Sleep disorder is a condition that disrupts your normal sleep pattern. A sleep disorder can affect your overall health and quality of life. Sleep deprivation can affect your ability to drive safely and increase your risk of other health problems. There are more than 80 diagnosable sleep disorders in existence and Insomnia, Sleep Apnea and Hypersomnia are few of the major ones.
Causes and Symtoms of Sleeping Disorders:
There are different causes for sleep disorders including physical and mental ailments apart from environmental and miscellaneous factors. Individuals with heart and lung diseases are more prone to sleeping disorders.
Nerve disorders and pain can be a major contributing factor in sleeping disorders. Mental illness including depression and anxiety can also disrupt your normal sleeping pattern and manipulate your sleep cycle. Individuals on high dose of medicines might face disruption while sleeping and some individuals have genetically inherited sleep disorders from their previous generation.
Eating habits like, consumption of caffeine and alcohol keeps you awake for hours and disturbs your sleep cycle. An irregular sleep schedule due to working night shifts can adversely impact your biological clock, making it difficult for one to fall asleep. Aging too is an important factor impacting one’s sleep schedule as aged people get less sleep and are awakened more easily.
Regularly taking more than 30 minutes to fall asleep, regularly waking up several times each night, having trouble falling back to sleep, waking up too early in the morning without completing 7 hours of sleep, feeling sleepy during the day and falling asleep at the wrong time alongside snoring loudly, snorting or gasping during sleep.
Diagnosing Sleep Disorders and its Remedies:
Keep a check on brain wave changes, eye movements, breathing rate, blood pressure, heart rate and electrical activity of the heart and other muscles. Short term treatments include good sleep habits and other lifestyle changes such as maintaining a healthy diet and exercising on a regular basis. Bright light therapy and taking help of natural products such as Melatonin can also help you to sleep.
There are a number of remedies and treatments recommended by Healthcare Specialists:
- Optimal Sleep Environment – It is advised by experts to create an optimal sleep environment by making your bedroom comfortable, cool, quiet and dark. Minimize noise around you or use sound proof earplugs and use sleep mask or blackout curtains to stop light from interfering with your sleep.
- Fix Sleeping Hours – Go to bed at the same time every night and wake up at the same time in the morning. Fixing your sleep hours can help your body get accustomed to your sleeping pattern which in turn will help you get sleep regularly.
- Avoid Caffeine or Alcohol – Both Caffeine and Alcohol are stimulants that keeps you awake for hours, thereby, not letting you fall asleep. Hence, it is advisable to not consume alcohol or caffeine at least 4 hours before bedtime.
- Counseling – Sleep specialists often recommend cognitive behavioral therapy to help you recognise, challenge and change stress-inducing thoughts that keeps you awake at night.
- Changed Lifestyle – Apart from establishing a fixed bedtime, exercising on a regular basis, not taking naps at other times of the day, reading before bed and avoiding large meals before bedtime can help you fall asleep faster.
- Reduced Screen Time – Reduced screen time throughout the day and switching off all electronic devices such as laptops and smartphones at least an hour before bedtime can help you de-stress and fall asleep faster.
- Medications & Supplements – When all other home remedies fail, resorting to natural supplements like Melatonin is recommended by health experts. You can also take medicines prescribed by Doctors that are readily available at Frank Ross Health App to cure your sleep disorder.
A number of Sleeping Disorders are caused due to physical and mental ailments that can be cured through medication, counseling, regular exercise and a healthy lifestyle. Fix your sleeping hours, take melatonin supplements and watch your sleep disorder get better with time.