Insomnia

Last reviewed Saturday, October 24, 2026

Insomnia is regular trouble falling asleep, staying asleep or waking too early, so that you feel tired, irritable or foggy during the day. Short-term insomnia lasts less than three months. Long-term (chronic) insomnia happens at least three nights a week for three months or more. It’s common, and it can be treated, usually without sleeping tablets.

Also called: sleeplessness; short-term insomnia; long-term or chronic insomnia.

Our full guide, Insomnia: When You Can’t Sleep or Switch Off, explains what keeps it going and how treatment works.

Signs and symptoms

Lying awake for a long time before you fall asleep
Waking several times in the night, or very early, and not getting back to sleep
Still feeling tired after a night in bed
Tiredness, irritability and poor concentration during the day

Causes

Stress, anxiety and depression are the most common causes. Noise, a hot room, shift work, caffeine, alcohol, long-term pain and some medicines play a part too. Once it starts, worrying about sleep and watching the clock can keep it going.

Treatment

Cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is usually the first treatment for long-term insomnia. Over about six to eight weeks you learn to spend only as long in bed as you actually sleep, to get up when you can’t sleep, and to worry less about sleep. It works in person, by phone or online. Sleeping tablets, prescribed by a doctor, are for a few days or weeks at most, because people can become dependent on them.

In Nigeria

In Nigeria’s national mental health survey (6,752 adults in 21 states, interviewed in the early 2000s), about 12 in 100 reported a sleep problem lasting at least two weeks in the past year. It was more common with age and with chronic pain or illness. Generator noise, heat when the power is out and money worries can all make sleep harder.

Insomnia vs poor sleep habits

Everyone sleeps badly after a deadline or a noisy night, and sleep returns when the cause passes. Better sleep habits are the first step, and often enough for short-term problems. If insomnia has lasted months despite them, CBT-I is the treatment to ask for. Loud snoring with daytime sleepiness may be sleep apnoea, which needs a doctor.

When to get help

See a doctor if better habits haven’t helped, the problem has lasted months, or it’s affecting your work, your driving or your mood. You can also book a licensed therapist on Mytherapist.ng who works with sleep problems, and ask whether they offer CBT-I.

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