Struggling with insomnia? Scientists have changed how they understand and treat it

Insomnia may have been torturing humanity since ancient times, but over the last 20 years scientists have made progress in their understanding of chronic sleep deprivation.

Today, sleep deprivation is one of the most widespread reported psychological problems in Britain, with about a third of the adult population in England reporting frequent insomnia symptoms.

Insomnia rarely occurs on its own, which brings us to one of the biggest changes scientists have made in our understanding of chronic sleep deprivation. The vast majority of people with insomnia often have other mental and physical health conditions, like diabetes, hypertension, chronic pain, thyroid disease, gastrointestinal problems, anxiety or depression.

In its diagnostic history, insomnia coupled with another illness or disorder was called secondary insomnia. That meant that insomnia was considered a consequence of those other underlying conditions. As such, until fairly recently doctors did not generally attempt to treat secondary insomnia.

But in the early 2000s, both research and clinical practice evidence started to indicate that this approach was wrong. Scientists argued that insomnia could precede or long survive a primary condition. Abandoning this distinction between primary and secondary insomnia was a major advance in acknowledging that insomnia frequently was an independent disorder, requiring its own treatment.

What’s more, researchers have been accumulating strong evidence that helping people with their sleeping problems could actually lead...

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