What questions should you ask yourself if you suspect you may have insomnia? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Everyone has trouble at times falling asleep or staying asleep, but when does that become the diagnosis of insomnia, and when should you seek help? Sleep expert Charlene Gamaldo at Johns Hopkins offers a few metrics.

Gamaldo: How much time is it expected that you should take to fall asleep at night? It should be 30 minutes, if it's more than 30 minutes that's potentially a problem, if it's less than 5 minutes it's potentially a problem because if it's less than 5 minutes you're so sleep deprived you're just crashing and that's going to impact the natural cycle and architecture. How they're functioning during the day, are they keeping a regular routine sleep schedule routine in terms of how they prepare to sleep?          :27

Gamaldo says making the diagnosis is very individualized and requires a careful inventory of habits, life events, and other conditions. She says a sleep study may be needed and the good news is this can often be done at home. Because of the health consequences of interrupted sleep seeing an expert is a good idea. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.