Clinical Management of Insomnia

Insomnia is the most common sleep disorder, with a prevalence of around 20%. The clearest risk factors are female gender and the presence of a psychiatric or medical disorder. The most important conceptual change in our understanding of insomnia, defined in the National Institutes of Health 2005 consensus conference, is that insomnia is a disorder itself rather than a symptom of another disorder. Specifically, insomnia is a disorder of hyperarousal. Insomniacs do not have an abnormal sleep homeostat or circadian system but rather an overactivated wake system. Cognitively, patients often complain they cannot “shut [their] brain down.” Physiologic correlates include elevated brain metabolism, increased fast electroencephalographic activity, and increased autonomic, metabolic, and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity. Treatment for insomnia can be divided into two categories, behavioral and pharmacologic. Another important categorization relates to self-treatment (sleep hygiene and over-the-counter drugs) versus clinician-directed therapy (cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia [CBT-I] and prescribed hypnotics). Among behavioral treatments are sleep restriction, stimulus co