sleeping disorders part (1)

Approximately 20 percent of all Americans are affected by chronic sleep disorders, and are thus deprived of the restorative benefits that a healthy night’s sleep provides, such as stress reduction, regeneration of the immune system, and repair of free radical damage, as well as the improved mood that a good night’s sleep can provide upon awakening. Lack of healthy sleep can not only increase your susceptibility to other types of illness, it can also dramatically raise stress levels, impair your mood, and affect your ability to concentrate and function optimally at work. Lack of sleep and other sleep disorders also contribute to a minimum of 100,000 automobile accidents in the U.S. each year, and leaves nearly half of the adults feeling so tired during the day that they are unable to perform their daily activities without some degree of interference caused by fatigue, according to the National Sleep Foundation.
Research shows that healthy sleep is in part dependent on the body’s internal “clock,” which is influenced by what are known as circadian rhythms. The term circadian is Latin and means “around a day.” Circadian rhythms tend to follow the same cycles and patterns of the sun during a 24-hour period, and influence the times of day when a person feels most awake and alert, as well as those times when he or she feels tired or sleepy. People with healthy circadian rhythms have little trouble rising early in the day with lots of energy, and also tend to easily fall and remain asleep at night, usually retiring well before midnight. This was the normal waking and sleeping pattern of our ancestors. However, due to many factors of the modern world, especially artificial light, it is much easier to disrupt the body’s natural circadian rhythms. When this happens, restless sleep, as well as various other physical and psychological health disturbances, are apt to occur.
All told, poor sleep is such a significant problem in the U.S. that Americans spend nearly 20 billion dollars each year on sleep-related medical care, especially sleeping pills, and over 13 million people a year use prescription medications in order to try and get a good night’s sleep. Not only do such medications fail to address the underlying causes of sleep disorders, they can also cause serious side effects, including abnormal brain wave patterns, imbalanced brain chemistry, diminished deep and REM (rapid eye movement or dream) sleep, addiction and withdrawal symptoms, and impaired physical and cognitive ability during the day. Moreover, sleep patterns and the quality of one’s sleep often become even worse following discontinuation of sleeping pills, compared to how they were before the medications were used.