Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome and its Symptoms

Do you find yourself falling asleep after midnight each and every night? Are you dozing off around the same exact time in the early morning hours? If you have answered yes to these questions, you may be dealing with the sleep disorder, delayed sleep phase syndrome.

Is Your Child Sleep Deprived?

It doesn’t matter what how old you are, getting enough sleep is vital to memory development and living a healthy life. As you age, the amount of sleep required to function at optimal performance decreases, yet you may overlook sleep deprivation as a reason your days are sluggish and you feel unmotivated. But let’s focus on how sleep deprivation can affect our kids; it may be worse than you previously thought.

The average child, aged between 3 and 12, needs roughly 10-13 hours of sleep per night. The younger the child is, the more sleep they will need. Sleep plays an important role in brain development, coordination and can often cause developing attention disorders like ADD (attention deficit disorder). One issue parents may face is not recognizing if their child is sleep deprived. It can sometimes be hard as we mistake these telltale signs for normal child-like behavior. Some of the signs to watch for are:

What is Fatigue and How to Beat It

Two common phrases that often times gets confused are “I feel weak” or “I am fatigued.” Knowing and understanding the difference between weakness and fatigue are important in figuring out possible causes and reliefs from such symptoms. Weakness is a lack of physical strength in your muscles as well as the need to exert more effort to move your limbs. Possible causes may be over working, poor diet or exerting too much force. Fatigue is generally the feeling of being tired or exhausted, and having a lack of energy or motivation.

The 5 Benefits of Napping

Have you ever taken a midday nap and felt guilty about it? Many people have a stigma that napping is a sign of laziness or weakness, when in actuality, it’s very healthy for your body. In today’s society, it is common to become sleep deprived due to the amount of stress placed on jobs and other responsibilities. Sleep deprivation takes a toll on every person’s body after awhile, and a good way to make up for your lack of sleep is by taking a nap. Sleep experts suggest taking a nap that lasts between 15-30 minutes. A study showed that 20 minutes of sleep during the day is more effective than 20 minutes of extra sleep in the morning. Napping has proven to have many benefits for your health and mind, which are all listed below…

Sitting Directly Linked to Sleep Apnea

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Sleep apnea is a common disorder that will cause a person to wake up 100-300 times per night due to blockage of the airway. The soft tissue in the back of the throat collapses, blocking the airway. Normal sleep will resume, but usually after a person exerts a loud snort, or choking sound. This disorder is one of the leading causes for daytime sleepiness. When airways are cut off or even constricted, a person will fall out of a deep sleep and into a lighter one. The deeper a sleep, the better quality it is for the person.

How Technology Affects Sleep

We have all heard the saying mind over matter. This concept is especially true when it comes to sleep and the use of modern technology. Today’s society as a whole is sleep deprived, which in turn can reap havoc on a person’s day-to-day functionality and even their health. While oversleeping can harm your personal health, becoming sleep deprived can have equal side effects. Although the reasoning behind lack of sleep or sleeping too much differentiates from person to person, technology has been said to be a primary reason.

Sleep Too Much? It May Be Detrimental To Your Health

Sleep is an important part of one’s daily cycle, allowing the body to shut down and recover from what it has endured throughout the day. Experts recommend the average adult sleeps seven to nine hours per night, as too little or too much sleep can actually be harmful to your body. Oversleeping has been linked to a host of medical illnesses including diabetes, heart disease and increased risk of death.

Oversleeping has also been linked to depression and low socioeconomic status. When a person is sick, the body feels fatigued throughout the day. People with low socioeconomic status may not have healthcare and some illnesses may go undiagnosed.

People with hypersomnia, a medical disorder causing a person to oversleep, suffer from extreme sleepiness throughout the day. It also causes them to sleep for an unusually long time at night. Many people with hypersomnia experience anxiety, lack of energy, and memory problems as a result of their nearly constant need for sleep.