Do you have insomnia if you have a bad night's sleep?

Are you suffering from insomnia if you have the occasional night when you don’t sleep well? Latest research reckons the odd night’s bad sleep doesn’t add up to insomnia – that’s reserved for those who have a poor sleeping pattern lasting for one year, and sometimes three.

Researchers were surprised by the extent of poor sleep that a group of 388 insomniacs suffered. For 74 per cent of them, regular poor sleep had lasted for a year, and for 46 per cent of them, for three years.

While more than half – 54 per cent – experienced ‘remissions’ from insomnia when normal sleep was re-established, half of those saw their insomnia come back.

(Source: Archives of Internal Medicine)