How Long Does Insomnia Last For?
- John Navilliat
- Nov 23
- 5 min read
When you're in the middle of chronic insomnia, often the worst part isn't the exhaustion or the aches but rather the uncertainty.
You'll probably start Googling questions such as:
How long does insomnia last for?
How much sleep counts as insomnia?
How do I know I'm an insomniac?
Is there any way to cure insomnia fast?
How Long Does Insomnia Last?
In the medical field it helps to have specific, quantifiable criteria to make diagnosis possible. Medical experts divide insomnia into two categories: Medical News Today+2Mayo Clinic+2
Acute Insomnia (Short Term)
Lasts from a few days to a few weeks
Often tied to obvious sleep disturbance such as sickness, a new baby, a big life event, etc.
Usually settles itself on its own
Chronic Insomnia (Long Term)
Lasting 3 months or longer
Sleep dificulty of at least 3 nights a week
Comes with daytime effects like exhaustion, grogginess, etc.
While this quantified information is necessary in the medical field it often feels unsatisfying to someone going through insomnia (speaking from personal experience).
Therefore as an insomnia coach I would like to add some "soft signs" that might resonate with you more:
You spend a great deal of time and mental energy trying to fix sleep. This includes tracking, researching and tweaking evening routines.
You routinely turn down events in your social life or are at least tempted to because you're worried about how those events will impact your sleep.
A bad night of sleep isn't merely annoying but it feels increasingly catastrophic. You start to imagine permanent brain damage, job or relationship loss and losing your old life.
These emotional pressures can easily keep insomnia going long after the original sleep disturbance has gone by.
What's important to remember here is that as easy as it is to forget your body hasn't "forgotten" how to sleep. Your sleep system is still there and functioning properly, it's simply masked underneath a think blanket of fear. When we work on resolving that layer, insomnia fades out more and more.
How Much Sleep Counts as Insomnia?
When anxious people tend to love numbers to feel reassured so it's tempting for them to ask:
"If I sleep less than X hours, does that mean I have insomnia?"
According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine insomnia is not necessarily defined by a specific number of hours and I would agree with this.
Rather it's more about trouble falling asleep, or trouble staying asleep and or waking up earlier than you'd like. But also it's primarily about how much of an emotional impact it has on you and whether or not sleep just doesn't seem to happen despite there being perfect opportunity for it to happen.
You could have two people who both experience the same number of hours a night, let's say 4.
The first person simply shrugs it off and has their morning coffee.
The second person spends a good deal of the morning replaying the night in their head, trying to figure out what they did "wrong".
Even though they slept the same number of hours, only one of them is dealing with insomnia related struggles.
So some more useful questions than "how many hours" would be
Are you consistently dissatisfied with your sleep?
Is there a fear that you will be awake when you're supposed to be asleep?
Is more and more of your life revolving around sleep?
These lifestyle questions are more inline with the insomnia struggle.
How Do I Know I’m an Insomniac?
While "Insomniac" isn't technically an official medical label, it's a label people often give themselves while they are struggling with insomnia.
This label can be unhelpful as it marries our very identity with the fact that we perpetually struggle with sleep. Instead it's more helpful to say that we are currently struggling with sleep and that it can improve once we address the underlying struggle behind it.
Clinically you might fit criteria for insomnia disorder if you meet these requirements found on Psych Central:
You struggle to sleep as long as you'd like for at least 3 nights a week and this has been going on for at least 3 months. Additionally you're not functioning well during the day because of this.
As discussed earlier in this blog post there are some more telling and applicable signs that we are currently dealing with the insomnia struggle.
Our life is revolving more and more around our sleep
We consistently monitor and keep track of our sleep
We feel like our body or mind is broken in some way.
For some reassurance: You are not alone. Countless adults have picked up this struggle (myself included for years) and have fortunately learned to drop it so we return back to the sleep we had before insomnia started.
How Do You Cure Insomnia Fast?
Naturally what anyone suffers from insomnia wants to know is how they can resolve their insomnia quickly. This might also sound like:
"How can I erase all my fear surrounding sleep immediately?"
"How can I make sure I get great sleep on a certain night?"
The honest truth about these “fast cures”
First the bad news: For better or for worse there is no reliable hack that wipes out chronic insomnia overnight. I would love for there to be a magic button of sorts that everyone can press and get perfect sleep every night but that just isn't the case.
Sleeping pills, supplements, teas, gadgets, elaborate routines may feel like you're building a fortress but really you're building a prison that you'll come to feel dependent on.
This is because none of them really address the underlying root of the issue which is the fear and/or unhealthy relationship we've developed with sleep.
What does help with insomnia?
After dealing with insomnia for many years and speaking with countless people who suffered from the same struggle by far the most helpful approach to overcoming insomnia has been "The Natto Approach" developed by Daniel Erichsen founder of the Sleep Coach School which is essentially a more palatable and applicable version of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Insomnia or ACT-I.
This is what I base my approach for insomnia off of and revolves around the idea of being more accepting of nighttime wakefulness as something we can befriend and become accustomed to while dropping our safety behaviors.
As we take these steps to mitigate the fear behind it and be more at peace with nighttime wakefulness the sleep drive that was masked by this fear starts to kick in. As a result the sleep that we want returns to us more and more.
I would highly recommend you to check out any of my content or programs to get a better sense for this approach.
Additionally I would also recommend more for your peace of mind than anything else to visit your medical provider and make sure there are no other potential medical issues at play.
In Conclusion
How long does insomnia last? While short term sleep disturbances are very common and are a part of healthy everyday life, chronic insomnia could last for as long as the fear/struggle pattern is continuously reinforced.
How much sleep counts as insomnia?
As opposed to focusing on the number of hours, it's more important to look at the overall long term dissatisfaction with the sleep that we're getting and how much of a priority it's becoming in our lives.
How do I know if I'm an insomnia?
If sleep has been a consistent problem for "a while" and you're spending more and more effort around trying to protect your sleep, you are likely dealing the classic insomnia struggle.
How do you cure insomnia fast?
Although understandable, it can be unhelpful to seek out a quick fix for insomnia. Addressing the root cause of insomnia which is the unhealthy relationship we've developed around sleep takes time. Fortunately the more we progress out of insomnia, the easier it becomes.
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