World Sleep Day: How to beat insomnia and significance of the annual event explained 

World Sleep Day, an annual event, aims to generate more awareness about the importance of adequate sleep, along with several issues that can arise due to the lack of it.

It was first conceptualized in 2008 by a group of medical professionals who christened themselves the World Sleep Society. World Sleep Day is celebrated across 70 countries on the Friday before the Spring Equinox, which falls on March 18 this year.

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The significance of World Sleep Day

The theme for the 2022 edition of World Sleep Day is 'Quality Sleep, Sound Mind, Happy World’. The World Sleep Society also held an international conference in Rome featuring numerous keynote speakers.

Somnologists and sleep researchers across the globe came up with the idea of World Sleep Day to counter common misconceptions regarding the importance of sleep. The objective of the first edition of World Sleep Day was to gather sleep healthcare providers in order to disseminate sleep-related knowledge and spread awareness throughout the world.

Good sleep is essential for a healthy immune system that can form a strong first line of defense against illnesses. Long-term sleep deprivation is highly detrimental to one's health — particularly neurological, resulting in disorders like Alzheimer’s, cognitive impairment, and brain degeneration.

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Ways to overcome insomnia

World Sleep Day aims to raise awareness about the importance of sleep (Image via World Sleep Society)

Dr H P Bharathi, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Jindal Naturecure Institute, explained how aging affected sleep patterns:

“Insomnia is a common complaint among older people. They have trouble falling asleep and prolonged or frequent nocturnal or early morning awakenings with an inability to return to sleep quickly. Age has its effects on sleep architecture.”

Drawing a comparison between old people and young people's sleeping habits, he said:

"Compared to young people, sleep architecture in older people is deranged, resulting in increased amounts of nocturnal wakefulness."

Changes in sleep architecture, along with a change in the circadian rhythm of body temperature, have a significant impact on older people's quality of sleep.

Insomnia can lead to anxiety, depression, and use of certain unwanted psychotropic medications (Image via Unsplash)

Dr Animesh Arya, a sleep disorder specialist at Sri Balaji Action Medical Institute, said:

"[Insomnia can lead to] anxiety, depression and use of certain unwanted psychotropic medications which may further complicate insomnia. This sleep disorder usually then may affect physical well being and people could have serious health risks associated with insomnia.”

The following are a few effective ways to overcome insomnia:

• One should create a conducive sleep environment that is devoid of any blue light.
• Changing one's lifestyle to optimise diets, create routines, remove stimulants, maintain good sleep hygiene, and increase daily physical activity can also be extremely beneficial.
• Caffeine consumption should be minimised as much as possible, particularly at night.
• Behavioral medicine practices such as mediation, mindfulness, and breathing techniques combined with botanical medicine like passionflower, adaptogens, L-theanine, and GABA have curbed insomnia to varying degrees.
• In case the insomnia is caused by hormonal imbalance, then nutraceuticals such as glycine, melatonin, and tryptophan are effective remedies to the problem.

Dr Bharati shared that accupuncture is another alternative medicine system that is particularly used to treat insomnia stemming from mental health problems like anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia.