Although there are no official guidelines on how much sleep an individual must have a night, the “average” amount is considered to be seven to nine hours. An individual is most likely suffering from insomnia if they experience the following:
- Find it difficult to fall asleep
- Lie awake for long periods at night
- Wake up several times during the night
- Wake up early in the morning and not be able to get back to sleep
- Not feeling refreshed when you get up
- Find it hard to nap during the day, despite feeling tired
- Feel tired and irritable during the day and have difficulty concentrating.
What is important is whether you feel you get enough sleep, and whether your sleep is good quality. Generally, good quality sleep is defined by an individual falling asleep within 30 minutes or less, sleeping through the night and falling back to sleep within 20 minutes if they do wake up.
Sleepless nights can be triggered by a variety of things, but insomnia is most often associated with stress or anxiety, heart problems, long-term pain, shift work, drinking alcohol or a side effect of certain medications.
In order to tackle her insomnia, Cattrall sought the help of therapy, specifically cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).