Archive for November, 2007

Many people face stressful situations at work due to the extended work hours and increased demands of productivity from you.

Life was simpler few years ago. But, now there is a competition and therefore, creativity and productivity has increased.

Due to increased productivity, working hours also increased, leaving less time for relaxation.

Due to the increased responsibilities and work, you may work for maximum hours, cancel your vacations and cut back your sleep.

How stress affects your sleep?

Your brain needs time to shift from working environment to peaceful environment, as the events of the day sit in your brain and need to be erased.

If you come few hours before going to bed, you can get sometime to relax your mind by erasing the events of the day. Otherwise, night time is the only time to relax your brain and reduce stress.

Therefore, instead of sleeping, your brain recollects the events that happened during daytime. You have to find time and effective methods to relieve from job stress and improve your sleep.

Children with Asperger syndrome are affected by many factors like mood and behavior. Sleep problems are common and a major factor in them.

Children with Asperger syndrome have high prevalence of sleep disorders.

The sleep problems they suffer include initiating sleep, daytime sleepiness, and sleep restlessness.

Asperger syndrome is characterized by the inability to understand how to interact socially and repetitive behavior and restricted interest patterns.

Children with this syndrome have serious impairment in social and communication skills, including poor nonverbal communication.

Children with Asperger syndrome are diagnosed with sleep questionnaire, which helps in evaluating their sleep problem.

• Autism diagnostic observation schedule for assessing communication and social interaction
• Daytime sleepiness scale to evaluate the relationship between daytime sleepiness and school-related outcomes.
• Child behavior to examine daytime behavior in children

Children are also tested for verbal IQ, performance IQ and full scale IQ. Polysomnography is to be conducted to evaluate the sleep patterns of the children.

Several sleep parameters should be taken into account such as sleep period time, time spent in bed, number of awakenings per hour, and sleep efficiency are calculated.

Some people with epilepsy get seizures when they are awake, some get while asleep and some of them have mixture of both.

Forty different types of seizures are present and some of them occur in certain sleep stages.

Therefore, it is important to discuss with your doctor and give complete information as possible.

Take your partner along with you to the doctor so that they can also explain about the symptoms of seizures and when they occur.

Partners can observe the seizures rather than you and their information can help to prescribe correct medications and treatment.

Seizures and stages of sleep:

In NREM sleep, your breathing will be regular and there will be only little body movement. This usually accounts for 75 percent of your sleeping time. During NREM sleep, generalized seizures are more likely to occur.

In REM sleep, there will be eye movement, frequent twitching of face, arms and legs, and increased and irregular breathing. REM sleep can last from few minutes to half an hour. Partial seizures are more likely to occur in REM sleep.