What diseases cause insomnia?
If you’ve been struggling with sleep, you might find yourself lying awake at night, wondering if there’s something wrong with your body or mind. Perhaps you’ve asked yourself if a disorder or an illness is causing your wakefulness. This is a question that can be worrying and overwhelming, especially if sleepless nights have become a pattern. So, let’s unpack this together in a way that hopefully brings some clarity—and peace of mind.
Sleep Disruption vs Insomnia
Let’s start by drawing a distinction between sleep disruption and insomnia. The two are often confused but are actually very different.
Sleep disruption is when something external is causing you to have a rough night’s sleep. Maybe you’re sick with a cold, or you’ve injured yourself, or you’re going through a stressful period. In these cases, your sleep might be choppy or disturbed for a while, but it returns to baseline once the issue is resolved. It’s temporary and secondary, tied directly to something going on in your life or body, and goes away when you’re feeling better.
Insomnia, on the other hand, is an ongoing struggle with sleep that becomes self-perpetuating. It’s not just about having a few choppy nights because of a cold or stress. Insomnia stems from a fear or anxiety around sleep itself. You might find yourself lying in bed, dreading another night of tossing and turning, which in turn makes it even harder to fall asleep. This cycle is what keeps insomnia going—your worry about not sleeping fuels the problem.
So, What Diseases Cause Insomnia?
Knowing the above, we can find the surprising truth - no disease causes insomnia. Sure, many health conditions—like pain, colds, diabetes, sleep apnea, mental health struggles—can cause sleep disruption. But none of these cause you to be afraid of not sleeping.
Insomnia starts when our brain has started thinking there’s something wrong with our sleep system, creating a fear of not sleeping.
Knowing this can be comforting. It means that if you’ve been worrying that a disease is behind your sleepless nights, you have one less thing to worry about. And when we worry less, peaceful sleep starts happening all by itself.
