Category — Sleep Definitions

A minisleep is a tiny lapse from an awake state into sleep that has a duration of just a few seconds.

Light sleep generally refers to sleep stages one and two.

Well, I defined what is insomnia elsewhere on this site. But, since I’m going through and doing sleep vocabulary from A to Z… I better include it again, and I’ll expand a bit by also discussing here internal arousal insomnia.

Okay, the quick definition for insomnia is that it’s the inability to get as much sleep as needed for normal, waking hour functioning. The literal meaning of the word insomnia is no sleep. However, insomniacs almost always get at least a little bit of sleep in a 24 hour time frame.

Internal arousal insomnia is a particular flavor of insomnia. This is interesting. It’s something that happens because of excessive mental activity (the brain being overstimulated from intellectual activity or fun.) It can also happen when you try to hard to sleep. I think we’ve all been there.

Idiopathic insomnia is a useful term to know. It means insomnia that doesn’t have a known cause.

Hypopnea is an episode of really restricted human breathing.

Hypnotic remains related to sleep. It is also used to refer to sleeping pills.