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Sleep disorders: types, causes, and treatment

by Alivia Nyhan
Published: Last Updated on

Having a good night’s sleep is necessary for our body to recover from the wear and tear of the day today. During this physiological process, the metabolism slows down, reducing the respiratory and heart rate and having a significant effect on the central nervous system, allowing the consolidation of memories and contributing to the processing of information. However, we have likely suffered from a sleep disorder, especially in childhood or adolescence. In this FastlyHealarticle, we will explain all the details about sleep disorders, types, causes, and treatments to understand what they are due to and what to do when suffering from them.

Insomnia

Within this term, a group of sleep disorders is grouped that consists of the alteration of the wakefulness and sleep cycle:

Insomnia

It consists of the difficulty in getting to sleep, and it is one of the most common sleep disorders. It can be related to a problem in falling asleep, maintaining it, or a premature awakening, causing an insufficient amount of sleep and rest and consequently causing drowsiness, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, and irritability during sleep. Day.

In the following article, you can see more about the causes and treatment of insomnia.

Hypersomnia

Unlike insomnia, hypersomnia is characterized by excessive sleep, which does not improve with a whole night’s sleep and occurs in situations in which it is inappropriate, such as at work. This type of sleep disorder is often related to sleep apnea.

Narcolepsy

Although it is scarce, it is the most severe type of hypersomnia, and its cause is unknown. It is a condition in which the affected person suffers from irresistible sleep attacks, which can be accompanied by another condition called cataplexy. The person loses muscle tone, causing them to fall asleep at any time for a few seconds suddenly.

Discover more details about this condition in the article Narcolepsy: Causes, Symptoms, and Treatment.

Parasomnias

It is another more extensive group of types of sleep disorders. There is an alteration of behavior during sleep, causing or not awakening without significantly impacting the sleep cycle.

Hypnic jerk

It is a sudden and involuntary movement that occurs at the beginning of sleep without significant alterations and can sometimes wake people up. It is the most common sleep disturbance and can be associated with fatigue, stress, exercise, caffeine, and nicotine.

Somniloquy

It is the term with which the action of talking in sleep is known. These types of parasomnias are also common to sleep disorders in children. It is related to the experiences of the day and emotional stress.

Sleepwalking

It consists of a sleep disorder characterized by the apparent awakening of the person because he gets up from his bed with his eyes open and performs complex or straightforward actions and then, in general, returns to his bed. People who suffer from sleepwalking episodes often do not remember the activities they performed during sleep. This is a sleep disorder that can create dangerous situations for the affected person or anyone close, depending on the sleepwalker’s behaviors.

Night terror

It is a sleep disorder that appears in the first third of sleep, characterized by the sudden lifting of the person with a cry of panic of solid intensity, accompanied by an expression of terror and rapid and sudden movements, in addition to sweating and paleness. This episode usually lasts a short time, no more than ten minutes, during which the person may or may not respond to attempts by others to reassure him. The affected person has no memory of the episode or what caused it, but it is usually related to nightmares or emotional stress.

Periodic limb movement or RLS

It is characterized by the production of arm and leg movements during sleep due to different stimuli that can cause an awakening and interruption of sleep and, therefore, drowsiness and fatigue. Periodic limb movement occurs involuntarily at the beginning of the night, with a frequency of 20 or 40 seconds, while restless legs syndrome is characterized by uncomfortable sensations in the lower limbs that are relieved by making movements or walking.

Sleep paralysis

It is characterized by a situation during sleep in which the affected person cannot perform any movement for about three minutes, even while being conscious and making an effort to wake up. It is a situation that does not produce any type of danger, but the affected person usually feels great anguish during the episode.

See the article Sleep paralysis: causes, symptoms, and treatment for more information.

Bruxism

It is a parafunctional habit characterized by the affected person clenching and grinding their teeth while sleeping, generally produced by emotional stress. Depending on the intensity and frequency, the affected person can have wear on the surface of their teeth and a feeling of pain or fatigue in the cheeks in the morning.

Treatments for sleep disorders

Sleep disorders usually have an emotional component and appear, above all, in situations of stress, anguish, worry, or any other type of emotional problem. The first step in treating dream disorders is to identify this emotional component and fix it; Identity what is preventing you from sleeping and solve it to get better sleep.

When the situation does not improve and sleep disorders become chronic and begin to affect the development of our everyday life, then certain medications are usually used to improve sleep. In contrast, the cause of the disorder is solved. Almost all drugs indicated for sleep disturbances are characterized by affecting the nervous system, such as anticonvulsants, sedatives, anxiolytics, and in case of hypersomnia or narcolepsy, psychostimulants.

The most commonly prescribed medications for almost all sleep disorders are benzodiazepines, such as triazolam, alprazolam, midazolam, and antidepressants such as mianserin and mirtazapine. These medications are indicated above all in cases where the sleep disorder is accompanied by anxiety or depression. These medications share a sedative effect and improve these disorders by allowing deeper sleep consolidation.

Hypersomnia and narcolepsy are usually medicated with methylphenidate or lithium carbonate. These medications should continuously be anesthetized in the lowest possible doses like the previous ones. The side effects that occur during treatment should be evaluated and weighed against the benefits.

Whenever a person suffers from a sleep disorder that prevents them from leading an everyday life by causing excessive fatigue during productive hours, a medical evaluation is recommended to consider the indication of some medication to improve sleep.

This article is merely informative, at FastlyHeal .com we do not have the power to prescribe medical treatments or make any type of diagnosis. We invite you to see a doctor in the case of presenting any type of condition or discomfort.

If you want to read more articles similar to Sleep disorders: types, causes, and treatment , we recommend that you enter our category of Mental disorders .

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