Understanding and Controlling Insomnia
A good night's sleep enables us to recharge our store of physical energy and our mental functions. Unfortunately, some people are deprived of this opportunity. Specifically, nearly 30% of the population experiences sleeping problems, with 10% suffering from severe, recurring disorders. Sleep disruption affects almost everybody-children, adults, seniors, night workers- but if the disruptions occur repeatedly, they undermine quality of life, daytime functioning and psychological and physical health, and they result in significant costs to the healthcare system. Yet in spite of the high incidence of insomnia and its known adverse effects, our understanding of the causes is still very limited and effective treatments are few and far between.
In his capacity as an internationally recognized psychologist and expert in sleeping disorders, Charles Morin will focus on the problem of insomnia. He will direct a number of epidemiological studies in a sleep-laboratory setting. He also plans to conduct clinical trials to assess the prevalence of insomnia and identify the risk factors, study the psychological and biological causes of insomnia and its effects on health and daytime functioning (level of concentration, alertness, etc.), develop new therapeutic approaches, and validate implementation models to make treatments more accessible and available to health professionals.
The main benefits of the research program will be improvements in the quality of life of insomnia sufferers and reductions in associated costs.