Insomnia Signs, Symptoms, and Diagnosis
Insomnia means you can’t sleep, right? Yes, but that doesn’t mean identifying and diagnosing the problem is always that straightforward. Some people have become so accustomed to not getting the sleep they need that they’re simply unaware they have chronic insomnia. In other cases, minor sleep problems slowly get progressively worse, and individuals don’t realize they should talk to their doctor about it.
Learn more about what symptoms you should watch for, how doctors diagnose insomnia, and when you should consider getting help.
Insomnia, which you might have after just one night of bad sleep, involves any one of these three main characteristics or symptoms, explains Sara Nowakowski, PhD, a clinical psychologist and sleep researcher at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.
If you have insomnia, you’ll experience one of those symptoms. But it’s likely that sleep problems at night will also cause some daytime symptoms, too. Daytime red flags to watch for: (1)
While acute insomnia is short-lived, usually ending after whatever triggered the disruption in sleep disappears, chronic insomnia can linger for weeks or months, even years. Its official definition means sleep woes that occur at least three nights a week for a period of three months. Individuals with chronic insomnia may not even be aware that they’re not sleeping, Dr. Nowakowski says.
Insomnia means you have trouble sleeping. Having insomnia does not mean you don’t get any sleep over the course of a night.
Insomniacs tend to think they get very little sleep, but when their sleep is tested objectively, total sleep time is much greater than they thought, explains Gerard J. Meskill, MD, a neurologist and sleep disorders specialist with the Tricoastal Narcolepsy and Sleep Disorders Center in Sugar Land, Texas. “Patients will tell me they see every hour on the clock, but I remind them that they didn’t see every minute.”
What’s going on? Blame something called paradoxical insomnia, or sleep state misperception, when people oscillate between sleep and wakefulness. “When there are gaps in conscious perception, the brain’s tendency is to sew the clips of time together to form a continuous story, which is why sleep is perceived inappropriately as wakefulness,” Dr. Meskill says.
That disrupted sleep, however, means your sleep quality is not as good as it should be for you to get the restful, restorative slumber you need. Any amount of insomnia warrants help from your doctor.
If you start experiencing interruptions to sleep on a regular basis, it’s time to loop in your doctor. Your family physician is a good place to start. “If you’re having any issues with sleep, you need to bring it up with your doctor,” says Sheila Tsai, MD, a pulmonologist and the section head of sleep medicine at National Jewish Health in Denver.
Sleep is a crucial part of health. While some family physicians and other primary care doctors are starting to ask about how much sleep you’re getting (much like when they ask if you smoke or drink), some do not address it with their patients, Dr. Tsai says. So if you do have trouble sleeping, bring it up. “Your doctor may be able to explore coexisting or contributing conditions to insomnia — like anxiety, depression, or sleep apnea — and help you manage it,” Tsai says.
In some cases, a simple conversation about good sleep habits and how you can incorporate them into your life will be enough to make the changes you need to sleep better.
If your symptoms require even further assistance, your doctor will recommend a sleep specialist, Nowakowski says. You can find a sleep specialist in your area by visiting the Society for Behavioral Sleep Medicine or the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
Currently, there is no specific diagnostic test for insomnia. Instead, your primary care provider or a sleep specialist will use a variety of tools to evaluate your symptoms and determine the best treatment approach. Tools that can be helpful in measuring insomnia symptoms include: (2)
Using all of these tools gives doctors a picture of the factors affecting your sleep and helps them determine if there might be an underlying psychological or medical problem behind your sleep trouble that needs to be addressed, or what type of help you need.
One critical component of diagnosing insomnia is accurately and comprehensively measuring the problems the condition is causing so that all of those symptoms can be addressed in a treatment plan. For instance, if there’s an unidentified underlying medical condition, say, arthritis, that’s contributing to your insomnia, any amount of behavioral therapy you do may be futile if no one’s addressing the chronic pain keeping you awake at night.
If you have sleep problems, here are some topics you may want to bring up with your doctor, according to the National Sleep Foundation:
And remember, the sooner you tell your doctor about sleep problems, the easier they tend to be to address. Insomnia can be like a bad habit, in that the longer you let it continue, the tougher it is to change (which is what happens when acute insomnia becomes chronic insomnia). You want to address your sleep problems — or the underlying problems triggering them — before they become a bad habit.
©2025 sitename.com All rights reserved