HealthAugust 10, 2026

insomniac

in-SOM-nee-ak

Definition

A person who is habitually unable to sleep, especially when they suffer from chronic sleeplessness.

Etymology

Derived from the Latin 'insomnis' (sleepless), which is formed from 'in-' (not) and 'somnus' (sleep). It entered English in the 19th century to describe individuals suffering from the condition of insomnia.

In the news

The article uses the term to highlight that telling someone to simply 'stop' thinking is as ineffective as telling an insomniac to just fall asleep, illustrating the futility of oversimplified advice.

The research on overthinking points to one specific shift that helps more than telling yourself to stop: drop from the abstract why is this happening to me to the concrete what exactly happened and what is my next step

Read the full article ↗

ScienceBlog.com

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