Insomnia, narcolepsy, sleep apnea and sleepwalking debated through their various manifestations and effects

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to discuss and determine the differences between different types of sleep disorders, what are the causes and the effects on humans’ physical and mental health. Some of the most common sleep disorders are: insomnia, narcolepsy, sleep apnea and sleep walking. In general, sleep disorders are diseases which interfere with a person’s normal sleep cycle; they either occur before or during that person’s sleep period. Most of the time sleep disorders occurred in college students or older people, but there are different types of disorders so the causes will also vary from one to another. Some of these disorders also can directly deteriorate diseases like Parkinson or Alzheimer and affect a person’s body weight; consequently, it will leads to diabetes or cardiovascular diseases.

Causes of different types of sleep disorders and the influences on the patient

Why do people have sleep disorders? This question has many answers to it and by many people who have studied the topic. Generally, sleep disorders can be caused by stress, medications, mental illness and sometimes other diseases. Due to the variety of causes of this disorder, it is also a fact that everyone can have sleep disorders. However, the most common group of people who have issues regarding their sleep is college students and elders. For older people, sleep disorders usually caused by other diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Research showed that Alzheimer’s patients have less neuron in brain area, which leads to their poor sleep quality.

For college students, Assaad. S, Tannous. F and Costanian. C from universities in Lebanon did a research to analyze and study Lebanon college students’ sleep pattern and some sleep disorders they might have. The “ Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index” was used as a tool for this research. The result showed among 735 students between the age of 20-23 who participated, the average night sleep duration was around 6. 65 +/- 1. 67 hours. Also, nearly 60% of the students woke up between 6 to 8 in the morning and around 40% reported going to bed after 12am. One fourth of the students said they used sleep enhanced medications for better sleeps. This is in fact one of the causes for poor sleep quality as well as some types of sleep disorders in many people but not just college students. In addition, daytime dysfunction is another reason why people have sleep disorders or poor sleep quality. Final conclusion from the research was that sleep disorders are caused of mental illness and the most common one among Lebanese students is insomnia. This result is not surprising due to the fact that college students usually have to stay up late to finish homework or study for a test. Also, many students have a part-time job to pay their tuition; therefore they will have another pressure to manage their time wisely, in order to balance between studying and working. In other words, these college students are having too much stress, which is another cause of sleep disorders; therefore college students and everyone else in general must spend some time to relax during the day, just to escape from every stressful issues in their lives. Now that we have known the common causes of sleep disorders, who tend to be the patient, let’s look at some of the most common types of the disorders and their differences.

According to David G. Myers and C. Nathan Dewall, authors of the book “ Psychology in Everyday Life”, there are five most common types of sleep disorders. Each of these disorders has different signs and symptoms, as well as their consequences.

As mentioned, insomnia is the most common sleep disorders, especially with college students. Insomnia patients have difficulty of falling asleep and usually wake up several during the night. Some of them also have trouble falling asleep again while some do not; this will depends on the person normal sleep quality. One in every ten adults and one in every four older adults are at risk of having this disorder. Insomnia will causes its patients to have chronic tiredness and since people cannot sleep well, medications will be used. This will reduce the patient’s REM sleep which will force him to increase the doses in order for it to work. On the other hand, narcolepsy, which refers to people who are easy to fall asleep during a relaxing environment, is completely contrary to insomnia. People who have insomnia would probably say they’d rather have narcolepsy instead. As great as this disorder may sounds to many people, it is in fact not that great. If a person can fell asleep very easily, but he is driving, so that is definitely not good. In some other less life-threatening situations such as during a test, it will be very hard to finish the test while sleeping; and nobody likes to fail a test. Fortunately, the rate of narcolepsy patients is not that high, only one in every two thousands adults.

The third disorder is called sleep apnea. It stops people’s breath multiple times during their sleep. The consequence to this disorder is that it makes the patient feels fatigue and some might even feel depressed. This is resulted of slow-wave sleep deprivation. In addition, there is also a high risk of obesity, and men have higher chances than women. The rate of this disorder is one in every twenty adults, which is a little bit high.

Despite insomnia is the most common sleep disorders, the term sleepwalking or sleep talking may be more familiar with many people. These two disorders are simply people who walk, talk or do any other normal activities during the NREM-3 sleep. There are actually no serious effects caused by sleepwalking or talking because people usually return to their beds themselves or their family will carry them back; they also do not remember anything when they wake up the next day. The rate for this disorder varies from one to fifteen in one-hundred people in the general population.

Last disorder that was listed in the book is called night terrors. The signs of night terrors are appearing terrified, talking nonsense, sitting up or walking around NREM-3 sleep. The patient’s heart rate and breathing will be doubled while he is suffering through it. According to the rate, which is one in a hundred adults and one in thirty children, this disorder is more common in children than adults. David Myers said, “ as people age, night terrors become more and more rare.” (p. 60). In addition, the patient also does not remember anything after he wakes up the next morning.

While each and every sleep disorders affects in different ways, there are some general effects, too. It is obvious that sleep disorders will reduce people’s sleep quality; as the result, both their physical and mental health will be affected. A study from the Honolulu-Asia Aging Study has found out that aging men who feel sleepy during daytime will have “ a threefold excess risk for developing Parkinson disease after a seven-year follow-up.” In another study about the relationship between a college student’s sleep quality and his Body Mass Index by Perla A. Vargas, Melissa Flores and Elias Robles showed that sleep fragmentations may be responsible for the increase of body weight. Consequently, the risk of having diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases cancers is also grown tremendously. In addition, just by daily life observation, I would say that lack of sleep will affect people’s mind; everyone will feel tired, their moods are also changed in which some may be more quiet than usual or some may be angry for no reason. As the result, most people who have bad mood, regardless of the cause cannot perform well on their task; therefore, people need to sleep well every night.

To summarize this paper, there are three main points those are needed to be remember. Sleep disorders have a very serious effects on people’s physically and mentally health. However, due to the fact that there are many different types of this disorders, and each of them has its own symptoms and effects, people should know how to distinguish them. Furthermore, sleep disorders do not just directly affect a person’s health; they also can deteriorate other diseases which will affect a person’s health.