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 play videoTime: 05:48 minutes |
Participants
, Daniel J. Buysse M.D., Richard J. Ross MD, PhD, David P. White MD
Summary
Anxiety and worry can appear at any time; day or night. Sometimes you know why, sometimes it can appear out of the blue. Learn how these problems can impact a restful night.
Webcast Transcript
WOMAN: Anxiety is a tremendous part of people's mind set in America.
ANNOUNCER: Stressed out. Feeling anxious. Welcome to life in the 21st century. And you're not alone. Studies show that almost 19 million Americans suffer from some form of anxiety.
MAN: When I am anxious I know I stay up late.
WOMAN: I will fall asleep, I will then wake up several hours later, think about all the things I should be doing.
DAVID P. WHITE, MD: Anxiety is probably the single major underlying component of most of what we call primary insomnia.
ANNOUNCER: While we have lots of daylight in which to worry, it seems bedtime is when anxiety really takes over.
DAVID P. WHITE, MD: People wake up, their mind starts racing, they start dealing with the anxieties, they can't fall back asleep, and this thing can build on itself.
ANNOUNCER: Often anxiety can result from stress.
DAVID P. WHITE, MD: There are a lot of people that can sleep just fine, no matter how much stress they're under, and other people's stress has a huge effect and it causes them to have inability to sleep.
ANNOUNCER: So while some people breeze through troubles, for others, stress actually broadcasts a no-sleep signal to the body.
RICHARD ROSS, MD: Certain neurochemicals are released in our brain, so that stress can in fact lead to heightened vigilance, heightened arousal and everything that counters the tendency to sleep.
ANNOUNCER: While the stress often results from the appearance of the usual suspects -- problems with work, loved ones, worries about health -- some forms of anxiety can appear with no apparent cause. And the feeling is constant.
RICHARD ROSS, MD: Anxiety disorders are perhaps the most prevalent mental disorder in the United States, including phobias and generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder.
DAVID P. WHITE, MD: General anxiety disorder is a condition with people that just have heightened anxiety at all times, and these people are, almost universally, going to have a certain amount of difficult sleeping.
RICHARD ROSS, MD: Panic disorder is characterized most specifically by unanticipated, spontaneous attacks of quite severe anxiety. A person feels heart rate going up, sweating.
ANNOUNCER: If the panic attack happens well before bedtime, sleep may not suffer. But troubled sleep does ensue when attacks happen near bedtime or even during sleep.
RICHARD ROSS, MD: A person typically awakens from what's called a nocturnal panic attack feeling quite anxious, may have some recall of the event the next morning, and it can actually be quite disturbing to the person.
ANNOUNCER: But you don't have to have an anxiety disorder to suffer from the kind of anxiety that makes for a fretful night.
DAVID P. WHITE, MD: The vast majority, of people that have insomnia due to anxiety would not be categorized as either one of those. The anxiety is closer to what you and I would consider normal, but it's enough to be able to impact their ability to sleep.
ANNOUNCER: And anxiety has a way of setting a vicious cycle in motion.
RICHARD ROSS, MD: What seems to happen is the person can become anxious about not being able to fall asleep. So anxiety can lead to a difficulty in falling asleep, and then that can be translated into another form of anxiety, where being unable to sleep is the focus.
ANNOUNCER: Dealing with any kind of anxiety disorder is the first order of business.
DAVID P.
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