Sound Sleep Guide

Archive for September, 2006

Twenty percent of Americans report that some type of pain or discomfort disrupts their sleep a few nights per week or more. This sleep disruption in turn causes degradation of mood, energy level, behavior, and safety. In the NSF’s 1997 Survey on Sleeplessness, Pain and the Workplace, it was reported that back pain and other body aches or joint pain were the leading types of pain conditions experienced at night. The consequences of pain with sleep include: difficulty maintaining alertness, lack of energy, impaired mood, and trouble handling stress. A lack of sleep puts a person at a higher risk for injury, poor health, and accidents. Sleep studies in patients with acute pain, such as postoperative patients, and chronic pain, such as neuropathic & rheumatologic conditions, show frequent arousals, a hard time going back to sleep, and reduced time in REM sleep.

The major causes of sleep loss due to pain are back pain, headaches, facial pain caused by temporomandibular joint (TMJ) syndrome, which is characterized by pain in and around the ears and soreness of the jaw muscles. Also, muscoloskeletal pain, which includes arthritis and fibromyalgia, can lead to poor sleep. Women report problems with visceral and abdominal pain as well as premenstrual cramping. It’s important to note that overall impact of visceral and abdominal pain in women is misunderstood. We need more studies in this area. Pain from cancer, the disease itself and its treatment, is also a major offender in causing poor sleep.

The International Association for the Study of Pain delineates 3 major types of pain: (1) acute pain, such as that resulting from an injury; (2) cancer-related pain; and (3) chronic nonmalignant pain. Chronic nonmalignant pain, which may be a result of injury or of unknown causes, is the type of pain most frequently associated with alteration of sleep.

Pain is the major cause of insomnia. Sixty-five percent of pain with sleep sufferers reported being awakened during the night by pain and waking up feeling unrefreshed.

Pain and sleep correlate on so many levels. Chronic pain sufferers experience less deep sleep, more arousals and disruptions, and less efficient sleep. A poor quality of sleep mixed with waking pain creates a vicious cycle that affects mood, energy, behavior, and safety. Pain with sleep sufferers are hardly ever at the top of their game. A full night’s sleep leaves a person’s mood, energy, and behavior at their maximum potential.

Back pain is the most common type of pain-related sleeplessness. Eighty percent of Americans at some point report having been affected by back pain. One in fifty American workers suffers a back injury and low back pain. Back pain disables some 5.4 million Americans every year. The more severe the pain the more sleep disruption occurs. Sleep disruption seems to make the pain feel worse. So what can be done to stop the madness?

Headaches are the second most common type of pain. Migraines can occur following a period of sleep deprivation or too much sleep. Headaches are also associated with sleep apnea which is defined as frequent pauses in breathing along with loud snoring during sleep. Cluster headaches are even worse and can impair a good night’s sleep as well.

Rheumatic and arthritic disorders also correlate with sleep problems. Osteoarthritis, which affects the hips and knees, causes patients to sleep lighter and have restless sleep. Rheumatoid arthritis patients have disturbed sleep with stiffness in the morning as well as a decrease in energy, weakness, and function. Flare-ups can lead to arousal of sleep. Fibromyalgia causes aches and pains throughout the entire body. It leaves patients feeling fatigued and unable to feel refreshed. These patients experience light, unrefreshing sleep, daytime fatigue, and problems with thinking and mood. This poor sleep pattern seems to worsen symptoms. Fibromyalgia can also cause chronic headaches, irritable bowel syndrome, jaw pain, tingling legs, and sleep apnea. The poor sleep quality can be attributed to unrelenting muscle pain, tenderness, and low energy. One study showed the occurrence of sleep apnea in 80% of fibromyalgia patients. Sleep apnea tears the sleep cycle into bits and pieces, thus reducing slow wave sleep.

Sleep problems interact with the disease and pain process. Heart patients have less deep sleep, more fragmented and less efficient sleep. Poor sleep affects other body systems as well. Gastrointestinal problems lead to great difficulty getting a good night’s sleep. There are a few pain management methods to consider. Relaxation and stress management, as well as a massage by a licensed physical therapist may help ease the pain. Medications are available but seem to have a limited effect. For best results, consult your medical doctor for a professional treatment plan.

Sleep deprivation refers to more than just a lack of sleep. It refers to a significant reduction in the amount of sleep an individual requires. Sleep deprivation is more than just an uncomfortable period of extended hours of being awake. When deprived of sleep long enough, an individual may experience psychotic episodes, hallucinations, blurry vision and a host of other problems. It goes without saying, once a person passes a certain period of being awake, they will be in severe psychological pain until they are able to return to sleep.

That is why deprivation has been used as, for lack of a better word, a means of torture. And make no mistake about it: sleep deprivation is psychological torture. It places the injured party in a state of such mental anguish that it is far more than a harmless tactic.

There are those who refer to sleep deprivation torture as ‘coerced interrogation.’ That is to say, it is not really torture because no harm is really coming to the person. And to the uniformed public, sleep deprivation sounds like keeping someone up past two in the morning. No big deal. Just sleep until noon the next day and shake it off.

Purposeful denial of an individual the ability to sleep may be somewhat less than dangerous for a certain period of time, but it will eventually turn into legitimate torture. When an individual is forced to endure psychotic episodes and hallucinations when sleep would circumvent these incredibly serious situations, sleep deprivation can be described as nothing other than torture because it is putting the individuals permanent mental health at risk from purposely altering their psychological state to a severe degree and then raising the level of severity beyond a point that is already dangerous.

While the morality of forcible deprivation can be debated forever without coming to any conclusion, what remains without question, however, is the serious effects of it.

One of the most dangerous problems associated with obesity is sleep apnea. The technical definition of sleep apnea is the body temporarily stops breathing. Sometimes this cessation of breathing is not permanent and you can suffocate in your sleep. This is caused by something blocking the airway to the lungs; usually excess tissue in the mouth or throat, your tongue, over sized tonsils, and the relaxing and constricting of airway muscles. Excess weight on the throat and chest can attribute to these complications.

Here are list of some of the side effects of sleep apnea

” Loud snoring – This is the most common side effect of sleep apnea. This is not just your average snore, this is a loud, deep, wake the dead, snore. You may not hear it, but it is probably a safe bet that your bed partner will notice and make you aware of it.

” Morning headaches – Upon waking you have a splitting headache. Sometimes these can progress to migraines. This is the result of a lack of oxygen to the brain.

” Non-refreshing sleep – Upon waking you felt as though you have not gotten any sleep. This is caused by your REM sleep cycle being continually interrupted by your body trying to wake you up when you stop breathing. You may not remember actively waking, but your body does wake itself up so you will start breathing again. Your body gets its rest during REM sleep and if this is interrupted, you will not get any useful rest.

” Dry mouth upon awakening – This is caused by breathing through your mouth. The air in the room dries out your salivary glands.

” High blood pressure – This is caused by your body not getting enough rest. Without enough rest your body can not properly regulate your heart, therefore causing blood pressure issues.

” Irritability – Let’s face it, when you did not get a good night sleep, anyone can be a bit cranky.

” Change in personality – Once you have had several nights of not getting any good sleep, you will become irritable, and your personality will start to change. You will not have the energy to socialize the way you used to. People will think you are mean and rude when you don’t mean to be.

” Difficulty concentrating – Due to the lack of oxygen to your brain, you will have a number of head problems including headaches. It’s because of these that most people have a difficult time concentrating.

” Excessive perspiring during sleep – there is just no real nice way to say this, but if you are obese, you have some extra “blanketing” there that keeps you hot.

” Heartburn – If you eat before sleeping, you will place a lot of weight on your stomach, this can lead to had heartburn when you wake up

” Reduced libido – Your body has not gotten good sleep in a while. Sometime it feels like you are running on empty. Your chemical make up is not at 100%. Your hormones are not properly regulated. Your libido is directly controlled by hormones in the blood.

” Frequent nocturnal urination – Your body is more concerned with keeping you alive than it is with keeping your bladder from loosing control. Some psychologist will even argue that wetting yourself is a subconscious way of making your self wake up.

” Restless sleep – You keep waking up in the night from not breathing, so you can’t get comfortable. You don’t get much sleep.

” Nocturnal snorting, gasping, choking – This is a direct result of not breathing. This is how your body wakes you up to start breathing.

” Death – Your body will do everything in its power to wake you up to start breathing again. Sometimes it fails at waking you up, so you suffocate on your own body and die.

This is just a short list of complications caused by sleep apnea. Sleep apnea is a DIRECT result of being overweight. Isn’t scary that you could die in your sleep by choking on your own flesh simply because of its weight? That should be enough to make anyone loose weight, which would fix all these problems. You would sleep better and be healthier. Not to mention you don’t have to be scared of choking on your own fat!