To send a link and summary of this article to a friend, click here . If you sometimes have trouble sleeping, you re far from alone. About 30 percent of adults have an occasional bad night that keeps them from functioning at their best the following day. That, by the way, is how the experts decide whether your insomnia is a problem. It is not how many hours you sleep but how you feel during the next day that s important, says Peter Hauri, Ph.D., director of the insomnia program at the Mayo Clinic Sleep Disorders Center in Rochester, Minnesota.
Some people routinely sleep only four hours a night but feel fine during the day.
They don t have insomnia. But while an occasional bad night won t ruin your life, a whole string of them can pose some serious problems. Some of the worst industrial accidents of the century have been linked to errors made by sleep-deprived workers, according to Dr. Hauri. If you re among the 9 percent of Americans who suffer from chronic insomnia, you know that sleepless nights make a big difference in the way you feel, the way you work and the way you relate to other people. Sleuthing beneath the Surface Insomnia is not a disease.