Long Term Effects of Insomnia on Health

National Jewish Health insomnia expert, Jack Edinger, PhD, explains that when insomnia is untreated for months and years, it can impact brain, heart and emotional health.

Video Transcript

People with chronic insomnia struggle week in and week out.

They typically will have sleep disturbance three or more nights a week and for at least three months duration, but the patients I see in clinic, it’s years and years.

You know there is some emerging evidence that insomnia coupled with a short objective sleep duration can raise risks for cardiovascular disease, hypertension, neural cognitive deficits, depression, so it is a very impactful disease in the long term.