Archive for the 'Sleep Disorders' Category

Do you know how your sleep affects your ability of problem solving? One good reason why your ability of problem solving can improve well after 7 or more hours of sound sleep is the effect of sleep on memory.

When you are sleeping, information moves from your short term to long term memory.

Hence, you can deliver the problem solving information that is required to the other parts of your brain, which will actually know how to solve the problem efficiently.

Therefore, it is always essential for you to improve your sleeping patterns to develop better problem solving ability.

Some scientists evidently said that during sleep your brain consolidates and organizes memories of what you have seen and done during your day. When these memories are merged and organized, you will able to access the information that is required for you to solve any particular task.

So, if you want to improve your problem solving ability, it is always suggested to improve your sleep patterns. There are many ways to improve your sleep. Some of the most effective ways mainly include:

Stick to particular sleep schedule!

If you choose alcohol as your sleep aid, then it is very essential for you to realize that alcoholism, which is used as source to get good sleep, can lead to certain sleep disorders.

Therefore, in order to understand how these two things are interrelated to each other, you must look into the depths of these two different topics, alcohol and sleep.

Alcoholism and sleep!

Alcoholism is an illness in which you can become addicted to excessive alcohol consumption. Identical to consciousness, sleep is an active process that is controlled by your nerve centers in brain stem. These nerve centers usually produce certain chemicals that controls the regulation of REM (rapid eye moment) state of your sleep, where your eyes move more rapidly.

So, whenever you consume excess amounts of alcohol, the functioning of these chemical messengers mainly affects your sleep and causes various sleep disorders.

Sleep disorders related to alcoholism!

If you are already suffering with any kind of sleep disorders, particularly sleep apnea, then extreme consumption of alcohol can certainly make the condition much worse. It is believed that excessive alcohol consumption in addition to sleep apnea can certainly kill the person.

Less sleep not only affects the person physically, but also mentally.

Usually, if you are suffering with several physical problems, you will certainly have the problem of sleep disorders as your body has not undergone the required rest necessary for it [Problems due to lack of sleep].

Sometimes, these physical problems can become severe if proper action is not taken within the right time. The similar thing happens with the brain also.

If you are affected with sleep disorders, you will have disturbed mind and you will take each and every decision of your life in that mood itself, so the decisions or work made by you will not be correct.

You perform mistakes more repeatedly on the same issue even though you are instructed for many number of times. This is not an intentional practice made by you, but you forget the things more easily.

Memory power will also become less if you are suffering with sleep disorders because your mind will be at more risk if it is not given proper relaxation time necessary for it. So, you usually forget things within short period of time and also feel confusion in performing the silly things which will be performed in your daily routine.

According to the research, children with migraine are at increased risk of sleep disorders like sleep apnea than children without migraine.

Severe migraine is associated with short total sleep time, long total time to fall asleep and short REM sleep.

Study was conducted on 90 children, who went for polysomnogram. This sleep test monitors the eye movements, brain, heart rhythm, breathing and muscle activity. In 90 children, who participated in study, 60 had migraine, 11 had chronic headache, 6 had chronic headache and 13 children had non-specific headache.

According to the study, children with migraine are twice at increased risk of sleep apnea, also known as sleep disordered breathing, than other children. Sleep disordered breathing was found in 56 percent of children with migraine than 30 percent of children with non-migraine headache.

The study also found that 50 percent of children with tension headache grind their teeth at night compared to 2.4 percent of children with non-tension headache.

According to the study author Martina Vendrame, MD, PhD, the problems caused by migraine are aggravated by sleep problems on a child’s health and can hinder the performance of a child at school.

People who get good sleep at night times will be more active when compared to the people who don’t get good sleep.

Good sleep can make the mind fresh with required rest. With refreshed mind, your energy levels will boost up. So, you will be more active than other people who don’t have proper sleep.

Your mind is compared to a battery, which is required to be charged whenever the power is less.

Similarly, the mind of the human beings also requires the rest and relaxation in the form of sleep to become active and recharged.

As all of you know, if the battery is charged for some period of time, it works more effectively, where as if it is not charged, certainly it will not come in use.

The same thing is applicable for your mind and body also; if you get proper rest, you will work effectively; otherwise you will not give better output.

The mind without rest makes you irritated for little things and it will be in such a state that it cannot be able to give better outputs with sharp and active decisions. Your energy levels with lack of sleep will be low because several disorders can develop in your body and mind and you will be frustrated easily for small and normal mistakes which occur in your daily routine.

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) occurs in babies between the ages of 2 and 6 months. Sudden infant deaths mostly occur from midnight to 8 A.M. Most of the deaths occur due to unsafe sleep practice and unsafe surroundings.

Stomach sleeping: If your baby is placed to sleep on his/her stomach, it puts pressure on the jaws of your baby, therefore narrowing the airways and obstructing the breathing.

Another risk factor of stomach sleeping is it increases the risk of infant’s re-breathing his/her own exhaled air. As your infant breathes the exhaled air, there is a drop of oxygen levels in the body and accumulation of carbon dioxide takes place. Therefore, lack of oxygen can cause SIDS.

The latest research on the connection between the sleep and memory has proved that good night’s sleep can improve your long-term memory where as the disturbed or restless night sleep makes you to forget the things within short period of time.

Your brain will be relaxed with the restful and happy sleep at night times. With proper relaxation, the power of brain will improve and the memory levels also increases with it.

With restless and disturbed sleep, your brain will not attain the needed rest required for it, so it will be disturbed. With this disturbed mind, you cannot be able to remember the things for long period of time and mostly you will be confused on various activities while performing them.

Recent studies have proved that good night sleep cannot be attained by you if you drink caffeine and high energy drinks at the morning time for more number of times.

Generally people use to consume these drinks a lot in their holidays season and weekends because the energy levels are boosted while performing several activities like shopping, attending numerous parties, etc.

Yes, it is true that energy levels of a person get boosted by consuming caffeine, or any other high energy drinks in the morning. The reason behind this is that these drinks will have some energy boosters in them, which will boost the energy levels.

Caffeine is one type of drink, which is naturally produced from the seeds and leaves of many plants. Even though it boosts the energy levels of the person, it will affect the central nervous system.