PSY 4327 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Insomnia, Friday Night Videos, Chronic Pain
15 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Insomnia
Classifications:
1. Identify them as the ones that can’t fall asleep when they can go to bed and those that
fall asleep right away when they go to bed but can’t stay asleep
o #1 way why people can’t get to sleep; anxiety
o #1 reason why they can’t stay asleep; depression
2. How long the insomnia lasts
o Three categories
1. Transient insomnia (which we have all had; lasts 1-3 nights)
2. Short term insomnia (4 nights-3 weeks)
3. Chronic insomnia (more than 3 weeks)
3. Sorted by cause
o 5 main causes
1. Those associated with psychological problems
2. Medical problems (Ex. Chronic pain)
3. Lifestyle (Ex. Up late Friday and Saturday night)
4. Poor sleep habits
5. Sleep disorders
1/2 are caused by psychological problems such as depression, anxiety, marital or job stress
Mild to moderate insomnia cases need to:
1. Reduce or eliminate caffeine (coffee, decaf, tea, cola, chocolate, and certain drugs)
o Most of them are hyper aroused and caffeine makes them worse
o Insomniacs take longer to flush caffeine out of their body
o Sensitivity can increase with age (metabolism)
o Elimination of caffeine can eliminate insomnia (also reduces amount of time to
get up and pee)
o Colic baby’s mothers drink too much coffee
o More than 200mg (2 small cups of coffee) it is likely to disrupt sleep, drip coffee
is the worse, tea is half as bad, certain medications are heavy in caffeine,
migraine medication is bad, weight control pills are very high, asthma
medication
2. Eliminate alcohol after lunch
o Chronic alcoholics have very abnormal sleep patterns
o Will trigger snoring and sleep apnea (5X more frequent for men that consumed 4
shots of vodka an hour before bed)
o Will get worse initially but then will get better
3. Get rid of cigarettes
o It keeps you awake, raises blood pressure, speeds up heart and stimulates brain
activity
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