Insomnia Instance - Fatal Lack of Sleep

The second Action Project in the Disease class, we look at a different criteria of diseases altogether: mental diseases. The unit itself went over the different aspects of mental diseases, as well as facts about our mind and how to determine a diagnosis. Unlike physical diseases (cancer, diabetes, etc.), mental disease need to align with certain symptoms, and usually more than one, in order to be truly diagnosed as the actual ailment. There was a wide variety of what we could choose from as long as it's covered in the DSM 5, a book that lists a great multitude of mental diseases and describes them with medical accuracy. Some of the options within the diagnosis book include schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and even alcoholism (addiction to alcohol, which can affect your body severely either with the addiction, or through the withdrawal). My choice was insomnia (also referred to as sleep-wake disorder), which is actually something many people tend to misinterpret.

From the DSM 5, I chose to study up on insomnia, a mental disease that basically renders an inability to sleep or having trouble falling asleep, not (as it is commonly misinterpreted) a mere unwillingness to sleep. Insomnia doesn't allow oneself to sleep unless very specific criteria are met, in other words, the sleeping environment needs to be perfect, and this can vary based on personal preference. Directly from the DSM-V (5), it describes insomnia as: Disturbed sleep, whether because of quality, timing or duration, can have many adverse health consequences. The most obvious concerns are fatigue and cognitive focus, but mood can be greatly affected, too. -DSM V (5). Insomnia results in fatigue, inability to focus or concentrate, poor memory, mood disturbance, daytime sleepiness, low motivation or energy, and increased errors or accidents. Due to no sleep, your brain has a lack of theta and delta brainwaves, so you never enter that restorative process of sleep. 

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Rebecca Turner, The Man Who Never Slept: Ngoc Thai,
World of Lucid Dreaming (website) {click to enlarge}

"Insomnia also can keep you from performing your best at school or work. One study estimated that an employee with insomnia loses about eight days of work performance each year. For the entire U.S. workforce, this adds up to an estimated $63 billion in lost work performance due to insomnia each year." Thomas M. Heffron, Insomnia Awareness Day, SleepEducation.com

However, insomnia doesn't always affect everyone who has it, or at least not to the point of physically growing weaker. 
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Another part to this analysis is for you yourself to simulate it. Please follow this lesson plan below if you wish to have a taste of how it feels to be an insomniac, but on a minimum scale.

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Why? (GQ)	What does it feel like to have sleep-wake disorder, aka insomnia? What does it feel like to interact with a person living with insomnia?	Time
How?	How will you initially experience these feelings? At the end of this lesson, you will have: Simulated the feeling of fatigue through direct instructions Question yourself about what you truly believe the symptoms are (meaning myths or general ideas you may have heard of before) Reflect upon how you would try to live with a live that has no rest	~
What? Agenda & Content	What’s the process of you experiencing these symptoms (slightly)? Starting off, you will begin the simulation by: Blinking rapidly and consistently until eyes are tired•2-4minutes Keep eyes open for an extended period of time, maybe even have a staring contest with someone•3-4 minutes Reflect upon this initial question; What if feeling like this was my daily life? Just imagine if you felt tired and sleepy every single day of your life, and whatever you’re feeling right now is multiplied by hours, amongst days, amongst months. Soon you go more than a year without frequent or necessary sleep.	5-8 min
Closure	Reflection (Writing) How might you respond differently to someone living with the disorder you studied? My answer: “Since insomnia is a peculiar disease, it’s not exactly something you can be all to helpful with. Insomnia actually has instances of only being temporary, but it’s essentially something that can only be helped if you’re able to assist one’s environment to strengthen comfort, which encourages sleep.”
Materials	Yourself Functioning eyes Usable eyelids

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  Now you've experienced the same thing an insomniac goes through a majority of their lives. To summarize, insomnia/sleep-wake disorder is a condition where you truly can't go to sleep unless your environment is past the conception of perfection based on your body's apparent personal preference. Many Americans today suffer from insomnia and while it's not always consistent, it can really have negative effects on your life by the means of extreme fatigue. You could lose a lot of productivity or performance skills just from not getting enough sleep, and sooner or later, a constant lack of rest can become fatal. It's even worse to drive mentally tired (from no sleep) than it is to drive intoxicated (drunk), and if you have insomnia, you're bound to be tired. Thank you for reading all the way through and now you know a little bit more about insomnia.