The Evolution of Insomnia: Unveiling Our Obsession With Sleep Throughout History

French author Marie Darrieussecq writes in her 2023 memoir Without sleep:

The world is divided between those who can sleep and those who cannot.

It’s a big call. But insomnia is registered property concern in history. He understand difficulty falling or staying asleep, and is accompanied by distress and anxiety during the day.

There is many and varied reasons why people suffer from insomnia. These include biological changes as we age or because of our hormonesphysical or mental health problems, the medications we take, and how and where we live and work.

Insomnia is a form of torture

Sleep deprivation is literally a form of torture. The Roman consul Marcus Atilius Regulus is said to be the first person in history to have die of insomnia.

Around 256 BCE, he was delivered to Rome’s enemies, the Carthaginians, who apparently tortured him to death. They did this by amputating his eyelids and forcing him to look at the Sun.

As horrible as it sounds, the legend doesn’t hold up. There is no reliable account of how Regulus died. But while sleep deprivation torture may not have killed Regulus, it continues to be used. in many countries Today.

One of the best early descriptions of insomnia is by the English pastor Robert Burton in his book. The anatomy of melancholy (1628).

Burton knew that insomnia was both a cause and symptom of depression. He also recommended avoiding eating cabbage, which “causes disturbing dreams” and not go to bed immediately after eating the evening meal.

Then came industrialization

But we need to look at industrialization – when a country moves from predominantly agricultural agriculture to manufacturing production using mainly machines – for clues to the level of insomnia we see in Western countries today.

In non-industrialized countries, insomnia is quite rare. Only about 1 to 2 percent of the population will experience it. Compare this with modern Britain, where estimated insomnia rates are 10-48 percent, according to the study. A 2021 report said 14.8 percent of Australians had symptoms meeting criteria for chronic (long-term) insomnia.

As Western countries modernized, the problems we now associate with insomnia became an integral part of people’s lives. These include artificial light And clocks. There were also more ambient noiseAnd diet changes And accommodation. So our sleeping habits have changed because of this new way of living and working.

Around the same time, the Age of Enlightenment, marked by the rise of new sciences, at the end of the 18th century, gave us the term “insomnia” and where there is “insomnia”, there must be “insomniacs”. Thus, “insomniacs” has become a diagnostic term for people having difficulty sleeping.

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The 19th and 20th centuries

Medical remedies for insomnia began to become more widespread – some of them probably effective.

For example, in the 19th century, Grimault & Co “Indian cigarettes” were announced in Australia. They contained cannabis.

The 19th century was also the birthplace of modern medical ideas about anxietywhich we now know can cause insomnia.

The Romanian philosopher Emil Cioran (1911-1995) had chronic insomnia. His 1934 book On the heights of despair (the title speaks for itself) describes the loneliness and isolation of insomnia – the feeling of being cut off from the rest of humanity.

So many famous modern writers and artists suffered from insomnia that it is now almost a cliché. Victor Hugo, Franz Kafka, Marcel Proust And Ernest Hemingway all suffered from insomnia.

In Hemingway’s short story Now I lie downits narrator, soldier and alter ego, says:

I myself didn’t want to sleep because I had lived for a long time knowing that if I ever closed my eyes in the dark and let myself go, my soul would come out of my body.

It’s not a coincidence either the first barbiturate drugs were discovered at that time. Barbital, marketed under the name Véronalwas right one of many new drugs it promised easy sleep to those who struggled.

These drugs made people feel relaxed and sleepy by turning on the the body’s gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) system. This part of our nervous system inhibits body processes that would otherwise keep us awake. But these drugs can inhibit these processes too much. Suicides and accidental deaths from sleeping pill overdoses have become unfortunately common in the following decades.

The famous house encyclopedia Find out about everything provided a scientific-sounding cure for insomnia:

Nervous people, who are troubled by arousal and excitability, generally have a strong tendency to blood on the brain, with cold extremities. The pressure of the blood on the brain keeps it in a state of stimulation or wakefulness (…) stand up and scrub the body and extremities with a brush or towel, or rub briskly with the hands to promote circulation , and remove excess blood from the brain. the brain, and they will fall asleep in a few moments. A cold bath, or a sponge bath and rubbing (…) will help equalize circulation and promote sleep.

NOW, “sleep hygiene” means something different from taking a cold bath. It is the process of calming your body and mind before bed.

Which brings us to today

In the 21st century, Western life has added two new sleep disruptors. We drink huge amounts of caffeine. We also go to bed with portable devices — with their Sparkling light And constant dopamine hits which stimulate us and prevent us from sleeping.

Our insomnia problems show no signs of going away. Part of the reason is that our economy is increasingly organized around sleep-depriving work. In the United States, production workers are the most likely to have trouble sleeping, perhaps because of shift work. In the United Kingdom, professional footballers are excessive consumption of sleeping pills to help them relax after the adrenaline rush of a match.

In Australia, the financial cost of poor sleep is estimated 26 billion dollars per year, mainly due to loss of productivity or accidents. This means there is a good financial incentive to solve the problem.

And if the world insomnia market Either way, insomnia is big business and it’s growing. This amount is expected to reach $6.3 billion by 2030, largely due to increased diagnostics and therapies, as well as the use of sleep aids, such as sleep apps.

Philippa Martyr is a lecturer in pharmacology and women’s health in the School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Western Australia. This piece first appeared on The conversation.