Sleep disorders
What they are and how they effect people
Parasomnias
Parasomnias are sleep disturbances that cause people to wake up during Rem sleep and sometimes during non-REM sleep. This includes nightmares, night terrors, sleepwalking, etc ("Sleep problems").
Nightmares
Nightmares are disturbing dreams that occur during the REM sleep cycle and are most common in young children. Children usually wake with a startle from nightmares and usually have a good recollection of the nightmare.
Diary of Homer Simpson
Last night I woke up in the middle of the night from a nightmare. There were these trees....the trees! They were poking and prodding me. They were alive, the trees were alive. And they picked me up ten feel in the air by my feet and were telling me to be a better person and to be better to my family when suddenly I had an appifomy... wait... epiphany! It was the scariest dream ever.
Night terrors
Sleep terrors are very extreme nightmares. They also are most common in children but unlike nightmares they occur during non-REM sleep and occur early in the night. Children can wake up from night terrors screaming and terrified. Night terrors can cause sweating, dilated pupils, and increased blood pressure. Also unlike nightmares children usually have no memory or a vague memory of their dream. Sleepwalking sometimes occurs during a night terror.
Diary of Charlie Brown's mom
I heart screaming from Charlie's room. I was very worried. I ran into his room and found him sitting on his bed. He looked terrified. His hair stuck to his forehead with sweat like condensation on a glass. Beads of sweat dripped down from his hairline. His eyes looked black an he was breathing very heavily. When I asked him what was wrong he said that he had had a nightmare but couldn't remember what it was about. All he could remember was that it was scary and he was still trembling and scared.
Sleepwalking
Sleepwalking is when a person gets up during their sleep and walks. This usually happens in children ages 4-8 and usually occurs while someone is transitioning from deep sleep stage into a lighter sleep or waking stage. A sleepwalking person may talk and they probably wont respond or remember later what happened.
Diary of Mickey Mouse
Bang! Bang! Bang! "Minnie, oh MInnie?", I yelled when I heard the banging. Surely it was her. I grabbed a bat and headed downstairs. Scared out of my whiskers, I tiptoes into the kitchen, ready to knock out an intruder. Bang! Bang! Bang! I jumped and turned, startled. It was Minie. "MInnie" I said, "why are you awake". She didn't answer. She was walking, with her head down, into a wall repetitively. I realized that she was sleep walking. I walked her back up to bed and put her back to sleep. In the morning she didn't remember any of it.
Snoring
Most people already know what snoring is, so im going to explain why snoring occurs. Snoring occurs when "air flow through the mouth and nose are physically obstructed". Some reasons for obstruction of airflow include blocked airways, or relaxation of throat muscles or bulky tissues. Blocked nasal airways can be a symptom of allergies or throat infection and can cause snoring. Another cause of snoring can be relaxation of your throat and tongue muscles. This causes the muscles to fall/collapse into the airway while you're sleeping. This can happen during deep sleep, after consumption of alcohol, after taking sleeping pills or can be the result of aging. Bulky thought tissue is another cause of air flow restriction. Being overweight or having large tonsils and adenoids (soft tissue behind nasal cavity) can cause this restricted airflow. A long and soft palate and/or uvula can also narrow the airway.
Diary of Scooby Doo
Raggie was snoring all night and kept me up. I tried to wake him up to tell him to stop snoring. I sat up and licked him, he wouldnt wake up. I licked him some more and he still wouldn't wake up. I even laid right on his back and he didnt even budge. I sat on his face and he finally woke up, I think from suffocation. He yelled at me to go to sleep and fell back asleep before I could tell him that I couldn't sleep because of HIM. Finally, I went to the van to sleep and it was quiet in there. Velma even slept in there with me so that the monsters wouldn't come. In the morning Raggie blamed it on his allergies.
Obstructive sleep apnia
Obstructive sleep apnia is the most common form of apnia. Apnia means "cessation of breathing". Sleep apnia is when a persons breathing is shallow or stops while they are sleeping. Obstructive sleep apnia (OSA) is an apnia that causes someone to have these constrictions of breathing in repeating bursts that can happen over one-hundred times a night. When the body's breathing slows the diaphragm and chest muscles pull a large amount of air in and the person will usually gasp or snort and the breathing will resume.
Diary of Captain America
I woke up to Hulk... snorting. I shook my head and walked toward the sleeping Hulk. His breathing was really shallow and then all of a sudden, he took a huge gulp of air with a gasp. "Really Hulk?", I asked to myself. I knew I would never be able to wake him up, even in his human form. So I woke up Tony Stark. He looked at me like I was incompetent. He walked confidently like he was going to show me how it was don't. He picked up his metal Iron Man hand and whacked Hulk with it. Hulk woke up with a startle, threw Tony across the room and went back to bed. I chuckled and looked at Tony, he gave me a dirty look as he stood up and then smirked. In the morning Hunk went to see the body scanner and they gave him a breathing apparatus so he could breathe properly throughout the night. Thank god.
Central sleep apnea
Unlike OSA, central sleep apnia is caused by the brain not functioning properly. Its not that the person cant breathe like in OSA but that they don't even try to breathe. This is caused by a dysfunction in the lower brain stem, which controls breathing.
Diary of Patrick Star
"Patrick!", "Oh, Patrick", yelled SpongeBob. "What?", I replied. "Are you ready to go jellyfishing??", Spongebob said with enthusiasm. "No", I replied. "Why not?", Spongebob said with disappointment. "Because im tired, I cant sleep at night because I cant breathe.", I explained. "What?!", asked Spongebob with concern. "You might have CSA", Spongebob replied. "Whats that?", I asked. "It's when your brain doesn't work so your body doesn't know to breathe while you're sleeping", explained Spongebob. "Oh, yeah. I probably have that", I said, "How do I fix it?". "You can use oxygen therapy, but that might be hard to do underwater.", said Spongebob. "Ok, Thanks Spongebob", I said. "No problem buddy!", replied spongebob.
Insomnia
Insomnia is a sleeping disorder that causes difficulty of falling or staying asleep. There are two types of insomnia, primary and secondary. Primary insomnia is caused by problems not related to health. Secondary insomnia is related to health problems such as asthma, depression, cancer, or medication/substances such as alcohol. There are also two levels of insomnia, acute insomnia and chronic insomnia.
Acute insomnia
- short term.
- last one night or a few weeks
Causes
- Stress
- illness
- noise, light, extreme temp. change
- Medications
- Jet lag/sleep interference
Diary of Sandy Cheeks
I looked at my acorn full of coffee. I never used to drink this much coffee. Ever since I moved from Texas to this stupid tank I can never sleep and i've been really tired during the day. I've been so stressed because of the stupid rodent Spongebob and it makes me crabby. Whenever he comes in here it makes me want to rip my tail off! Ugh, I need to move back to Texas before I die of sleep deprivation.
Chronic insomnia
- Long term
- Occurs around three times a week for months
Causes
- Depression/anxiety
- Chronic stress
- Pain/discomfort during sleep
Diary of Donald Duck
I saw my cousin, my dead cousin on a giant platter. I was walking along one day and I happened to peak through a window. It was easter and the flowers were dew covered. When I looked through the window I saw these giant, ugly creatures. They were cuttinging into a duck! How dare they kill one of us! I wanted to go to war! Then I looked and saw hs face, It was my cousin Darla Duck. I was petrified and my face turned green. I thought I might puke. I ran home, trying not to look into any other houses. Ever since that day I cant sleep. Therapy doesn't help, and i'm starting to turn grey with sleep deprivation. Im so scared that the same thing will happen to me, I wont even go outside anymore. This has been happening for about five months now. And i'm starting to worry that I will never sleep again.
Narcolepsy
Narcolepsy is a lack of control of wakefulness and sleep. This happens when the REM cycle occurs right after the person falls asleep instead of after about an hour and a half which is normal. This disease of most common in people ages 15-25. Scientist are still trying to figure out the cause this disease and they think it might be inked to genetics that effect th chemicals in your brain. Some symptoms of narcolepsy are...
- EDS which is daytime sleepiness
- Catalepsy which is when you feel weak due to loss of muscle and your speech could become slurred
- Hallucinations which are usually scary and vivid
- Sleep paralysis which is when a person cant move or speak while falling asleep or waking up for a few minutes
Diary of Iron Man
I was flying through the sky, faster than lightning when I started falling. Well, I didn't actually know that I was falling until J.A.R.V.I.S., my computer software program, woke me up. It was a good thing that J.A.R.V.I.S. was there because I was only twenty feet off the ground when I woke up. I hadn't been sleeping well lately, I didn't know what was wrong with me. That night J.A.R.V.I.S. monitored my brain and body the whole night while I slept. In the morning he told me that my sleep cycle was messed up. He said that based off of online websites in his database he found that my REM cycle should be occurring ninety minutes after I fell asleep and last night when he monitored me, my REM cycle started right away. He said we could use the self-replicating machine to rebuild the brain tissue that wasn't working properly. In the mean time he gave me a dose of caffeine.