Why do so many people have trouble sleeping?
While sleep disorders are common, our modern lifestyles rob many people of rest. In this Ask the Experts video, Michael Timothy Smith, MA, PhD, director of the Behavioral Sleep Medicine Program at Johns Hopkins University, explains.
Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING] MICHAEL TIMOTHY SMITH: There are multiple problems, and one is the disorder.
There's 100-plus different types of sleep disorders. And the most common ones are things like insomnia, which is my area of expertise,
so just trouble initiating sleep or maintaining sleep. That's the biggie. 10% of the adult population has insomnia, chronic insomnia.
Sleep apnea, sleep disordered breathing, is another, probably the second-most common sleep disorder. And that's a disorder where people have trouble breathing
while they're sleeping. And it's highly related to obesity. Those are the disorders, but then there's another whole aspect of sleep, which I just sort of call
general sleep as a health behavior. And that is really just everybody not getting enough sleep.
And when you think about it, human beings-- we weren't made to have electric lights. And electric lights happened really late in our history in terms of, now our physiology is based on the sun
and having it go down at the same time at night and getting up at the same time in the morning. And so now we can have light 24/7.
And our jobs and our culture is one of production and productivity, at the expense of our physiology and our sleep.
sleep disorders
Browse videos by topic categories
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
ALL