Why Do I Have Insomnia? | Types of Insomnia

Hey everyone. It’s Devin Burke, your sleep performance coach. And in this video, I’m going to share with you the different types of insomnia. So if you think you might have insomnia, there are three different types, and in this video, I’m going to share with you what they are.

Okay. So the first type insomnia is what we call transient insomnia. Now, this is insomnia that’s caused by stress. It could be caused by jet lag. It’s something that we all experience from time to time, and it can last anywhere from a few days to a week. It’s very common and it’s nothing to be concerned about.

Now, the next form of insomnia, we call, is acute insomnia. Now, this can last anywhere from a week to several weeks. And again, this could be caused by maybe a major stressful event, like somebody passed away, you lost a job. And this is a little bit more serious than transient insomnia, and then it can shift into what’s called chronic insomnia. Now, chronic insomnia can last for several weeks, even to several years. And to be considered chronic, you have to have insomnia, either trouble getting or staying asleep, which we’ll talk about, the two different types in this video as well, for three days a week, for longer than three months. So again, it’s trouble either getting or staying asleep three days a week for longer than three months, you would be considered to have chronic insomnia.

Now, there’s two different subtypes of insomnia. There’s what we call sleep onset insomnia, which is trouble getting to sleep, and then we have sleep maintenance insomnia, which is trouble staying asleep. Now, oftentimes, people have both, or a combination of both, or maybe it starts off as onset insomnia and turns into maintenance insomnia, or depending on the night, it could be either/or. But the takeaway here is transient insomnia, if you don’t deal with it, if you don’t get out of the stressful state, can turn into acute insomnia, which then can turn into chronic insomnia. So the question becomes, “Well, how do you stop the cascade of going from transient all the way to chronic?”

Well, really it’s a matter of getting out of what I call the sleep paradox, which is the more you try to sleep, the more elusive sleep actually becomes. So I have an amazing training video I’ll put in the description below that you guys can watch. For those of you that are suffering from chronic insomnia, you’re going to want to register for this training and watch it. I go through my five-step formula for how to break free of the insomnia paradox. Hopefully this video was useful for you guys. If you like it, please like it, subscribe, and I’ll see you in the next video.