What causes insomnia and what are the cures?

Ever wondered what causes insomnia? Here is the reason.

Insomnia is the inability or difficulty to fall asleep. It is a very common problem and happens to millions of people across the world. We may lay in our beds for hours before we are able to fall asleep or wake up in the middle of the night and not being able to fall back asleep again.

Insomnia is not a sleep disorder. Its more correct to call it a "symptom" to another problem. There are many reasons why this happens. Sometimes it may be just one reason or it may be a combination of factors.



In order to cure insomnia, you must be able to identify the cause. Whether it be a psychological, physical or other factors which causes it, only you can identify them.

It isn't possible to list down all the causes but here is a list of some problems associated with insomnia to help you identify your cause.

• Psychological
• Depression
• Anxiety 
• Stress
• Medical Problems
• Asthma
• Cold
• Cancer
• Kidney disease
• Pain
• Over-active thyroid
• Physical problems
• Hormonal changes
• Deceased melatonin
• Genetics 
• Sleep disorders 
• Temporary disorders
• Jet lag
• Working nights
• Caffeine/Alcohol 
• Environment (noise/temp etc)

Did you know?

• Natural light (light from outside not your light bulb) consists of many wavelengths (think of it as many properties) and this is important for the brain to produce the hormone called, "melatonin" which aids in sleeping. People who don't go out much into the sun and stay indoors all day often have insomnia because they don't receive this natural light.
• Smoking also causes insomnia because in cigarettes, there is a chemical called nicotine. This chemical excites your brain cells which causes it to become hyperactive (overly active), therefore the inability to sleep. 

• Scientific explanation: Nicotine has a similar shape to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine located in your brain therefore, it is able to fit into the cholinergic receptor proteins located in the post synaptic membrane of the neurone. Due to the absence of an enzyme to breakdown nicotine (in usual cases there are enzymes called acetylcolinesterase to break down acetylcholine into acetyl and choline), it is continuously attached to the receptor protein which causes continuous action potential to be generated therefore, stimulating the mind.

How to cure insomnia?
I will describe a method that works for me then list down all other methods. The problem for me is that I tend to sleep late at night and wake up in the afternoon (therefore giving me a jet lag kind of environment). So it is hard to get up early because I cant sleep early. I figured out a technique that I use which works for me. This process usually takes me 2 days to complete.

What I like to do is I'll have a good nights rest first.
Day 1: Then I'll stay up the whole day and night the next day and sleep at about 3 PM - 5 PM in the afternoon the next day.
Day 2: I'll set an alarm for 12 hours so I usually wake up at about 2 or 3 (roughly 12 hours sleep) in the morning (past midnight) the next day. I'll then stay awake until my desired time to sleep (usually around 10PM at night) then sleep. By this time you will be exhausted because you've been awake for over 18 hours (don't forget to do something active so you are tired e.g. exercise). This "fixes" my body clock so it may work for you as well.

I use this method because I cant sleep early at night nor wake up in the morning so I thought, 'since I can't sleep early at night, why don't I get exhausted first then try sleeping?".

Other methods are:

• Sleep an hour earlier every night and wake up an hour earlier the next day.
• Don't have caffeine/alcohol/smoke
• Don't take naps
• Get into daily routine to establish sleep patterns 
• Don't eat before sleeping (this provides you with energy so it would be difficult to fall asleep)
• Medicines
• Therapies 
• Change lifestyle
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

What causes hiccups?

This question was asked my my friend, Alvin Lim.

The part of our body that causes hiccups is our diaphragm. This is a dome shaped muscle at the bottom of your chest (just below your lungs) which aids in breathing. The diaphragm also separates your thoracic cavity (lungs) from your abdominal cavity (stomach).




Breathing is an, "involuntary function" meaning that you don't need to think about breathing to breath (much like digesting, reflex action, etc). When the diaphragm muscles contract, our lungs expand therefore we inhale (breath in). When the diaphragm muscles relax, it makes our lungs smaller so that we can exhale (breath out). 


There is a nerve connected to the diaphragm called the phrenic nerve. When it becomes irritated, hiccups are produced. What actually happens is that the diaphragm contracts or "pull down" in a jerky manner (diaphragm spasm). 

The hiccup sound is produced from the epiglottis (elastic cartilage attached at the top of your larynx which is in your neck). You can imagine it as a "flap" that snaps shut when air gushes in thus producing the familiar "Hic!!" sound.


So what irritates the nerve connected to the diaphragm/cause hiccups. Some of the examples are:

• Eating or drinking too quickly (Distends/bloat/widen the stomach)
• Large meal (Distends/bloat/widen the stomach)
• Swallowing air along with food (Distends/bloat/widen the stomach)
• Spicy food
• Hot food (Changing temperature of stomach)
• Cold food (Changing temperature of stomach)
• Alcohol 
• Carbonated beverages
• Sneezing, coughing, laughing 
• Excitement/stress/nervousness
• Smoking
• Liver disease, pneumonia

Here is some tips on curing hiccups:

• Hold your breath to stretch your diaphragm. (Stimulates the nasopharynx and the vagus nerve, which runs from the brain to the stomach and can decrease hiccuping)
• Someone scaring you (Interrupt hiccups so that the diaphragm begins functioning normally again)
• Taking short/fast breath
• Concentrate on something 
• Drink water 
• Sit up-side-down and plug your nose
• Place sugar under tongue 
• Pull hard on your tongue
• Gargle with water

In most cases hiccups only last a few minutes or hours. Some very rare cases are reported to last up to a few days/weeks or even years! This is a condition called (intractable hiccups) and if this is the case, it will probably be associated with a medical problem which you should see your physician about it. Common prescription that your doctor may administer are; muscle relaxants, sedatives or anti-convulsive drugs. They give you this to interrupt hiccups so that the diaphragm begins functioning normally again.


Did you know?

• Some doctors believes that hiccups are to protect us from choking.
• Occasionally, a case of the hiccups can be related to a more serious underlying condition such as diabetes or kidney failure

No taste or smell when you have a cold?

We all had this experience before and it can be irritating. This post explains why this happens.


Taste is related to smell more then most people think. In the mouth there is something called taste receptors and in the nose there are olfactory (smell) receptors. These receptors are called chemoreceptors because they detect the presence of chemicals which causes the sensation of taste and smell. 

What actually happens is that they form weak bonds with particular chemicals which causes electrical signals to be generated and passed to the brain. When the brain detects these electrical signals, our it makes us taste and smell. 

Surprisingly, 80% of taste is due to smell while only 20% is due to our mouth (tongue).


Food seems tasteless when we have a cold because mucus coating our inflamed nasal passage ways block the olfactory receptors therefore 80% of our taste is missing so food becomes significantly tasteless.

Interesting fact: Humans are relatively insenstitve to odrrs and as compared with most other animals: a well-trained human can distinguish abour 10,000 odors, albeit high concentrations. For dogs, on the other hand, the number seems almost infinite, and the concentration necessary is very low.

Ever woken up but couldn't move? They call it, "Sleep Paralysis"

This situation doesn't happen often and only to some people. It is a very weird experience for many people. Almost ghostly... but it all has a perfect reason. A reason which I am going to discuss on this post...

Sleep paralysis is the inability to move or speak as if you are frozen. Your breathing and eye movement is at minimum. You may be able to feel as if someone is sitting on you. You feel awake but cannot move or speak. You might even feel as if you are being choked or see dark shadows and hear strange noises. Our ancestors thought this situation was caused by evil spirits. But modern technology suggests the contrary, it is a hereditary disorder meaning that it is passed down from one parent to the offspring.

Sleep paralysis is due to the mis-transmission of neural signal in the brain (a bit like cars going on wrong lanes). While sleeping, our brain actually sends signals to inhibit (stop) movements (muscle contraction) in our body. If a person regains consciousness before the brain can send signals to activate the muscle movements, the person is unable to move.



We must understand what happens while we're sleeping to know what actually causes sleep paralysis.

While sleeping, our brain switches alternatively from REM (Random Eye Movement) sleep and NREM (Non Random Eye Movement) sleep.

While in the NREM phase of our sleep, we are able to make little movements such as change position, scratch our nose etc... (Sleep walking occurs at this stage)

On the other hand, in REM sleep we are having dreams and our eyes move rapidly. Experts say that this is due to the reason that we are actually "looking" at whats happening in our dreams. It is this stage that our body undergoes total paralysis. The stage where the brain paralyzes our body is called, "non reciprocal flaccid paralysis". The paralysis during our REM sleep is done my the post-synaptic inhibition of motor neurons. This happens to prevent movement while dreaming otherwise we might start acting out what we're doing in our dreams such as, punching things if we're dreaming of fights or start singing if we're singing in our dreams.


Sleep paralysis is experienced when you wake up during the REM stage of sleep and may last for a few minutes. During this time, people often feel mortal fear or extreme panic therefore the brain generates and releases internal visual or auditory signals producing hallucinations. Hallucinations can also occur if half of your brain wakes up but the other half is still dreaming in REM mode so the person might see and hear things produced by the dreams.

Small hole in the windows of commercial aircraft?

Ever seen a hole in the window of a commercial aircraft similar to the one on the right? Ever wanted to know the reason why but forgot to search for it during the day afterwards?

There are actually a few layers in the window if you look closely. The 1st layer (outer most layer) is to keep the pressure inside the plane, 2nd and 3rd layers are protective layers called the fail safe pane vent. The protective layers are present to prevent the passengers from scratching the primary window. Even a small scratch could cause the window to crack due to the high pressure of the cabin.

The small hole has several functions. The first is to let moisture to escape from the layers in-between in case it gets trapped in there. If there is moisture present, it may cause fogging (like in your car) and due to the low temperatures while in the air, it may freeze! The 2nd reason is to avoid corrosion of the window in case moisture gets in. This is one of the major cause of plane accidents. The 3rd reason is used for pressure differential and the final reason is the function of the fail safe pane vent.

We shall discuss a little about pressure in the aircraft so you will have a better understanding on reason 3 and 4.

Pressure Changes as Altitude Increases/Decreses

As the aircraft increases or decreases in altitude, the atmospheric pressure outside changes (refer to picture above).

When the plane is at a high altitude, the pressure inside the cabin is much larger then the pressure outside. This is due to cabin pressurization. Cabin pressurization is the pumping of compressed air into the cabin to maintain a safe environment. We cannot use the thin air outside the aircraft to breath because we may develop hypoxia (deprivation of oxygen supply), altitude sickness, decompression sickness and numerous other physical problems.

The small hole (drilled in the plexiglass window) is there to equalize pressure between the inside of the cabin and the actual window which is the outer pane. It allows air in and out to minimize the pressure difference between the panes of glass. It is also called the fail safe pane vent because just incase the outer pane fails, the air between blows out and the inside pane keeps the cabin relatively sealed.

Feel bad spending so much money on something you want?

Most people save up money to get what they want. Some people feel good and happy while others feel bad of spending that money.

This post is for the people that feel bad when spending the money they've spend so long and hard to save up. I'm going to teach you how NOT to feel bad.

If spending a sum of money on something you've always wanted makes you feel bad (like me) its mostly because you hate seeing the money go away. After buying what you cant, your probably wondering in your head, "was it really worth it?", "do I really need this?", "why do I feel this way? I thought I really wanted it". These thoughts running through your mind can make you less happier then you imagined after purchasing the item. Before buying the item, while saving up for it, we think to ourselves, "how it might make us feel or look like after we get the it?", or "How would it impact or change our lives?" We save and save and save on everything to hit that target BUT when that target is hit, and its time to buy what you always wanted, it just doesn't feel right. Just "wanting" doesn't really cut it. We all need a reason.

For instance you want to get a macbook pro. That laptop costs much more than standard laptop we've seen in shops. The price tag on that item is a whooping $1199 at its cheapest and $2499 at its most! 

So how would it feel when you buy it? Let me tell you, without a reason, it doesn't feel that great. Sure it makes you happy but something is just not right. We've all had that feeling before at some point in our lives.

So how do I avoid that feeling?

The answer is relatively simple. Lets say you want a laptop for your studies in college. You ask your parents or save up for a long time. When you actually get the laptop you might feel bad on spending all that money on JUST a laptop. Well let me tell you, a laptop is not just a laptop. It has a reason as well.

Sometimes the reason you want something is not a "strong enough reason" to make you feel good when you buy an item. If you think, "I want to get a laptop because I need one for my studies" it might not be a strong enough reason to make you feel good when buying it. BUT if you think, "The laptop is my access portal to all the information I need throughout my course of study. Im paying this money for the information that this piece of technology will feed to my brain" then THIS would be a stronger reason to get one and feel better for spending that money.

Another example is buying a watch. Watches can be very cheap, reasonable, expensive or very expensive. People spend up to 7 digits for one watch!!! Most of us think, "what for?", "why would anyone buy such a thing?", "that person must have no where else to spend that money", "Such a waste", "I could have done a lot of things with that money".

I think not. I think that person had his/her own reason on spending THEIR money on a watch. BUT it must have been a STRONG reason. 

For example, if you think, "I want to get a watch that cost $10,000 because I like the looks of it" or "I want that watch because I want to showoff" then, when you spend that money, you might not feel that great or happy. BUT if you think, "I want to spend this much money on a watch because I treasure time and I understand that time is finite so I want to show how much I appreciate and treasure time" then THAT would be a strong reason for some people to get an expensive watch.

There are many many more examples on this topic but as you can see, everything has a reason. It only depends on whether you can find the right reason for yourself.

How to take care of your watch

If you are like me and HATE SCRATCHES on your watch then you've come to the right place!

Before we start discussing how to take care of your watch, we must understand how scratches are formed.

In this case, I will use a watch as an example.

Scratches are formed (on watches) when something that is harder than the watch comes in contact with it. Perhaps the most common place to find scratches on a watch is on the strap or the casing itself. These scratches come from many places. Throughout the day, dust and sand, which are microscopic, land on your shirt, pants, bed sheets etc... and these microscopic particles are often harder then the metal used on your watch. Due to the hardness of the microscopic particles, if enough force is applied on the surface of the watch then scratches are formed. To avoid these kind of scratching, expensive watches use rhodium plating for the stainless steel which makes it harder. They also use sapphire crystals for the glass on your watch! Diamonds are said to be "unscratchable" because nothing is harder than diamond! At least naturally.

Sadly, scratches are unavoidable if your going to wear your watch. Maybe it wont be scratched the first few times of wearing it but surly it will be after a while.

So lets stop worrying about that! I know its a twist and on the contrary on the topic but keep reading!

In my opinion there are good scratches and bad scratches. Good scratches are when the scratches are very small and inconspicuous, in other words (micro-scratches as I like to call it) due to scratching by microscopic particles. Bad scratches are when the scratches are big, deep and obvious (clearly this makes your watch look ugly).

Watches are a piece of jewelry for both men and women. It reflects your personality, character, social class etc... It can also mean that you treasure your time! In the same way, I think that scratches on your watch will reflect your personality as well.

If your watch only consists of only good scratches, it will give a brushed metal kind of feel after wearing it over a period of time. Its one of the things thats hard to describe but we've all seen it before. They are only visible when there is good lighting. Try looking at your watch and find those small scratches (similar to the picture on the left). Frankly I think it looks pretty nice! It shows other people that you like taking care of your belongings, very elegant and caring. (a bit like George Clooney)

On the other hand, you can have bad scratches on your watch. This will show people that you are uncaring, rough etc...

But we are here today to discuss how to get the good scratches and avoid the bad scratches so lets start!

1. NEVER wear your watch to the beach! If your watch comes in contact with the sand then it will scratch it like crazy giving you the "bad scratches". Believe me I've made that mistake before!
2. Don't wear it when playing sports or even swimming! By playing sports, you may fall down and scrape your watch on the ground. When swimming, the water itself wont scratch the watch but when getting out of the pool your watch might come in contact with the ground.
3. Be careful when writing. Usually people have both arms on the table when writing or studying. When you rest your "watch-hand" on the table, you are actually making bad scratches on the back of the strap.
4. When you take off your watch, make sure that you return it into the original box that came with it. The boxes that you are provided with (when buying the watch) is designed to keep your watch away from scratches.
5. Take your watch off when on the computer. We rest our wrists on the table when typing. This can cause scratching on you watch as well. 
6. Take it off when doing house chores. House chores usually consists of pretty rough work. Your watch can easily be scratched when you least expect it. You may be carrying a big bucket using both hands (much like hugging) then BANG! you've hit it the corner of your wall when walking by. We've all had that experience or similar ones and it hurts! Especially when its a brand new watch!!
7. Be careful when walking. When we walk, our hands swing back and forth. If you walk close to a wall then you might scrape it against it and cause scratches on the bezel of your watch. Alternatively you can also hit an object with your wrist when your arms are swinging back and forth.
8. Take your watch off when sleeping. When we are sleeping, we are actually under partial paralysis of the whole body. This is controlled by the brain so that we don't actually act out what we're doing in the dream (imagine how that would look). But sometimes the urge to move is too great in our dream and our brain confuses this with real events (thats why sometimes we swing our arms or kick when sleeping). We also change our positions many times when sleeping. If these events occur, you might hit your watch on something when sleeping. 
9. Avoid all contact on your watch. This may be challenging if you are a rough person as I was before I bought an expensive watch.
10. Never wipe your watch with your cloths. As I said, dust particles land on your cloths. If you wipe your watch too hard with your watch, then deep scratches may form. It is better to use a microfiber cloth.

Thanks for reading this post and I hope I answered your question as well as give you some understanding on how scratches are formed. This is my first ever blog post so please support me! :)