What are some causes of sleep disorders?

I think that things like alcohol, tobacco and caffeine are obvious stimulants or depressants and can affect sleep. Certainly people who smoke heavily and who drink lots amounts of caffeine before going to sleep don't be surprised if you can't sleep.

So things like that you really should moderate and quite frankly you shouldn't smoke anyway.


If you are having problems with sleep look at those things critically and say do I do that? Do I have a tendency to take in too much alcohol? Do I smoke? Do I drink a lot of caffeine? Those things are going to work against you. Things that are going to engage your attention will prevent you from sleeping. A lot of people will talk about falling asleep to the television or they will do their computer work in bed or they will talk on the phone. I mean those things engage your mind or capture your interest. Those things will tend to promote being awake instead of asleep.

A lot of people will talk about how they need the noise from the TV to fall asleep to. Probably better if you are going to do that as some sort of sleep association aid for kids. They need a teddy bear or a pacifier to fall asleep.

Your pacifier as an adult may be the noise of from the television. Actually, it's not the television that puts you to sleep, but the monotonous noise. It's that monotony that you fall asleep too. Whereas a television, with commercials and lights in it and it varies with intensity, those things are always changing louder, soft, louder, soft. We get a lot of people in the winter time that say they will have a hard time falling asleep because now that it is so cold they really can't have the fan in the room. They say they can't sleep without the air circulating through the room.

The fan probably has nothing to do with circulating but all to do with the monotonous noise. You probably still want to have a smaller fan to just put in the room more for the monotonous buzz noise.

For those people who have a tendency to ruminate, meaning that you sit there and worry about things the next day that again is engaging your brain and not allowing it to let go. What you want to try and do is have something near the bedside and if there is a stuff that you really need to remember, just write it down. Say, "okay, now the list is complete and I won't forget its right here." The put it down and then go to bed.

That should speak for those worrywarts. It's not perfect but it will tend to help.