Better Sleep Better Health

You come home from work, enjoy dinner with the family, relax for a while, and settle into bed to fall asleep. But then something happens. You can’t stop thinking about your job, your grocery list, your home repairs, etc. Your mind is still racing and you just can’t relax enough to fall asleep. Pretty soon you realize it’s 3 am and you have to be up in a few hours. Just another sleepless night…

This scenario is all too familiar for many people. Insomnia, the inability to fall asleep or maintain sleep, is one of the most common sleep disorders. As outlined in Volume 2, Issue 1 of OSA’s Better Sleep, Better Health newsletter, there are many causes of Insomnia including situational stresses, shift work, and Obstructive Sleep Apnea. But what if you have seen a sleep doctor and determined you have none of these? You just feel you cannot turn off your brain.

It turns out there may actually be a previously unknown physical reason for this problem. Research published in the November 2008 issue of SLEEP suggests people may suffer from Primary Insomnia because of a lack of chemical transmitter in their brains. Gamma-aminobutyric acid, or GABA, is a common inhibitory transmitter which decreases or stops transmission of nerve impulses. The study found people with Primary Insomnia have on average 30% less GABA in their brains than those without Insomnia.

“GABA is reduced in the brains of individuals with insomnia, suggesting over-activity is present,” explains principal investigator Dr. John Winkelman in an interview on sleepeducation.com. Low GABA levels create an imbalance of brain activity. This “may lead to an inability to shut down waking signals in the brain,” he said.

Insomnia can seriously affect a person’s life and should be dealt with early on. Treatments can include short term use of hypnotic medications and cognitive behavioral therapy. For more information on sleep and Insomnia, check out our sleep center’s website.