Is Insomnia Permanent?

Check out this answer from Consensus:

While chronic insomnia can be a persistent and challenging condition, it is not necessarily permanent. With appropriate treatment and management, many individuals can experience significant improvements in their sleep quality and overall well-being. Ongoing research into the pathophysiology and treatment of insomnia continues to provide new insights and potential therapeutic targets, offering hope for those affected by this debilitating disorder.

Insomnia is a prevalent sleep disorder that affects a significant portion of the population. It is characterized by difficulties in falling asleep, maintaining sleep, or experiencing early morning awakenings. Chronic insomnia, in particular, is defined as insomnia that occurs at least three nights per week for more than three months. This article explores whether insomnia is a permanent condition by examining its causes, pathophysiology, and treatment options.

Causes of Insomnia

Chronic insomnia can be a symptom of various medical, neurological, and mental disorders. It is often associated with daytime consequences such as fatigue, attention deficits, and mood instability2. Family and twin studies suggest that chronic insomnia may have a genetic component, with heritability coefficients ranging between 42% and 57%2. Additionally, hyperarousal, characterized by an imbalance in sleep-wake regulation, is identified as a common pathway in the pathophysiology of insomnia2 3.

Pathophysiology of Insomnia

The pathophysiology of insomnia involves multiple levels of analysis, from genetic to molecular and cellular mechanisms, neural circuitry, physiologic mechanisms, sleep behavior, and self-report3. Hyperarousal is a key theme in understanding insomnia, implicating either overactivity of the arousal systems, hypoactivity of the sleep-inducing systems, or both2 3. Despite progress in understanding the nature and etiology of insomnia, there is no universally accepted model for its pathophysiology3.

Impact of Chronic Insomnia

Chronic insomnia can significantly impact an individual’s quality of life, affecting them professionally, socially, and emotionally1. It incurs substantial health-care and occupational costs and poses risks for the development of cardiovascular and mental disorders, including cognitive deficits2. The sustained lack of sleep associated with chronic insomnia can lead to severe daytime impairments and long-term health consequences1 2.

Treatment Options

Insomnia treatments include pharmacological options such as benzodiazepines and benzodiazepine-receptor agonists, as well as non-pharmacological approaches like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)2. Emerging treatments under investigation include transcranial magnetic or electrical brain stimulation and novel methods to deliver psychological interventions2. The effectiveness of these treatments varies, and a combination of therapies is often recommended to address the multifaceted nature of insomnia.

 

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Is insomnia permanent?

Quentin Regestein has answered Extremely Unlikely

An expert from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School in Sleep Disorders

Insomnia (chronic insufficient sleep) is almost always remediable.

Some background:

The first sleep of the night is deep sleep, which may last 60 to 90 minutes if you’re 20, but will be half that when you’re 30, and then progressively lessen as you age. After the initial deep sleep period, we have a dreaming sleep period about every 90 minutes. Some light sleep or brief wakefulness comes after dreaming periods. For the rest of the night, we get mostly medium sleep between dreaming sleep periods. 

As the years go by, sleep becomes lighter and more disrupted by wake periods. Newborn babies may sleep 16 hours a day, usually in 2-3 hours snippets. Average 10-year olds get 10 hours, including an afternoon nap.  The average 20-year old should normally sleep more than eight hours a night. Many modern youths sleep too little. Too little sleep makes for poorer test performance. 

The average adult sleeps roughly 7½ hours a night, but peoples’ sleep need varies widely. People tend to sleep the same amount each day. There are long sleepers and short sleepers. A small percentage of people get by with 4 hours or less, maybe with a few brief daytime naps, while another few need 10 hours sleep or more.

The trend towards lighter, broken sleep continues throughout our lifetime, so that the average 80-year-old may spend a quarter of time in bed awake. She may not really perceive this, since wake periods can be very brief, and memory works poorly at night.

Many people work at night. They find the best sleep/wake schedule for themselves.

Over the lifespan, refreshing sleep becomes more and more elusive. Many old people take sleeping pills every night. Unfortunately, drugged sleep risks falling in the middle the night during toilet trips, as well as next day drowsiness. Over-the-counter sleeping pills produce more drowsiness than sleep.

To relieve insomnia, the first step is diagnosis.

Here are a few measures to improve sleep:

1. Sleep strategy.
2. Your body must know how long a day is. It estimates day length by the interval between when you open your eyes and arise from bed in the morning on successive days. This interval should always be 24 hours long.  You need to arise from bed every day at the same clock time to keep your body on track with the daily light/dark cycle and tuned to how the world goes around.

If you get to bed very late, take an afternoon nap. Do not oversleep; oversleeping does little good; it may make you a less alert or lower your mood. The human body rhythm has a built-in respite time in midafternoon. After a late bedtime, better to get up at your regular arising time and then take a nap in the afternoon so you won’t disrupt your sleep/wake rhythm.

Arising at the same time each day helps your internal clock order your internal economy. It controls the menstrual cycle by getting hormones secreted in the right order. It increases biochemical reagents at appropriate times and then elicits enzymes to process them.

2. Avoid looking at backlit screens during the evening; they signal the body that it is daytime. Better to read a book. You can reset your clock by timed bright light treatment. Learn more about this from the American Association of Sleep Medicine.
3. Should you awaken at night, remain in bed to let yourself fall back to sleep. You might do “mindful meditation,” where you think of a “mantra,” for instance the word, “one,” silently repeating it to yourself with each breath you take. A very slow, deep breath in to the count of seven followed by slow breath out to the count of four helps to undo stress.  Otherwise, you might do muscle relaxation exercises, systematically focusing attention on each body part, e.g., left calf, right calf, left thigh, right thigh, etc., until you have relaxed your musculature. Should you still feel yourself becoming tense and frustrated, you might read for a while or engage in a quiet hobby before returning to bed.

Some people regularly schedule a wake time during the night; this should happen at the same clock time.

4. No matter how poor the night sleep, arise from bed at your regular time, using an alarm if you need to. It is better not to watch the clock during the night.  A regular sleep-wake pattern might make an alarm clock unnecessary.
5. Explore regular naps: it is okay to take them if they help you sleep at night. Don’t take them If they disrupt your night sleep. Instead do some mindless tasks. You will likely become alert after a while, since our alertness waxes and wanes in a 90-minute cycle.
6. Physical fitness deepens night sleep, so you should regularly exercise each day. Exercise, exercise, exercise! The more frequent and more intense the exercise, the better sleep will be at night. Avoid strenuous physical activity late in the evening.
7. Develop bedtime rituals. These will remind you that is time for sleep.  You might lock your doors, close your windows, brush your teeth, change into your sleepwear, turn off the lights, etc. Explore whether reading in bed helps to hasten sleep at night.
8. A very hot bath, as hot as you can stand it, before bedtime may ease sleep onset.  For some people the bath should be 1 to 2 hours before bedtime.
9. Don’t label yourself as an “insomniac.” Should you have a difficult night, the experience will only reinforce the label and create a fear of insomnia, which could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Most people have a bad night now and then.
10. If worrying keeps you awake, schedule a 30 minute “worry time” each day. A good time for this is after the evening meal, not too close to bedtime.

If you toss and turn in bed or wake up trying to solve your problems in the middle of the night, remind yourself that you will have time during the next day’s worry time. Remember you’re not likely to solve problems when you’re half asleep.  

11. Consult your doctor if you have any symptoms such as cough, ache, pain, etc., that interfere with your sleep. Your brain is always looking for information, so when your eyes close and you lose visual information, your brain turns its attention to inside the body.  Suddenly you may can feel pain or itch that was absent when you paid attention to the daytime world.
12. Some people awaken to find the bedclothes in a dreadful mess. Others act out a dream while sleeping – they may run screaming from a dreamed-of danger, but wind up on the floor or worse. If you do such things, see a doctor who treats sleep disorders.
13. If you are a midlife woman who awakens drenched with sweat, see a gynecologist for relief.   
14. Sleep environment.
15. Noise: if you are bothered by noise consider soundproofing, using earplugs or a sound-masking device.
16. Temperature: Be warm enough; you cannot easily fall asleep if you feel cold. Wear warm socks as needed.
17. Avoid eating heavy meals close to bedtime. Lying down after heavy meal invites stomach acid to flow into your lower esophagus, which can elicit a sitting-up reflex.
18. Foods and Drugs.
19. If you must drink a beverage at night, try a glass of warm milk. Milk has an amino acid, tryptophan, that helps induce sleep. Evidence suggests that deeper sleep follows drinking warm, malted milk before bedtime.
20. Sleep cannot row upstream against a potful of coffee. The duration of caffeine action may be quite long for very caffeine-sensitive people. A cup of coffee in the morning may delay sleep onset at bedtime. Gradually taper your present daily dose of caffeine by about one quarter of that amount every other day, replacing it with decaffeinated coffee or herbal tea, until you use no caffeine. Extremely caffeine-sensitive people may have trouble falling asleep after eating chocolate ice cream near bedtime.
21. Drinking alcohol in the evening can betray some people– it seems to help them get to sleep, but causes wakefulness several hours thereafter.
22. Tobacco smoking worsens sleep. It is toxic to every tissue in your body. Ditch tobacco. Most smokers want to stop smoking. They say they must quit abruptly, but that is the hardest way to quit. Stop smoking so gradually that your body hardly notices. 

To stop 20 cigarettes a day, cut one quarter off one cigarette so that you smoke only 19¾ cigarettes the first day. The next day spoke 19½, etc. When you get down to very few cigarettes, cut down even more slowly, since your body feels the total percentage of nicotine it is missing when you withdraw. For instance, you can cut down a quarter of a cigarette every other day. To keep yourself on track, make a chart of dates and number of cigarettes before you start.

8. Some drugs worsen sleep, for instance, drugs for asthma or nasal decongestants. Ask your healthcare provider if any of the drugs you take interferes with your sleep.

 

Is insomnia permanent?

Mel Schneider has answered Unlikely

An expert from Goldsmiths, University of London in Sleep Research

Yes and no.

When we have experience an episode in insomnia in the past and we experience a night of bad sleep we may wonder if our insomnia has returned. We may worry that we never may get rid of it, but is insomnia for life?

To answer this question, we have to consider the concept of insomnia as it is defined by the diagnostic criteria. The DSM-V states that the symptoms – problems initiating and/or maintaining sleep and/or early morning awakenings – have to be present at least 3 times a week over 3 months to be diagnosed with insomnia. Furthermore, we have to feel dissatisfied with the quality or quantity of our sleep and the sleeping problems should not be better explained by any other disorder (e.g. as a ‘side effect’ of depression) or by the circumstances (e.g. not sufficient opportunity to sleep or jet lag). Insomnia can be situational (often caused by a life event and only lasting a couple of weeks), persistent (e.g. lasing longer than the depressive episode it was originally associated originally) or episodical (reoccurring with different stressful events across lifetime).

This means that there is a fine line between having experienced a row of bad nights of sleep and being diagnosed with insomnia and that line was drawn by a board of experts who had to make a decision somehow what is pathological and what is not. Therefore, it may be more useful considering ‘symptoms of insomnia’ rather than the diagnosis insomnia when attempting to answer this question.

Genetic studies of adults show that the genetic vulnerability to experience insomnia stays roughly the same across lifetime. Some longitudinal studies in children and young adults suggest that insomnia symptoms decrease across time while the heritability of the clinical diagnosis of insomnia stayed the same across the waves. But what do these results tell us about the persistence of insomnia? This means that the vulnerability to insomnia stays the same across life time, but that does not mean that the diagnosis has too stick with us after we have experienced it once. However, if sleep is the ‘weak spot’ in our system, then we may occasionally experience insomnia symptoms which can, but do not have to, develop into a clinically diagnosable insomnia at some point (or several times) in our lifetime. This means that insomnia does not have to be permanent, but the vulnerability to experience symptoms of insomnia may stick with us for life.

What can be done?

1.   If you know that you may not be the ‘best sleeper’, be aware of it and follow the rules for good sleeping: good sleep hygiene, positive bed-time routines, relaxation methods to reduce arousal during the night-time and during the day, regular bedtime and meal schedule even during the weekends, etc.
2.   If have experienced an episode of insomnia in the past and you experience symptoms of insomnia during a night: Do not overreact! We all have bad nights of sleep, that does not necessarily mean a new episode of insomnia is starting. High pre-sleep arousal and dysfunctional beliefs about sleep are strongly associated with insomnia symptoms. Therefore, the more you are able to stay calm and control your thoughts, the better you will sleep.
3.   If you feel like you are struggling with insomnia symptoms get some help. You can talk to a psychotherapists or medical doctors to get advice on how to improve your sleep. It may even be helpful to just start to use a meditation-app. If you get help early on you may be able to prevent to develop a full-blown episode of insomnia.

 

Is insomnia permanent?

Michael Bonnet has answered Uncertain

An expert from Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine in Sleep Research

The term “insomnia” does not refer to a unitary condition. The majority of of patients with “insomnia” suffer from situational poor sleep secondary to acute stress, poor sleep environment, incorrect sleep timing (circadian factors), use of caffeine or alcohol, or over-optimistic expectations from their sleep. The majority of these problems can be effectively dealt with by changes in behavior (now commonly referred to as CBTI).

However, another large group of patients suffer from “insomnia” that is associated with a chronic condition such as chronic pain, depression, anxiety, another sleep disorder (such as sleep apnea) or a number of medical diseases that produce pain or discomfort that results in sleep difficulty. These patients will have improved sleep if their underlying condition is effectively treated but may have long-term sleep difficulty otherwise.

There is a relatively small group of insomnia patients, perhaps 5%, who suffer from what is called primary or idiopathic insomnia. This is insomnia that is not associated with any other known medical problem or situational factor. Many of these patients have chronic elevated physiological arousal: probable increased sympathetic nervous system activity with markers such as elevated heart rate, elevated whole body and brain metabolic rate, and elevated blood pressure that are more noticeable at night. Insomnia has a genetic association (“runs in families”), and it is possible that a tendency for increased sympathetic nervous system activity is inherited. However, there is also a tendency for all of us to become more sympathetic dominant as we get older. Sympathetic dominance means there is a decrease in the ability to relax (or decreased parasympathetic activity) and relaxation, obviously, is important to allow sleep onset. One approach to treatment is to try to reduce this arousal by relaxation training. Another approach is to use cardio training to improve parasympathetic activity (improved natural relaxation response). The major marker to improvement is reduction in resting heart rate.

At the simplest level, treatment with sleeping pills involves using sedation to mask underlying pain, anxiety or arousal to allow sleep onset in the hope that producing sleep will reverse occasionally cascading anxiety and discomfort to reinstate a more normal sleep process. However, if underlying conditions such as pain or depression are not dealt with, sleeping pill use can become chronic.

There are normal changes in sleep as we age. It is common for older people to have multiple awakenings during the night and to have at least occasional difficulty returning to sleep later in the sleep period. These symptoms, which might be considered as insomnia by a young adult, are fairly common in many older adults and are often considered normal changes. This means that if one uses young adult criteria, insomnia may be “permanent” in the elderly. However, if one believes that changes with aging are normal, than some increase in insomnia could be seen as normal. A major differentiating factor is that older individuals who have poor sleep but who remain awake and alert throughout the day are not considered to have insomnia. Individuals with poor sleep at night and with sleepiness, fatigue or dysphoria during the day associated with their poor sleep are defined as having insomnia.

 

Is insomnia permanent?

Hilary DeShong has answered Extremely Unlikely

An expert from Mississippi State University in Psychology

There is a very effective treatment for insomnia called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I). This is a behavioral intervention that utilizes sleep hygiene, sleep restriction, and cognitive therapy to help reset a person’s sleep cycles. It also helps to reset the brain with what is connected to being asleep. So for people with insomnia, a person’s bed, them “trying” to sleep, maybe worrying about not sleeping, etc., are all associated with NOT sleeping. CBT-I helps to establish new connections so that the person more easily falls asleep and stays asleep.

 

Is insomnia permanent?

Pedro Viana has answered Unlikely

An expert from King’s College London in Neurology

Almost everyone has experienced insomnia symptoms on one occasion or the other over their lifetime. These include difficulty falling asleep, difficulty maintaining sleep, or waking up too early in the morning). In previous “once-only tested” survey studies, about 30% of adults reported having one or more of these symptoms at the time of the survey.

These symptoms may remit entirely, may wax-and-wane, or may become persistent.

Chronic insomnia disorder, according to the International Classification of Sleep Disorders (3rd edition), is diagnosed when all of the below are present:

1. Insomnia symptoms occur for more than 30 min / night on more than 3 nights / week
2. They have lasted for at least 3 months
3. They cause significant impairment during the day (including low mood, tiredness, sleepiness, poor attention, work-related accidents..)
4. They are not explained by inadequate opportunity or circumstances for sleep (f.eg. night-shift work)

Previous studies (using different variations of these criteria) have shown that about 6-10% of the world population suffers from chronic insomnia disorder. This means that not all people with insomnia symptoms (30%) are chronic insomniacs (6-10%). On the other hand, chronic insomnia disorder tends to persist over time, in 40-70% of people (according to different studies that followed-up people from 1 to 20 years).

This is especially the case is people don’t seek treatment for insomnia, with a sleep specialist doctor. Insomnia can be treated with cognitive behavioral therapy, pharmacologic treatments or a combination of both, which have shown to be effective in 60% of clinical trial participants (40% in the longterm).

Therefore, the correct answer to this question would be: for the majority of people with insomnia, especially if they seek specific treatment, insomnia is NOT permanent.

 

Is insomnia permanent?

Moira Junge has answered Extremely Unlikely

An expert from Sleep Health Foundation in Psychology, Mental Health, Sleep Research

Insomnia can be acute or chronic. It can be trouble with getting to sleep, staying asleep or waking too early. Thankfully the vast majority of us will experience it intermittently (not all the time).

if someone develops chronic insomnia ( difficulty with sleep most days of the week for more than three months) then they will have to manage this for the rest of their lives and take steps to be on top of their tendencies towards insomnia. In the same way that you would if you developed some other chronic condition.

 

Is insomnia permanent?

David Cunnington has answered Uncertain

An expert from Melbourne Sleep Disorders Centre in Sleep Research

There are different types of insomnia. There is acute insomnia, where sleep is disturbed because of short-term factors such as travel, stress or illness. That usually resolves once the short-term factors have been addressed or settle. However chronic insomnia, that has been present for more than 3 months and has persisted despite addressing short-term factors, doesn’t resolve spontaneously and can be an ongoing problem. That’s why treatment for chronic insomnia is not just use of medication, but requires addressing changed thinking and behaviour around sleep with techniques such as cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT).

 

Is insomnia permanent?

Robert Glidewell has answered Extremely Unlikely

An expert from American Academy of Sleep Medicine in Psychology, Sleep Research

A well-designed population-based longitudinal study of 388 adults with insomnia symptoms looked at the natural course of insomnia over 3 years (Morin et al. 2009. Arch Intern Med; 169(5): 447-453). Of the study participants, 74% reported insomnia lasting at least 1 year and 46% reported insomnia persisting for the entire 3-year period of the study. Fifty-four percent of participants reported remission of insomnia symptoms at some time during the study. However, of those reporting remission, 27% eventually reported a relapse of symptoms. This tells us that, in the absence of effective treatment, insomnia is a chronic and often intermittent or episodic problem.

However, effective medication and non-medication treatment options exist. The American Academy of Family Physicians recommends Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) as the first line treatment for chronic insomnia in adults. Treatment literature for CBT-I indicates response rates of 70-80% and remission rates of ~40%. CBT-I is effective when provided in self-help, group, or individual formats and clinically significant improvement typically takes 4-12 weeks. Many individuals who participate in CBT-I are able to avoid, reduce, or eliminate prescription sleep aid use. Treatment gains achieved with CBT-I have been shown to last as long as 3 years following treatment.

There are also several medications proven effective for treatment of insomnia. However, there is growing concern in the scientific literature that most prescription sleep aids may be associated with increased risk of falls and dementia in older adults. Accordingly, prescribers are becoming increasingly apprehensive about using them.

I have evaluated and treated 1000+ patients with chronic insomnia using CBT-I. In my clinical experience, response and remission rates are similar to those reported in the scientific literature. However, there is a small group of patients (I would estimate ~5%) who do not seem to benefit from CBT-I or medications and struggle with insomnia permanently.

 

Is insomnia permanent?

Mohsen Bazargan has answered Unlikely

An expert from Charles R Drew University of Medicine and Science in Cultural Psychology, Epidemiology, Mental Health

Although sleep quality also has genetic determinants, insomnia is not permanent. In fact, insomnia is one of the promising areas of intervention for prevention of undesired cardiovascular events as well as depression and suicide. Interventions can reduce insomnia very well. So, insomnia is NOT permanent.

 

Is insomnia permanent?

Michele Okun has answered Likely

An expert from The Insomnia Clinic in Sleep Research

There are a subgroup of people who appear to be predisposed genetically to be at high risk for insomnia. One can remedy the symptoms by changing behaviors and modifying cognitive processes and by reducing stress. However, in my opinion, the susceptibility and vulnerability will always be present. It is how it is managed that determines success.

 

Is insomnia permanent?

Brittany Mason has answered Unlikely

An expert from UT Southwestern Medical Center in Psychiatry, Physiology, Biology, Neuroscience

Many cases of insomnia are associated with states of being, whether from disease, mood, stress or medications. Many people can have insomnia successfully treated, but the most beneficial treatments frequently come from lifestyle changes. These changes may be hard to fully implement in life but when someone is determined, they can be very helpful. In some cases, we think fairly rare, someone does have underlying pathology, whether genetic or brain-based, that causes significant difficulties sleeping and likely have a more serious condition than we generally think of as “insomnia”. I expect that many people will be able to successfully manage their insomnia with the appropriate interventions, behavior adjustments and medications can helpful. Science continues to study this condition and determine the factors that influences its expression and seek to improve this condition for all.

 

Is insomnia permanent?

Gregory Willis has answered Uncertain

An expert from The Bronowski Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience in Parkinson’s Disease

In my experience, it depends on the cause and type of insomnia. for example, in most cases of insomnia that accompany Parkinson’s disease, these seem quite malleable and what appears to be insomnia that has lasted months to years (permanent), can be improved within days to weeks with the appropriate intervention. Other insomnias, such as those which are drug induced, can often be reversed by simply withdrawing the culprit drug and then addressing circadian misalignment with some non-invasive intervention, such as bright light therapy. Nevertheless, there are still many idiosyncratic, long term cases of insomnia that do not readily respond to any form of intervention. Whether the basis for such cases be genetic or a pathological change, it is these cases that may well be regarded as “permanent”. And I say “permanent” only until we learn of why they have occurred and how we might successfully intervene.

 

Is insomnia permanent?

W Troxel has answered Extremely Unlikely

An expert from University of Pittsburgh in Sleep Research

Insomnia, left untreated, can be “chronic” but not “permanent”. For many, insomnia symptoms wax and wane throughout different periods of life. With treatment, people with insomnia do get better! There are several evidence-based treatments for insomnia, both behavioral and pharmacologic.

 

Is insomnia permanent?

Andres Ricardo Schneeberger has answered Unlikely

An expert from Psychiatrische Dienste Graubuenden in Psychiatry

Insomnia is often the result of an underlying psychiatric or medical illness. Treating that illness will often lead to recovery and an improved sleep. However, it continues to be a reality that many psychiatric illnesses remain untreated due to fear of stigma or lack of knowledge, leading to chronic states including insomnia.

 

Is insomnia permanent?

Anneleen Malfliet has answered Uncertain

An expert from Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Physiotherapy

As for many health-related problems, the answer to this question is not simple. When looking at the treatment for insomnia, we can roughly divide therapies based on being pharmacological or non-pharmacological. For pharmacological treatments mainly benzodiazepine-receptor agonists have been found effective in enhancing sleep in the short run. Yet, given the limited evidence for their long-term effectiveness, as well as their known side-effects, their usefulness remains questionable. Various non-pharmacological treatments have been developed as alternatives, including psycho-education, sleep hygiene, relaxation techniques, sleep restriction, etc. Most of these techniques are combined in a cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia approach (CBTi). The evidence for CBTi acknowledges its effectiveness for both primary and comorbid insomnia at short-term. It is shown that CBTi has large effects on insomnia severity, sleep efficiency, sleep quality, wake after sleep onset and sleep onset latency. Small to moderate effect sizes were observed for number of awakenings and sleep quality. Yet, studies looking at effects of CBTi at long-term (1 to 12 months following therapy) are currently lacking. The limited evidence available at the moment shows mixed results regarding its effectiveness. Therefore, we can conclude that insomnia can disappear due to treatment, but results at long-term remain uncertain, leaving us unable to fully answer the question if insomnia is permanent or not.

 

Is insomnia permanent?

Meena Khan has answered Unlikely

An expert from Ohio State University in Sleep Research

There are treatments for insomnia. Medication is one but the sleep medicine field supports cognitive behavior therapy for insomnia (CBTi) which is set of behavioral strategies those with insomnia can adopt to improve their sleep. Studies support that CBTi leads to better sleep, satisfaction with sleep, quality of life, and can be effective as a long term solution to insomnia.