?

1- If it is a chronic problem, meaning if it lasts more than 2 weeks, they should see a doctor to find out what is going on. Because over time, it will only get worse not better.

2- If it is having a very negative impact. If they start feeling drowsy when driving, or if it is having a very negative impact on their ability to function during the day. They should seek help.

3- Even if they are not experiencing either of the other two reasons, but they have no idea why it is. In other words, if you have insomnia because you just came back from a trip to Europe then you understand why. So if have no idea why, you are not aware of being under stress, there are no problems in the family, and you are not sleeping in a strange environment, then you should seek help.

So if it is chronic, impacting you during the day, or there is no known cause, then you should seek help immediately.

What tests are available for the diagnosis of Insomnia?

If a primary sleep disorder is suspected, such as sleep apnea, then they might do a sleep study, which is called polysomnogram.

What type of treatment is available for Insomnia?

For example; teens might have a circadian rhythm disorder, and what this means is, your sleep is okay, it is just at the wrong times. So for a teen, it would mean that they could not go to sleep before 2 a.m. and cannot get up before 10 a.m., and with elderly people they get sleepy at 9 at night and then they are up at 4 in the morning. This can be treated affectively with light. So if you expose young people to light in the morning they can go to sleep earlier.

There are a variety of other treatments as well, depending on the cause of the insomnia.

Where would a teen go to get more information about Insomnia?

Is there anything teenagers can do to help people who they recognize to have Insomnia?

They can tell them about what they've just read, that this does not go away by itself, it can have bad consequences. Try and help them find someone who understands insomnia and encourage them to go and seek help.

________________________________________________________ This Interview was made available through an unrestricted medical education grant from Wyeth-Ayerst.