For a patient to be diagnosed with primary insomnia the sleeplessness that they are experiencing will not be caused by a medical reason, an environmental reason or because of a drug abuse or medication factor. The requisite for this type of insomnia is having sleep issues for at least one month or more and this will be due to either having a difficult time falling asleep or staying asleep through the night without waking, along with sleep disturbances during the night.

Primary insomnia can also be caused by the body’s inner clock becoming confused and wanting rest during the daytime hours instead of the usual sleeping hours. For those who work in nightshift a job pushes insomnia further to a point where it can become a disorder.

This is because when the body’s internal clock into a disrupted state as it is naturally telling the body it should sleep during nighttime hours and instead sleep is during the daylight hours. Along with the nighttime worker another person at risk for primary insomnia is the parent of young children who wake during the night and disrupt the adults sleep pattern regularly. This can also affect the child on a short-term basis and has been known for many years as the baby who has their days and nights mixed up.

Primary insomnia is a state of sleeplessness and has no contributing factors such as therapeutic, psychiatric or ecological causes and this includes drug abuse or medication side effects. There are symptoms, which will be present:

• The lack of regular sleep for one month or longer

• Difficulty remaining asleep or non-restorative sleep

• Continuous sleep deprivation along with other areas of life being disrupted such as occupational, social and personal areas of life.

There is also what is referred to as secondary insomnia and this can occur due to emotional disorders such as anxiety and posttraumatic syndrome. It is also believed that patients suffering Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease are at risk for this type of insomnia. Secondary insomnia can also affect people who suffer from arthritis, have asthma and other breathing problems, patients with heart problems and people with thyroid disease.

For these insomnia patients it often requires prescription medication rather than other types of treatment to combat their insomnia because it is a secondary symptom of these diseases. Many of these diseases also require medication that can be the cause of the insomnia that has developed.

Those who suffer from frequent indigestion can also develop secondary insomnia because when lying down the symptoms of indigestion usually increase making it uncomfortable to stay in that position.

There are also some medications that can cause a patient to develop insomnia and when this occurs as a side effect the physician that is treating the condition should be made aware of this development. When the physician is alerted they can either prescribe different medication or they can explain the different options for treatment of the insomnia. In some cases relaxation techniques or other methods might work in place of a medication for sleep.