Sleep disorders types
- Insomnia
- Snoring and sleep apnea
- Parasomnias
- Sleep paralysis
- Restless legs syndrome
- Circadian disorders
- Narcolepsy
How to Get to Sleep Faster
No one likes to get into the bed and then spend the next few hours struggling to fall asleep. It can be so frustrating to know you need to sleep – and yet each time you look at the clock, another hour or two has gone by. Don’t you hate it when you dread the night and it’s actually a relief to get out of bed because it means the bad night is over?
You can stop dreading the process of trying so hard to sleep and start falling asleep fast by checking your bedtime ritual to see if you’re doing anything that’s causing you to miss out on that all-important Zzzs.
Could you be setting yourself up for sleep failure? If you’re camped out in front of the computer right before bed, you’re stimulating your brain by reading the news, chatting with others, checking out your social media sites or playing your favorite game.
Shut off the computer a couple of hours before you go to bed and the same thing with the television. Don’t watch anything that upsets or frightens you before bed. Stay away from the family gossip that might bug you when you’re planning to try to get to sleep.
You can’t do anything about your cousin/sister’s/brother’s/uncle/aunt’s actions anyway. Avoid drinking anything alcoholic before bed because it will keep you awake – and the same goes for caffeine.
Get your room dark – and if you don’t have a way to get the room completely dark, then put on a sleep mask. It’s the same situation with noise. Get rid of the noise – and if you can’t, use a white machine or soothing music to drown out the annoying intrusion.
If you have a habit of sleeping with a pet, boot them out of the room. Pets wake us repeatedly during the night by jumping on the bed, by growling or kicking in their sleep or by waking up and turning around.
If you have a cat, you know how much fun it can be to wake up in the middle of the night to a cat digging claws into your blankets. Don’t make it a habit to sleep with kids in the bed, either. You need your rest and so do they.
Because your mind is going to run ninety miles an hour over what you have to take care of the next day, write it down on a list to look at in the morning. This frees your mind from worries.
Set up a bedtime ritual. Make these simple steps that you do to prepare for bed. For example, an hour before bed, take a warm bath, and then dress in comfortable pajamas. Half an hour before bed, have some warm milk or a cup of chamomile tea.
Read a chapter in a soothing book with a soft light then head off to bed. There’s also something to be said for counting sheep. The repetitive, boring counting is what quiets your mind and lulls you to sleep.
Some people have alarm anxiety – they toss and turn when they know they have to get up early. If you’re one of those people, stop placing the clock where you can see what time it is.
Recognize the Signs and Symptoms of Sleep Apnea
Sleep apnea is a condition where your breathing is not continuous while you’re asleep. Your breathing stops temporarily and this pause in breathing can happen multiple times throughout the night.
Sleep apnea can occur without you even being aware that you have it. It’s usually a family member or a spouse that notices – and even then, he or she may not be aware that loud snoring or sudden bursts of gasping for air is a sign of sleep apnea.
The gasping stems from not enough oxygen passing through to your lungs because your air can become blocked as it tries to move through the airways. This condition causes breaks in your sleep and because you’re asleep, it escapes your notice.
What you may notice, however, is that it’s hard to function in the daytime. You may feel sleep deprived and have a strong urge to take a nap. Having sleep apnea and not knowing you have it can be deadly if it’s not treated.
Sleep apnea that remains undiagnosed can lead to diabetes, heart attacks, other heart problems – even premature death because the apnea can cause your heart to begin beating erratically and throwing it into an irregular rhythm that you can’t recover from.
One of the most noticeable signs that you might have this condition is snoring that’s loud enough to wake others. If others have complained about how loud you snore, it’s time to get that checked out.
Another sign you might notice is that your throat is sore when you first wake up. You might chalk it up to allergies or sleeping in a cool room, but this is caused by snoring. You may have a headache upon waking – and this is caused by both the sleep interruptions and a lack of getting the proper amount of oxygen.
Getting up throughout the night to urinate can be a sign – or you may also wake up feeling like your mouth is full of cotton. Having sleep apnea can make you feel sluggish, cause you to experience periods where you struggle to remember things and it can even cause changes in your mood.
If you’re overweight, then you’re at high risk for sleep apnea. Children can also have a form of sleep apnea known as obstructive sleep apnea – and they can have this form of sleep apnea regardless of whether or not they’re overweight.
The symptoms for this are much the same as sleep apnea in adults. You might notice that your child is too sleepy during the day and struggles to pay attention during school hours. A doctor may be able to tell that the child’s tonsils are swollen, which is often a sign of the condition.
How to Create the Perfect Room for Sleep
Where you sleep is an important factor with a lot of power that contributes to how well you sleep. By improving your sleep environment, you can change what’s keeping you awake.
Tossing and turning can be directly related to the mattress you sleep on. One that’s too firm can cause you to constantly shift, trying to find a comfortable spot. A mattress that’s too firm can be unyielding and cause body aches.
Having a mattress that’s too soft can cause backaches. You want a mattress that’s top-quality – one that’s just right. You can never go wrong paying for the best mattress you can buy. But you need a sturdy, supportive box spring, too. A weak or older box spring can cause your mattress to wear in some places.
You’ll need the right kind of pillow for your bed in order to achieve optimal sleep. A lumpy pillow can lead to a neckache, headache, or pain in your shoulders. You may wake throughout the night having to constantly fluff the wrong kind of pillow.
An unyielding pillow can be just as bad as a lumpy one. You can find ergonomic pillows that cushion your head and help you get a good night’s sleep. Base your pillow selection on the preferences you have for fillers and the sleep position you prefer.
Think “soothing” when it comes to bedroom accessories. Wall paint should be soothing and calming and promote sleep. Don’t choose vibrant paint colors for your walls because vibrant paints tend to excite the mind subconsciously.
If there’s something about the room that bothers you when you’re awake, like a noisy ceiling fan, trade it out for a quieter one. The lighting in your bedroom is important. Your bedroom needs to be dark. This helps your body get into a cycle of associating a dark room with time to go to sleep.
Keep your bedroom at an adequate temperature, leaning on the colder side. A too cold or too hot environment is not conducive to undisturbed sleep and it can make falling asleep harder.
Get rid of any bedroom clutter. Clutter bothers your subconscious and weighs on you when you’re trying to go to sleep. Make organization and storage a top priority for your bedroom so that it’s a peaceful haven for you to slumber in.
Some bedrooms become catch-all rooms where all sorts of items are stashed. Take out anything that’s not related to sleep. If you have exercise equipment in your bedroom, take it out.
Remove the television, the computer, and anything dealing with work or finances from your bedroom. Keep the room quiet, too. If you live in a noisy neighborhood, use a sound machine or earplugs.
If you live alone and have trouble sleeping because of security fears, invest in an alarm system. Finally, make sure your bedroom has a fresh clean scent that’s both soothing and relaxing. You can achieve this by using oils or scented room accessories.
Is It Possible to Get Too Much Sleep?
When the weekend rolls around, you’ll hear people talk about how they plan to sleep in since they didn’t get enough sleep during the week. There isn’t anything wrong with wanting a little extra sleep after a busy week.
There’s nothing wrong with it as long as you don’t overdo it. Once sleep is lost, you can never bank enough hours to cover that deficit. Studies have shown that not getting enough sleep can wreak havoc on your body.
A lack of the proper amount of sleep can cause you to develop heart problems and can cause your metabolism to slow down. It also leads to trouble concentrating and trouble dealing with stress.
But on the other hand, getting too much sleep can also have adverse effects on your health. On average, you need and should aim to get between 7-8 hours of sleep every night. Sleeping for more than 8 hours can lead to putting on weight, developing type 2 diabetes, and more.
Sleeping too much can also cause some side effects that you’ll notice right away. You may wake up groggy and remain drowsy throughout the day. With too much sleep, you’ll experience fatigue brought on by sleeping and the inactivity of resting.
This can cause you to crave even more sleep. It’s almost like an addiction because you’re training your body to need more. You can also experience a sleep headache and a general sense of not feeling well if you sleep too much.
Sometimes, sleeping too much can be indicative of a deeper problem. You might have an undiagnosed health problem that makes you feel constant fatigue and causes you to crave more sleep.
You might also be sleeping too much to put off dealing with the things that drain you emotionally. Sleeping too much can also be a sign that you’re experiencing depression. The old adage that you’ll wake up once your body has had adequate sleep isn’t true. Sleep feels good – and it’s easy to sleep for 10 hours or longer unless you set an alarm.
There are ways that you can avoid getting too much sleep. Schedule an alarm if you find that you do sleep too much without one. Don’t change the time that you get up – even on the weekends.
If you feel like there’s no reason to get up because you have nothing going on, then set up a to-do list. Include fun activities, chores, and special outings. If you consistently sleep too much because of insomnia, then seek treatment to make sure that you don’t have a sleep disorder.
How Sleep Deprivation Wreaks Havoc on Your Body and Mind
Getting enough sleep is essential to both your body and your mind. If you don’t get enough sleep, you might not notice the effects – if you only miss one night of getting the right amount.
But go more than one night of not getting enough sleep and your body and your mind start to pay a price for it. Of course, the first thing you’ll notice is that you’re feeling tired and sleepy.
Sleep acts as a restoration period for the body and mind. It restores and replenishes the body, heals aching muscles, and can soothe aches and pains. Without the right amount of sleep, we run our energy level into a deficit.
Sleep deprivation then beings to show up in three ways: mentally, emotionally, and physically. Mentally, the brain becomes affected with a lack of sleep and this shows up in trouble remembering even simple tasks.
It causes you to begin to forget important data. You might have trouble following what you’re supposed to do at work or what’s going on with your family. As the sleep deprivation continues, you’ll lose more cognitive ability.
When you’re driving, you’ll react slower to traffic signals, the moves of other vehicles and you’ll be at increased risk of causing or being unable to avoid an accident. You won’t be able to concentrate or pay attention.
You’ll become disoriented and if the sleep deprivation isn’t stopped. You may begin to experience hallucinations. You’ll make more mistakes, and if others are depending on you at work or home, those mistakes could have serious repercussions. You may start to experience short-term memory loss.
Sleep deprivation shows up emotionally, too. You may become irritable even for no reason. You may be angry and take that out on others. You can experience anxiety and depression.
Studies have shown that getting enough sleep is closely tied with emotional well-being. Sleep deprivation can cause you to engage in behavior you wouldn’t normally do, like taking foolish risks with your safety or engaging in heated fights with others.
Another way that sleep deprivation wreaks havoc is in the body. You will become clumsy and less coordinated. You may start to drop things without warning. You’ll experience muscle aches, pains, and spasms.
A lack of sleep that’s caused by a sleep disorder can cause painful charley horses to occur. With a loss of sleep, your blood pressure begins to climb and your stress level mounts. Your organs can become affected.
You’ll put on weight – and sleep deprivation elevates your chance of having a stroke, heart attack or developing diabetes. Because sleep deprivation weakens your immune system, you can lose the ability to fight off even a simple virus.
Not getting enough sleep can cause muscle weakness, eye problems, slurred speech and an inability to communicate. If you’re experiencing sleep deprivation, don’t wait until you begin experiencing severe symptoms to seek a solution.
Which Sleep Aids Are Best?
If you ask anyone who’s had a problem getting enough sleep how they feel, they will readily admit how it can wreak havoc on the body. Without the proper amount of sleep, you don’t feel well and you can’t function right, either.
But if you’ve done all you can to bring on a good night’s sleep – like having a comfortable bed, sleeping in a darkened room and avoiding anything that stimulates the senses like caffeine – and you still can’t sleep, then you need some extra help.
If you can’t sleep because there are noises keeping you up at night and you don’t like ear plugs, then use a machine that produces white noise or use a CD that has soothing nature sounds like crashing ocean waves or the sound of a gentle rain.
You can also find some extra help to get to sleep by using sleep aids. There are many different types you can get and some are natural and some are not. If you want to use natural sleep aids, you can try herbal supplements. You can also try exercises to relax or engage in forms of meditation.
There are also natural food choices that can help you get to sleep. You can try having some warm milk before bed or drinking some chamomile tea. Some foods, such as those containing magnesium, can help you get to sleep.
A natural sleep aid that you can take is melatonin, which helps prepare the body for sleep. It’s an all-natural aid without groggy, morning-after side effects and you can buy it in pill form.
But over the counter medications can also be helpful so that you can get the sleep that you have to have for a healthy lifestyle. One popular and effective kind contains doxylamine. This is an ingredient that causes drowsiness. You can buy this product inexpensively.
Whichever sleep aid you decide to choose if you pick a medication there are three points you need to be aware of. First, you need to know what the side effects are. You don’t want something that’s going to interfere with your waking hours and you don’t want side effects like headaches that leave you feeling uncomfortable and cause you pain when you wake up.
Secondly, you need to understand the addictive quality of the medication versus how long you plan to take it. Some sleep aids are better for long-term use than others are. Finally, sometimes sleeping pills can actually cause sleeplessness when you’re finished taking them – so you want to make sure you know if the medication has a cycle effect.
Contents