There are some patients who just have insomnia and they've had it since they were a kid and we don't quite know why. So when we look at the cause, we definitely want to treat whatever else is going on, but insomnia often because it becomes its own diagnosis and that requires its own treatment.
Shelby HarrisThere's a new line of research showing that people who don't get enough sleep, they're body doesn't metabolize as well. And so they actually - it leads to weight gain. So if you're not getting enough sleep, you might have difficulty losing weight.
Shelby HarrisAnd you cycle throughout so that you do about five to six cycles throughout the night. And we spend more time in REM later on in the night than we do earlier on.
Shelby HarrisWe have other opposite problems with circadian rhythms that can happen when you - a lot of times with older adults. They start to go to bed at 6:00, 7:00 at night and they wake up at 2:00 in the morning. And they're rhythms actually shift earlier, but sometime it can just kind of miss the mark and shift too much earlier and that's when we need to treat it with bright light.
Shelby HarrisSo when you're in REM sleep, your brain is very active, our body is quiet, but your brain is really processing a lot of things, a lot of emotions; we dream the most in REM sleep. And then you go back down in the deep stages, and so on and so forth.
Shelby HarrisNow there's some night terrors that happen in adults. And if it starts as an adult and you've never had them before, then there might be other things that are happening; it might be anxiety, depression, stress. And that's when you might have more of a thorough psychological evaluation.
Shelby Harris