A sleep disorder,or somnipathy,is a medical disorder of an individual's sleep patterns. Some sleep disorders are severe enough to interfere with normal physical,mental,social and emotional functioning. Sleep disorders are frequent and can have serious consequences on patients' health and quality of life. Polysomnography and actigraphy are tests commonly ordered for diagnosing sleep disorders.
Insomnia,also known as sleeplessness,is a sleep disorder where people have trouble sleeping. They may have difficulty falling asleep,or staying asleep for as long as desired. Insomnia is typically followed by daytime sleepiness,low energy,irritability,and a depressed mood. It may result in an increased risk of accidents of all kinds as well as problems focusing and learning. Insomnia can be short term,lasting for days or weeks,or long term,lasting more than a month. The concept of the word insomnia has two possibilities:insomnia disorder (ID) and insomnia symptoms,and many abstracts of randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews often underreport on which of these two possibilities the word insomnia refers to.
The hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis is a complex set of direct influences and feedback interactions among three components:the hypothalamus,the pituitary gland,and the adrenal glands. These organs and their interactions constitute the HPS axis.
Mind–body interventions (MBI) or mind-body training (MBT) are health and fitness interventions that are intended to work on a physical and mental level such as yoga,tai chi,and Pilates.
Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI),also referred to as psychoendoneuroimmunology (PENI) or psychoneuroendocrinoimmunology (PNEI),is the study of the interaction between psychological processes and the nervous and immune systems of the human body. It is a subfield of psychosomatic medicine. PNI takes an interdisciplinary approach,incorporating psychology,neuroscience,immunology,physiology,genetics,pharmacology,molecular biology,psychiatry,behavioral medicine,infectious diseases,endocrinology,and rheumatology.
Nonbenzodiazepines,sometimes referred to colloquially as Z-drugs,are a class of psychoactive,depressant,sedative,hypnotic,anxiolytic drugs that are benzodiazepine-like in uses,such as for treating insomnia and anxiety.
Neuroimmunology is a field combining neuroscience,the study of the nervous system,and immunology,the study of the immune system. Neuroimmunologists seek to better understand the interactions of these two complex systems during development,homeostasis,and response to injuries. A long-term goal of this rapidly developing research area is to further develop our understanding of the pathology of certain neurological diseases,some of which have no clear etiology. In doing so,neuroimmunology contributes to development of new pharmacological treatments for several neurological conditions. Many types of interactions involve both the nervous and immune systems including the physiological functioning of the two systems in health and disease,malfunction of either and or both systems that leads to disorders,and the physical,chemical,and environmental stressors that affect the two systems on a daily basis.
T'ai Chi Chih,abbreviated as TCC,is a series of 19 movements and 1 pose that together make up a meditative form of movement to which practitioners attribute physical,personal,and spiritual health benefits. The name "T'ai Chi Chih" is a trademark registered to Kim Grant and is always title-cased in official self-published sources. Some studies have found the practice to reduce stress and relieve certain ailments.
Sleep deprivation,also known as sleep insufficiency or sleeplessness,is the condition of not having adequate duration and/or quality of sleep to support decent alertness,performance,and health. It can be either chronic or acute and may vary widely in severity. All known animals sleep or exhibit some form of sleep behavior,and the importance of sleep is self-evident for humans,as nearly a third of a person's life is spent sleeping.
Scientific studies have found that different brain areas show altered activity in humans with major depressive disorder (MDD),and this has encouraged advocates of various theories that seek to identify a biochemical origin of the disease,as opposed to theories that emphasize psychological or situational causes. Factors spanning these causative groups include nutritional deficiencies in magnesium,vitamin D,and tryptophan with situational origin but biological impact. Several theories concerning the biologically based cause of depression have been suggested over the years,including theories revolving around monoamine neurotransmitters,neuroplasticity,neurogenesis,inflammation and the circadian rhythm. Physical illnesses,including hypothyroidism and mitochondrial disease,can also trigger depressive symptoms.
Sickness behavior is a coordinated set of adaptive behavioral changes that develop in ill individuals during the course of an infection. They usually,but not always,accompany fever and aid survival. Such illness responses include lethargy,depression,anxiety,malaise,loss of appetite,sleepiness,hyperalgesia,reduction in grooming and failure to concentrate. Sickness behavior is a motivational state that reorganizes the organism's priorities to cope with infectious pathogens. It has been suggested as relevant to understanding depression,and some aspects of the suffering that occurs in cancer.
Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is a technique for treating insomnia without medications. Insomnia is a common problem involving trouble falling asleep,staying asleep,or getting quality sleep. CBT-I aims to improve sleep habits and behaviors by identifying and changing the thoughts and the behaviors that affect the ability of a person to sleep or sleep well.
Social stress is stress that stems from one's relationships with others and from the social environment in general. Based on the appraisal theory of emotion,stress arises when a person evaluates a situation as personally relevant and perceives that they do not have the resources to cope or handle the specific situation.
Sociogenomics,also known as social genomics,is the field of research that examines why and how different social factors and processes affect the activity of the genome. Social genomics as a field is very young and was spurred by the scientific understanding that the expression of genes to their gene products,though not the DNA sequence itself,is affected by the external environment. Social genomics researchers have thus examined the role of social factors on the expression of individual genes,or more commonly,clusters of many genes.
Raz Yirmiya is an Israeli behavioral neuroscientist and director of the Laboratory for Psychoneuroimmunology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. He is best known for providing the first experimental evidence for the role of immune system activation in depression,for discovering that disturbances in brain microglia cells underlie some forms of depression,and for elucidating the involvement of inflammatory cytokines in regulation of cognitive and emotional processes.
The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) is a self-report questionnaire that assesses sleep quality over a 1-month time interval. The measure consists of 19 individual items,creating 7 components that produce one global score,and takes 5–10 minutes to complete. Developed by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh,the PSQI is intended to be a standardized sleep questionnaire for clinicians and researchers to use with ease and is used for multiple populations. The questionnaire has been used in many settings,including research and clinical activities,and has been used in the diagnosis of sleep disorders. Clinical studies have found the PSQI to be reliable and valid in the assessment of sleep problems to some degree,but more so with self-reported sleep problems and depression-related symptoms than actigraphic measures.
Charles L. Raison is an American psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health as well as the Mary Sue and Mike Shannon Chair for Healthy Minds,Children &Families and Professor with the School of Human Ecology in Madison,Wisconsin.
Immuno-psychiatry, according to Pariante,is a discipline that studies the connection between the brain and the immune system. It differs from psychoneuroimmunology by postulating that behaviors and emotions are governed by peripheral immune mechanisms. Depression,for instance,is seen as malfunctioning of the immune system.
Major depression is often associated or correlated with immune function dysregulation,and the two are thought to share similar physiological pathways and risk factors. Primarily seen through increased inflammation,this relationship is bidirectional with depression often resulting in increased immune response and illness resulting in prolonged sadness and lack of activity. This association is seen both long-term and short-term,with the presence of one often being accompanied by the other and both inflammation and depression often being co-morbid with other conditions.
Janice Kiecolt-Glaser is S. Robert Davis Chair of Medicine and Distinguished University Professor at the Ohio State University College of Medicine. She is a clinical health psychologist specializing in psychoneuroimmunology and Director of the Ohio State Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research. Her research on stress associated with caregiving and marital relationships has been featured in The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal,and many other news outlets.
