To understand what insomnia is, you must first understand the concept of sleep. The human body obeys certain biorhythms. In 24 hours, he manages to visit the state of wakefulness and sleep. Each phase has its own time frame and duration. They can vary in people depending on age, individual characteristics, health status, work and lifestyle. Normally, if the duration of sleep is 6-9 hours. If you rest this amount of time at night, a person will always get enough sleep, feel alert and rested.

Also, sleep is divided into fast and slow. Both of them have their own individual functionalities. A person devotes 75-80% of the total sleep period to slow sleep, and rests in fast sleep the rest of the time. The entire period of sleep can include from 4 to 6 cycles of these phases, which strictly replace one another. Moreover, patients with an ailment can fall asleep and wake up at certain hours, as evidenced by the statistical data of experts.

Cycle failures and a reduction in the duration of night rest appear with various diseases. Most often with neurosis, depression and schizophrenia.

As for schizophrenia, in this case, patients cannot sleep at night, and during the day they feel sleepy, tired, exhausted.

Schizophrenics have the following disorders:

  • the process of falling asleep;
  • the duration of the phase of slow sleep;
  • analysis of information during sleep;
  • sleep constancy.

If patients fall asleep, they may have hallucinations. This leads to the appearance of delirium, obsessive thoughts, painful unrest.

Types of sleep disorders in schizophrenia

Patients are divided into three types of disorders:

  1. Difficulty falling asleep due to fear of frightful dreams.
  2. A phase of shallow sleep with constant awakenings.
  3. Getting up early, after which the patient cannot sleep again.

Any of these anomalies leads to a general deterioration in the human condition. He loses the ability to labor and mental activity.

Treatment of insomnia in schizophrenia: is it possible to get rid of it forever?

It is possible to normalize sleep in a schizophrenic only by treating the underlying mental illness. Doctors conduct therapy sessions with patients, prescribe special medication courses. All this is individual and selected by the attending physician. In the process, it is possible to establish a daily regimen of rest and activity.

In order for the patient to be able to rest normally again at night, the following is practiced:

  • you need to try to fall asleep and wake up at the same time so that the brain gets used to a constant regimen;
  • change the diet — use warm milk with honey before bedtime, herbal teas like chamomile and lemon balm, as well as foods that positively affect sleep;
  • meditation in the evening — patients imagine the sea, forest and birdsong. To help their brain work, they turn on the appropriate sounds of the surf or the trills of a nightingale in the background;
  • communication with relatives or a professional psychologist — sometimes, it is conversations that really heal, and schizophrenics, like no one else, need constant communication with those who really understand him, etc.

Insomnia and schizophrenia: is there a connection and how does it manifest itself?

To heal patients, complex treatment is used in combination with physiotherapy, drug therapy, hypnotherapy and autogenic training. True, all these procedures are prescribed specifically by the attending physician, and without the decision of a specialist on his own, it is better for the patient not to take any actions that relate to the treatment process, because you can worsen the condition and harm yourself even more.

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