Causes of Sleep Disorders
Many sleep disorders have psychological roots. Stress, anxiety, grief, or impending life changes can induce insomnia and disrupt sleep. Depression is one of the most common causes of chronic insomnia, if a person has difficulty calming their thoughts well enough to sleep.
Causes of Sleep Disorders
Chronic physical pain caused by arthritis, Parkinson’s disease, and other medical conditions can also disrupt sleep and begin the cycle of insomnia. In some cases, it is the condition itself contributing to the sleep disorder, while in others, the medications used to treat the disorder may have side effects that are disruptive to sleep, perhaps causing sleep apnea or restless legs syndrome.
Environmental factors, such as excessive ambient noise or extremely high/low temperatures, can also interfere with sleep. When people travel or change work shifts, they may experience jet lag-like sleep disruption as their body clock catches up to their new waking and sleeping schedule. Napping in the afternoons or evenings can also make it difficult to sleep at night.
Abuse of caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine can also contribute to many of the sleep disorders described above, particularly insomnia and sleep apnea. The physical imbalances caused by obesity can also lead to sleep disorders, particularly the form of sleep apnea in which breathing is interrupted by obstruction of the airways.
The precise cause of narcolepsy is unknown, though there do appear to be correlations between narcoleptic patients and variations in genes encoding proteins involved in regulation of appetite and sleep patterns. Narcolepsy still occurs in patients without these genetic variations, but their presence may predispose a person to this unusual sleep disorder.
Conventional Treatments of Sleep Disorders
Short term sleep disorders generally require no treatment. For chronic insomnia, doctors try to help identify the physical and mental health factors that may be causing the insomnia. If there are physical factors (such as weight), environmental factors (sleep environment), or habits (drinking, smoking) that can be dealt with directly by the patient, they are encouraged to do so. Counseling and antidepressants may also be recommended for insomnia being caused by depression. In some cases, sleeping aids may also be prescribed.
For narcolepsy, daytime sleepiness may be controlled somewhat by frequent napping and prescription of stimulants. Antidepressants may also be helpful in managing symptoms of narcolepsy.
Sleep apnea is typically treated by use of a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) device that the patient wears while sleeping. This respiratory ventilator can be used safely at home and it effectively keeps the airway open during sleep through pressurized air. Oral appliances that shift the lower jaw forward may also prove helpful for reducing apnea episodes. Both of these therapies are useful only for sleep apnea induced by narrowing or obstruction of the airway during sleep.
Patients Medical’s Treatment of Sleep Disorders
Our physicians will first work with you to help discover the physical, mental, and emotional, factors that may be contributing to your insomnia. A full medical interview and examination will be performed to help identify factors that may be causing changes in your sleeping patterns.
If aspects of your lifestyle, such as drinking, smoking, and obesity, are disrupting your sleep, we will help you create a healthy new life routine, including regimens for better nutrition and moderate exercise to develop healthier body composition. We will teach you relaxation and meditation techniques that can help you reset your body clock, set aside stress before bedtime, and get a good night’s sleep.
In addition to improving your overall health to increase the probability of more normal sleeping patterns, more complicated sleep disorders can be diagnosed in our fully equipped sleep clinic. Using these diagnostic instruments to perform “sleep tests,” we can gather more details about medical reasons for not resting as well as you should. These data can help us design therapies specifically for your current sleep issues. Levels of neurotransmitters may also be tested to determine whether your sleep disorder is due to an imbalance in brain chemistry.
Depending on your case, we may prescribe natural supplements to help you get to sleep. Benesom, for example, is a melatonin-based supplement that can help you achieve a relaxed state before bedtime. Melatonin is a hormone that is naturally produced in our bodies to help regulate our circadian rhythms. To help you stay asleep so that you can wake up refreshed, we may also prescribed Somnolin, a blend of vitamins and nutrients also containing theanine, a component of certain kinds of teas that has been shown to reduce physical and mental stress.
Next Steps:
While you may find this medical information useful, as the next step we strongly recommend that you make an appointment to see one of our physicians to ensure that your health issues are properly addressed.
To schedule an appointment with our physicians, please call our patient coordinator at 1-212-679-9667, send the form below or an email to: info@patientsmedical.com. We are currently accepting new patients and look forward to being of assistance.
We are located at: Patients Medical PC, 800 Second Avenue, Suite 900 (Between 42nd & 43rd Street), Manhattan, NYC, New York, NY 10017.
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Article Last Updated: 07/30/2009