5 Sleeping Disorders That Adulterates Your Goodnight Sleep

An entire day of toil and actions comes to an end with a cozy hug from your bed. And hardly anyone can deny that night sleeps are the best thing about the hectic lives that we are leading. Sleep is what rain is to harvest. In the absence or inadequate amount of it, our body starts to collapse day by day. A proper 8-9 hours of sleep in a human adult is necessary to ensure that the body and brain don’t lose the track of healthy functioning. Our brain rejuvenates and heals while we doze off and this is what boosts the efficiency of our mental and physical states.

However certain factors like stress, an abrupt change in sleeping pattern, medications, changing lifestyle or other health issues may lead to adulteration in the pure sleep that the body needs. This leads to sleep disorders that affect our body and mind, consequentially. While we ignore the vasts disparities and disturbances while taking or trying to take a sleep, such disorders, as soon as identified, should be dealt with a proper medical advisory. But in order to refer to a medical advisory, it is necessary to have the knowledge of various disorders, their symptoms, and consequences.

Here we bring you the list of the most common sleep disorders that you might be experiencing but never report.

1. Insomnia

Everyone has heard of it since insomnia is the most common of all sleeping disorders. Almost two-third of adults are reported to suffer from insomnia. There is also an increase in the report of teenagers suffering from insomnia. It is a medical condition whereby a person experiences a substantial decline in sleep at night leading to lethargy and feeling of sickness during the daytime.

Symptoms

Sleepless nights
Disrupted sleep at night
Waking up earlier than desired
Inactivity, fatigue, lack of concentration, low productivity throughout the day
Depression, anxiety
Mood swings and irritability

Causes

Insomnia can be caused because of different reasons ranging from medical, psychological to lifestyle. Sometimes disturbance in the regular sleeping pattern of a person also leads to insomnia, which may be caused due to environmental noises, extreme weather conditions, change in shift timing at work, change in altitude, etc. Psychological reasons for the disorder constitute bipolarity, depression, anxiety, etc. Similarly, certain medical conditions like heart diseases, chronic pain, strokes, asthma, tumor, etc. or hormonal changed during menstruation may also give the sleeping disorder, a backbone.

Insomnia can be of different types depending upon the duration of its presence. Transient insomnia lasts for two to three days, acute insomnia can last for a week or two while chronic insomnia stays for several months.

If the condition does not seems to get better, proper medical aid is adviced however, one can also take small but effective steps at home to get away with the problem. Stop using the phone once you are off to sleep on the bed, make sure the room is pitch dark, incorporate mediation and cut out on caffeine and alcohol.

2. Hypersomnia

Know someone who can sleep anytime, anywhere in the day, can still have a stretched sleep at night and has some serious trouble staying awake? There is a high probability that the person is suffering from hypersomnia. It is characterised by recurring episodes of excessive sleep during every part of the day. One of the common features of identification is frequent naps that a person can take even in the most abrupt situations like while working, eating or driving.

Symptoms

Excessive sleep in the daytime stretched sleep during the night.
Difficulty in waking up followed by the feeling of disorientation
Loss of appetite
Reduced productivity, low energy level, weak memory, hallucination, slow speech, etc.
Depression, anxiety
Less socializing

Causes

Sometimes hypersomnia is born out of another sleep disorder such as narcolepsy.
Drug intake, over-consumption of alcohol.
Dysfunctioning of the nervous system.
Medical conditions like a tumor, head injury, etc
It can even be a case of genetic disposition.

Also Read: How to detect brain tumour with routine eye-test?

3. Sleep Paralysis

This is one sleep disorder that might cause a person to believe in supernatural activities. Imagine being conscious and still not being able to move the body, while feeling a pressure building up on you or a sense of choking. Sounds spooky? That’s sleep paralysis. It signifies the discomforting movement of the body in different sleep stages.

Sleep paralysis occurs in three stages

1. Intruder: In this stage, the sufferer hears the sound of footsteps and opening of doors characterised by witnessing shadow in the form of a human figure.

2. Incubus: This is the stage where a person feels a physical force on his body, pressure on the chest or as if they are being strangled or sexually molested.

3. Vestibular motor: This is the extreme stage of sleep paralysis where a person can feel himself out of his body.

Causes: While sleeping, the body transits from Rapid Eye Movement (REM) to Non-Rapid Eye Movement (NREM). REM is the phase where the mind is active and dreaming while the voluntary muscles are dysfunctional to prevent the sync of dreams and physical actions. Non-Rapid Eye Movement is the phase where the mind is relaxed and not dreaming. Sleep paralysis is the condition where the body is not in coordination with the brain during the transition phase from REM to NREM or vice versa. While the brain is conscious, the voluntary muscles are still dysfunctional.

Sleeping paralysis is not a hazardous phenomenon however, it gives a ghostly experince to a person to reminisce for a long period of time.

4. Narcolepsy

Consider narcolepsy and hypersomnia as siblings. Narcolepsy is again, a disorder characterised by excessive sleep but at a grand level. A person suffering from the disorder experiences the sleep incorporated with abnormal Rapid Eye Movement. This means that the sufferer dreams excessively.

Causes: it is said that narcolepsy occurs due to the deficiency of a chemical called hypocretin which is genetic disposition. Hypocretin is the chemical that the brain needs to stay awake.

Symptoms: excessive sleep during daytime, muscle weakness and hallucinations

5. Parasomnia

Parasomnia is a disorder that constitutes numerous sleeping disorders in it. It is another sleep disorder that gives the sufferer, a paranormal experience. It is a condition where body carries out all the unwanted activities while sleeping. Parasomnia includes sleep paralysis, sleep eating disorders, nightmares, sleepwalking, bedwetting, hallucinations, sleep talking, exploding head syndrome, sleep terrors and much more.