Insomnia Symptom – How To Know Whether You Are Suffering From Insomnia?
One of the most important factors to know about insomnia symptoms is that they are never stand alone features. This means that they usually co-exist with some other symptoms of other mental or physical conditions.
What are the initial insomnia symptoms that can tell you that something is amiss? Other than, inability to fall asleep, remaining asleep or when you are not getting quality sleep, you might show concentration problems, restlessness, irritability, etc. These are considered to be symptoms of an existing insomnia condition, but the real issue is to locate the underlying causes behind these initial symptoms.
When you are looking for insomnia symptoms, you need to remember that in most cases, insomnia itself is a symptom of some underlying physical, medical or psychological problem. Insomnia symptom could also be a result of side effect of certain mediation that you are currently on.
It is also important to remember that it is perfectly normal for anyone to suffer from short term insomnia some time or the other in our lives. However, when such insomnia symptoms persist for longer than a week, we need to get concerned and attempt at curing the condition.
Perhaps the first insomnia symptom is when you find it difficult to go to sleep, though you may be feeling extremely sleepy. You might also wake up frequently and subsequently fail to go back to sleep again. The other initial insomnia symptom is when you wake up too early in the morning feeling tired and exhausted.
There are a few daytime insomnia symptoms, including fatigue, anxiety and depression, etc. Anxiety and depression may be insomnia symptoms but may well be the cause of insomnia perpetuating the whole situation further. Irritability, offensive social behavior, lack of concentration, unjustified accidents or errors in judgment while operating vehicle and machinery, headaches and muscle pain, forgetfulness, frequent mood changes, confusion and mental instability, delayed response to external stimuli are some of the other common daytime insomnia symptoms.
Duration of any insomnia symptom may vary according to the type of insomnia that you are suffering from. For example, in transient insomnia, the insomnia symptoms may show up only for a few nights and then disappear. Short term insomnia symptoms last less than a month and chronic insomnia symptoms may continue for a month to 6 months.
Why is it important for you to keep a close watch on the insomnia symptoms? Once you note down all the changes that are happening in your normal sleeping patterns and discuss each and every insomnia symptom with your doctor, it is then possible for the doctor to arrive at a proper diagnosis of the condition and recommend treatment.
To summarize, the first point to remember is that insomnia itself is a symptom of some underlying mental or health issues. Therefore, to cure insomnia, it is not enough to simply study the insomnia symptoms but a detailed and wider investigation might be necessary:
- The first common insomnia symptom is when you cannot fall asleep for about 45 minutes after you have gone to bed. You are tossing and turning but not being able to even doze off.
- The second insomnia symptom is waking up frequently and finding it tough to fall asleep again.
- The third symptom is waking up too early.
- The fourth insomnia symptom is having poor quality of sleep. Here you have to remember that sound sleep consists of four stages and rapid eye movement (REM). Stages 3 and 4 are important phases as these actually rejuvenate the mind and the body. If these stages are not reached, then the quality of sleep is considered to be poor.
At the end of the day, it is important to relate many of the insomnia symptoms to your perception of the quantity and quality of sleep.


