Sleeping Disorders Essay

Sleeping disorder is a medical disorder of the sleep models of a human being or an animal. The sleeping disorders interfere with the normal mental, physical, social, and emotional functioning of the body. The commonly ordered sleeping disorders are polysomnography and actigraphy. This paper provides a critical analysis of a 2010 article written by Jane F. Gaultney called The prevalence of sleep disorders in college students: impact on academic performance.

09-09-2012 Day 1: I went to sleep at 1:00 am and woke up at 6:11 am. The dream was that my grandmother passed away and that I had nobody to confide in. It got to a point where I just went

Sleep can be simply defined as "a reversible behavioral state of perceptual disengagement from and unresponsiveness to the environment" (Kryger, Roth & Dement). As far as the sleeping disorders are concerned, they involve the difficulties that are associated to sleeping. When an individual has difficulty in falling or staying asleep, falling asleep at wrong times, falling asleep unnecessarily, or shows other abnormal sleep behaviors, he/she is said to have a sleep disorder.

I have completed the sleep assessment and I am not surprise with the outcome it gave me. The results showed that my sleep habits could be better. Some days are better than others, but generally, I do wake up drowsy and hitting my alarm clock once or twice. I admit, I usually stay up on my phone past midnight like any other young adult. If it is not my phone that is keeping me up at night, it’s usually my mind reminding me of all the stress that may be going on in my life.

Sleep apnea is a common sleeping disorder where a person has experiences of not breathing during sleep. Over 20 million Americans, mostly overweight men, suffer from sleep apnea. Despite these numbers, sleep apnea is often not treated directly because its symptoms are thought to be those of depression, stress, or just loud snoring. There may be a genetic component to this disorder as it often occurs within families.People with sleep apnea stop breathing for at least 10 seconds at a time; these short stops in breathing can happen up to 400 times every night.

There are a few factors that are essential for life such as breathing or eating, but one of the most essential factor is sleep. Even though the amount of sleep people need differs from one individual to another, the fact is that eventually everyone needs to sleep. People know the importance of sleep, but due to the increased workload and the pressure of society people are getting less sleep. As a result, there has been an increase interest on the effects lack of sleep has on the mind especially the memory of a person. Many questions arose about the relationship between sleep and memory due to the fact most high school and college students have become sleep deprived. For example, does more sleep mean higher grades?

Sleep deprivation is prevalent in industrialized societies and has been linked to serious health issues and traffic accidents. This essay views sleep and sleep deprivation from five different motivational perspectives in order to gain a holistic understanding of the phenomena. From evolutionary, psychodynamic, behaviourist, cognitive, and hierarchy of needs perspectives, it is inferred that the cognitive and behaviourist perspectives uphold the most merit for gaining understanding into sleep and sleep deprivation. However, it is

Sleep paralysis is a common condition with a prevalence of 5-62%, although most affected people have single or infrequent episodes (Dahlitz). Occasionally sleep paralysis is found to run in a family, and it can be associated with other disorders of hypersomnia, such as sleep apnea (Becker 81). Narcolepsy has also been linked with sleep paralysis; both are thought to be REM sleep disorders (Siegel). Gender and race do not seem to be a factor of risk for this disorder. The episodes of sleep paralysis seem to range from ages 5-35 (Dahlitz). The use of anxiolytic medicines, psychiatric disorders and high anxiety can also contribute to sleep paralysis (Larkin).

“The worst thing in the world is to try to sleep and not to, then forcing oneself to stay awake for days on end must surely come a close second.”

What do the effects of sleep deprivation have on people? When a person does not get enough sleep, he or she is depriving his or her body of something that it needs. A delightful sleep is one of the most satisfying human experiences with a role to play in supporting a good mood and cognitive acuity as well as in promoting physiologic balance and resilience (Chittora, Jain and Suhalka). People think because they get an insufficient number of hours of sleep, they will not have an emotional impact by it. Sleep is a required need for peoples’ day to day life to be able to perform and stay healthy emotionally and physically. The effects of sleep deprivation are an issue because it affects mood, performance, and health.

Every night approximately seven billion people lay their heads down to sleep. Many people hoping for an escape from their chaotic lives, wishing to slip away into a fantasy world that is not based in their own reality. There is a great deal of research on the topic of dreams being fantasy versus a subconscious reality. Do we only dream what we know we could never do with our conscious mind or is it all just outlandish fantasies that will never come to life?

The first and most researched sleep disorder is sleep apnea. Sleep apnea does not affect children as often as it effects adults, but it is still a rising concern. Sleep apnea occurs in about 2 per cent of children, mainly between the ages of one through eight. But it can also show up in older children and even infants. (Klein). Research says that young blacks are more at risk than young whites. (Fritz p 83). Children with sleep apnea briefly stop breathing many times during the night due to an obstruction in the respiratory tract. Most of the time it is related to enlarged tonsils and adenoids or to obesity. As the child will gasp for there breath during sleep, they awaken for a few moments to regain there normal breathing and then they immediately return back to sleep. Because the child will be awoken by this many times during the night, this cause sleep deprivation. (Common Sleep Problems AA). The physical symptoms of sleep apnea are excessive daytime sleepiness, snoring, restless sleep, heavy and irregular breathing, excessive perspiring during the night, bad dreams, sleeping with there mouth open, sleeps in strange positions, morning headaches, learning problems, excessive irritability, depression, changes in personality, difficulty

Each night without fail our eyes grow heavy and our minds tired, and dreaming we drag ourselves to bed and normally fall asleep quickly and peacefully off to dream land we go.

Neuroimaging has made it possible to assess abnormal metabolic functions responsible for insomnia. fMRI assists in targeting areas of the brain experiencing increased blood flow and neuronal activity. Studies that have analyzed the effects of insomnia using magnetic imaging techniques have concluded that there are characteristic deviations in brain structure and interconnectivity with regard to insomnia. In a recent review, ample evidence concluded that positive interconnectivity was present in regions of the brain responsible for “…wakefulness, emotion, worry/rumination, saliency/attention, and sensory motor…” in affected individuals, while regions of the brain that normally regulated each other (i.e. the salience network and default

Sleep deprivation is a common issue among people around the world, and everyone has or will experience it in their life. Not getting enough sleep makes it difficult for the body to function properly. Insomnia is a well-known disorder, mainly known in the United States; one in ten adults suffers from this disorder (Kloc). There are many reasons why people end up with a sleeping disorder, and the most common reason is stress. When people do not have enough sleep they behave differently, and do not make the same choices as if they were fully rested. There are four stages of sleep. The fourth stage, REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep is the most important stage of sleeping. A common side effect of BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) is sleep