Insomnia means difficulty falling or staying asleep despite adequate opportunity, with daytime consequences. The first-line treatment is cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia rather than medication. Sleep apnoea, thyroid disease, low iron and caffeine are common and treatable contributors.
Symptoms of insomnia
Symptoms vary, and few people have all of them. These are the ones most commonly reported.
2-minute check
What kind of sleep problem is this?
Four questions. Your result appears immediately — we do not ask for an email.
Where is the difficulty?
Do you snore heavily, or has anyone noticed you stop breathing?
Any caffeine after 2pm?
Any urge to move your legs at night?
This looks like straightforward insomnia
Timing, light and caffeine are the first levers, and CBT-I is the best-evidenced treatment.
There may be a specific contributor
Caffeine timing and iron status are both worth addressing, and both are simple.
Your answers suggest something specific may be present
Snoring with gasping points toward sleep apnoea, and restless legs toward low iron. Both are treatable and neither responds to sleeping tablets.
This check is an indication, not a diagnosis. It does not replace medical advice.
When to see a doctor
Arrange a medical appointment rather than waiting if you have:
- Snoring with gasping or witnessed pauses in breathing
- Falling asleep during the day, particularly while driving
- Insomnia with low mood or thoughts of self-harm
- Sleep problems persisting more than three months
- Before starting or stopping any sleep medication
What causes insomnia
Sleep is driven by two systems. Most insomnia involves a disruption to one or both, and they respond to different things.
Naps, irregular timing or caffeine reduce the drive to sleep.
Late light exposure and irregular waking move the rhythm.
Stress, screens or a raised baseline prevent the wind-down.
The bed becomes associated with being awake, sustaining the problem.
Risk factors
- Irregular sleep and waking times
- Caffeine, particularly in the afternoon
- Alcohol, which fragments sleep
- Screen light in the evening
- Shift work
- Anxiety and depression
- An overactive thyroid
- Low iron, causing restless legs
- Untreated sleep apnoea
- Menopause
How insomnia is diagnosed
| Test | What it indicates |
|---|---|
| A sleep diary over two weeks | The most useful single investigation |
| Thyroid function | An overactive thyroid disrupts sleep |
| Ferritin | Low iron causes restless legs syndrome |
| Vitamin D and B12 | Both associated with sleep quality |
| Sleep study | Where apnoea is suspected |
| HbA1c | Night-time glucose swings disturb sleep |
Not sure which of these you have had?The assessment asks, and tells you which are worth requesting.
Check my health parametersWhat happens if it is left untreated
Stated factually, because these risks are real and manageable rather than inevitable.
- Weight gain and insulin resistance
- Raised blood pressure
- Depression and anxiety
- Impaired concentration and accident risk
- Reduced immunity
- Dependence on sleep medication
How Health Total treats insomnia
Our protocol runs alongside whatever your doctor has prescribed. We do not ask anyone to stop medication.
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1
Establish the actual pattern
Two weeks of a sleep diary separates difficulty falling asleep from difficulty staying asleep, and they have different causes.
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2
Exclude apnoea and restless legs
Neither responds to sleeping tablets, both are common, and both are missed routinely.
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3
Fix timing before anything else
A consistent waking time — including weekends — anchors the body clock more effectively than a consistent bedtime.
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4
Deal with caffeine, alcohol and evening light
Alcohol helps people fall asleep and reliably worsens the second half of the night.
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5
Support CBT-I rather than replace it
It is the best-evidenced treatment for chronic insomnia. Nutrition addresses the physical contributors alongside it.
What makes this different
A standard diet plan
- Sleeping tablets as the first answer
- Apnoea never considered
- Bedtime focused on, waking time ignored
- Alcohol assumed to help
How we do it
- Pattern established with a diary
- Apnoea and restless legs excluded
- Consistent waking time as the anchor
- Honest about what alcohol does
Nine questions. Two minutes.You will see your result before we ask for your name.
Start my free assessmentAudited results
Publication pending. Aggregate outcome figures for this condition — sample size, inclusion criteria, mean and median change, range and dropout rate — will appear here once the audited outcome report is complete and signed by a second clinician.
Under the ASCI Healthcare Guidelines, a success rate, timeline or efficacy claim requires peer-reviewed data or the organisation’s own audited outcome report. We would rather publish nothing here than publish a number we cannot substantiate.
Case studies
De-identified clinical records — the plan as delivered, the markers as measured, and adherence as it actually was. Each signed by the supervising clinician and verified by a second.
Case file 1
Awaiting the case production line — dependency D6.
Case file 2
Awaiting the case production line — dependency D6.
Case file 3
Awaiting the case production line — dependency D6.
The standard each case must meet before publication →
Published with specific, informed and withdrawable consent. Individual results vary.
Why Health Total for insomnia
Clinicians, named
Over 200 doctors and nutritionists. Every condition page here carries the name and credentials of the person who wrote it and the person who reviewed it.
Indian food, Indian bodies
Thirty years of treating Indian patients, with plans built from Indian kitchens and read against Asia-Pacific metabolic cut-offs.
Our own data
Outcomes come from audited internal records, not from studies conducted elsewhere on other populations.
Somewhere to walk in
Physical centres across India, which most app-based programmes cannot offer.
Recipes for insomnia
Magnesium-rich everyday meals
Magnesium sits behind sleep, migraine and muscle cramp. Most of it is already in your kitchen.
See the recipe →Warm milk with nutmeg
Part preparation, part ritual. We are clear about which part does the work.
See the recipe →Walnut and seed omega mix
Five walnuts a day — and why the ratio to omega-6 matters more than the amount.
See the recipe →Articles
The gut and the brain are on one line
Symptoms worsened by stress are not imagined symptoms.
Read →Migraine triggers: what is real and what is coincidence
The food you blame may be a symptom of the attack, not its cause.
Read →Menopause: what actually changes, and what to do about it
It is not that you are doing less. The rules changed.
Read →Short sleep changes what your body does with food
The effect is measurable, it is large, and it appears within a week.
Read →ADHD and nutrition: separating evidence from claim
A field with a great deal of confident advice and comparatively little evidence.
Read →Questions we are asked
Does alcohol help me sleep?
It helps you fall asleep and then reliably damages the second half of the night, suppressing deep sleep and causing early waking. It is one of the most common reasons people sleep badly while believing it helps.
How many hours do I actually need?
Most adults need seven to nine, but the more useful measure is how you function during the day. Some people genuinely need less. Chasing a number causes its own anxiety about sleep, which makes sleep worse.
Do melatonin supplements work?
For jet lag and for shifting a delayed body clock, there is reasonable evidence. For ordinary insomnia the effect is modest. Timing matters more than dose, and it is worth discussing with your doctor rather than self-prescribing.
Is it better to fix my bedtime or my waking time?
Waking time, consistently, including weekends. It anchors the body clock far more effectively, and sleep pressure then builds naturally toward an appropriate bedtime.
Start with your own numbers.Free assessment, free first consultation, and no figure quoted that we cannot substantiate.
Start my free assessmentReferences
- Indian Society for Sleep Research guidelines on insomnia.
- American Academy of Sleep Medicine clinical practice guideline for chronic insomnia.
- [Further references to be completed by the medical review panel.]