The Courier sun • wellness • NOVEMBER 17, 2016 for breaking news visit www.qns.com WELLNESS 30 s Counting Sheep Won’t Help By Ronda Addy Almost 40 million men and women in America suffer from sleep disorders. Studies show that women ages 30 to 60 average under seven hours of sleep a night during the week. High stress levels caused by juggling home and work and physiological effects caused by changing hormones are the two primary causes. What exactly are the common sleep disorders? Here is a brief list. • Insomnia is the most common disorder. If you suffer from it, there are some things you can do to help. Establish a regular time to go to sleep and wake up. Reduce your caffeine and alcohol intake. Change your sleeping environment. Exercise. If, after you have made these changes, the insomnia continues, you may need to see a doctor. You may just need medication temporarily or there may be an underlying symptom, such as depression or pain, that may need to be treated. • Narcolepsy most commonly appears in the teenage years. It is characterized by an excessive need to sleep, especially during the day. Other symptoms are an overwhelming urge to sleep, a sudden loss of muscle strength or tone, and disturbed nighttime sleep. Doctors now have more ways to treat narcolepsy, thanks to a new understanding of the causes. • Nocturnal Sleep-Related Eating Disorder (NS-RED) is a rare condition. People with NS-RED eat at night while they appear to be asleep. With NS-RED, the memory part of the brain is still asleep, so those suffering from it don’t remember eating. NS-RED can be caused by some medications or sleep disorders and can occur while sleepwalking. A recent study showed that over 66% of those who suffer from NS-RED are women. • Sleep apnea is more common among men but increases in women after the age of 50. The characteristics of sleep apnea are snoring, interrupted breathing while sleeping and excessive daytime sleepiness. Also associated with sleep apnea is an increase in blood pressure, a risk for heart disease and stroke. Go to a doctor at the first sign of any of these symptoms. There is any number of effective treatments. Knowing the more common sleep disorders is well and good, but what about the causes? Here are some of the more common ones. • Pregnancy. When you are pregnant, your body experiences physical symptoms like heartburn, morning sickness and body aches, as well as emotional ones like fear, anxiety and depression. Depending on the stage of your pregnancy, these changes vary and the increase in progesterone during the first trimester increases sleepiness. Nighttime sleep can be disrupted by other physical symptoms. The second trimester is likely to have less sleep disruption but sleep is still not normal. The third trimester is the worst for sleep disruption, as the physical symptoms increase as well as overall discomfort. Recent research done by the National Sleep Foundation as well as others showed that 78% of the pregnant women surveyed had more disruption in their sleep than normal. • Menstrual cycle. Hormonal changes can and do disrupt sleep an average two to three days a month per cycle. The most disruption takes place at the beginning and the end of the cycle. The last few days before the cycle is also a time for sleep disruption, with insomnia being the most common, but there can also be hypersomnia or increased daytime sleepiness. • Menopause. The hormonal changes of menopause may cause a variety of symptoms. An increase in estrogen causes hot flashes, which in turn, causes intense sweating. These hot flashes can occur while sleeping, reducing the quality of sleep. Getting the right amount of sleep affects your life, which affects your job, concentration, ability to interact with others and overall sense of well-being. In recent years, the sleep problems of women have been the focus of scientific research. This research has given doctors, among others, a new way to look at the problem, and hopefully, the cure.
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