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Are you or someone you know suffering from fatigue, sleepiness, depression, irritability, high blood pressure, obesity, sexual dysfunction, memory loss, trouble learning, social life, heart disease, concentrating, diabetes, and have been in one or more traffic accidents do to being tired? If so, you may have a sleeping disorder that can cause serious health problems. Getting quality sleep is very important for the human body. Listed below are 4 of the most common sleeping disorders.
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| Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is a common sleep disorder. The most common signs of OSA include snoring, tossing and turning, pauses or gasping of breath during sleep, sleepiness during the day, troubles concentrating, morning headaches, and irritability. OSA is when a person of any age goes to sleep and the muscles that stiffen and open the throat will relax, leading to a partial or complete obstruction in the airway for 10 or more seconds. Untreated OSA may lead to high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, depression, obesity, and motor vehicle crashes. |
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| Insomnia is an experience of inadequate and/or poor quality of sleep. Insomnia is characterized by difficulty falling asleep, difficulty staying asleep, and waking up too early in the morning. Insomnia can occur in people of all ages. Insomnia can be caused by stressful situations. For example: lying in bed thinking of a school exam, sport event, vacation trip or important business meeting that you may have the next day. Relationship problems, crossing several time zones, shift working, exercising too close to bed time, sleeping away from home, being sick, and having very poor sleep hygiene can also cause insomnia. |
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| Periodic Limb Movement Disorder (PLMD) occurs during sleep and is jerk or kick like movements involving legs and sometimes the arms or even the entire body. PLMD may disturb normal sleep by causing arousals in the brain. People with PLMD usually do not feel their nighttime movements and may complain only of restless sleep and/or excessive daytime sleepiness. A bed partner may have just as much or more disturbed sleep and daytime sleepiness as the person with PLMD do to all the jerking and kicking. |
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| Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS) is characterized by the irresistible urge to move the legs and arms (rarely affects the arms).PLS is more common in older individuals but can occur at any age in both genders. People with PLS may describe the sensation/feeling in many different ways including unpleasant, itching, creeping, pulling, tugging, or creepy-crawly. PLS symptoms start or become worse when a person is at rest, such as riding in a car or airplane, or sitting in a movie, concert, or business meeting. The longer the rest the greater the symptoms may become. Symptoms decrease as a person becomes physically active. These sensations are often disturbing enough to cause insomnia (troubles falling and staying asleep). |
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Narcolepsy is a chronic neurological sleep disorder characterized by uncontrollable sleep attack, caused by excessive sleepiness. These sleep attacks usually occur multiple times a day even when a person gets adequate sleep. Four common symptoms of narcolepsy are: daytime sleepiness, cataplexy, sleep paralysis, and hypnagogic hallucination.
Cataplexy is a sudden loss of muscle tone. Cataplexy can be mild such as a brief feeling of weakness in the knees or it may cause a complete collapse, resulting in a fall. Attacks can occur at any time during the waking stage. Cataplexy can occur spontaneously, but is more often trigged by sudden strong emotions such as fear, anger, stress, laughter, excitement and humor.
Sleep Paralysis is a brief loss of muscle strength when a person is falling or waking from sleep. The person may be aware of the surroundings, but is not able to move or speak. Sleep paralysis is very frightening event, especially for the first time.
Hypnagogic hallucinations are episodes of seeing and hearing things as you are falling asleep. Hallucinations are vivid dreams and occur between waking and sleeping, usually at the onset of sleep. Hypnagogic hallucinations may be frightening because the person is partly awake and has no control over the event. |
If you have any signs or symptoms as describe above you should make an appointment with your physician. Because having a good night sleep will bring a new life to life.
DO NOT TAKE SLEEP FOR GRANTED!
IT IS YOUR HEALTH YOU’RE PLAYING WITH.
American Academy of Sleep Medicine: http://www.aasmnet.org
American Sleep Apnea Association: http://www.sleepapnea.org
National Sleep Foundation: http://www.sleepfoundation.org
Sleep Net: http://www.sleepnet.com
Restless Legs Foundation: http://www.rls.org
Narcolepsy Network: http://www.narcolepsynetwork.org
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