ABSTRACT
Sleep appears to have an important bearing on physical and psychological well-being. Yet, after a half-century of sleep research, the relationship between sleep and "well-being" is still unclear. Insomnia is one of the most common health-related complaints in the society. Most research performed before 1980 attempted to describe some characteristics of insomniacs in general. These studies almost universally included any individual with the complaint of insomnia with little regard for subtype or etiological factors. To determine whether the insomniac has differing sleep stage patterns from the non-insomniac, most researchers have compared insomniacs with a sex- and age-matched control group. Survey information from metropolitan Los Angeles and Houston residents revealed that people with difficulty sleeping were significantly more lonely, tense, depressed, and unhappy than people with no sleep problems. The terms "sleeping pills" and "hypnotic medication" include all substances which are central nervous system depressants and are taken for the purpose of inducing or improving sleep.
