The Symptoms and Causes of Hypersomnia

Hypersomnia is a disorder characterized by excessive sleepiness. It is a condition that is opposite to insomnia, in which people have trouble staying awake during the day. People who have hypersomnia are able to fall asleep at any point in time, whether it be during work or while they’re driving. The National Sleep Foundation has reported that up to 40% of Americans have experienced hypersomnia symptoms at some point in their life.

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:

Effects of Snoring on Your Health and Relationships

Do you or someone you know snore during the night? Having to deal with a person who snores can be a huge pain in anyone’s side. But if you are the person who snores, you may not be aware or know that it is bothersome to others around you. The effects of snoring are two-fold. Not only can it be a sign of a more significant disorder, sleep apnea, it can wreak havoc on personal relationships.

Now to be fair, since a person whom snores is not aware of this loud disturbance, treat them no differently than you would someone who doesn’t snore. For the most part, it is out of their control. Snoring is caused by blockage of the airway. When sleeping, tissue in the throat begins to relax as your body relaxes. The deeper the sleep, the more relaxed a person becomes. This blockage is what causes the loud “snores.”

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.

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.