Lying awake at night is a distressing symptom. There may be a number of reasons why an individual has difficulty in sleeping and any physical cause such as pain needs to be investigated and treated. In the same way insomnia is frequently a symptom of both depression and hypomania and in these cases the treatment should be directed towards the underlying condition.
Once it has been established that insomnia is not associated with any obvious physical or psychiatric illness it is possible to treat the sleeplessness in its own right.
There are many simple remedies which may help an individual to get to sleep, which include taking a hot milky drink, having a bath, doing something relaxing before retiring to bed. However, many people who suffer from insomnia will have tried all these measures in the first instance and found them to be ineffective.
There are number of different sleeping tablets which can be prescribed by doctors. Alternatively there is homeopathic medication which can be bought over the counter without prescription. In spite of this, in many instances, the patient finds that he or she still has difficulty sleeping or if they do sleep with the aid of the medication it has an adverse effect on the way they function the next morning.
Patients who have difficulty sleeping fall into two main categories: those who have difficulty getting off to sleep and those who get to sleep easily but wake during the night and cannot get back to sleep again. In addition there is a third group of people, these are shift or night workers whose normal sleep patterns are disrupted.
Hypnosis is an extremely effective way of treating insomnia. During the treatment sessions the patient is taught self hypnosis and is encouraged to use this on a daily basis particularly when preparing to go to sleep or when they wake in the middle of the night.
As a result of this form of treatment many patients find that they can conquer their insomnia.