Sound Sleep Guide

Archive for February, 2007

More and more, adolescents have been diagnosed with adolescent sleep disorders. Most commonly, adolescent sleep disorders prevent teenagers from receiving the proper amount of sleep. Most experts agree that teenagers need about nine hours of sleep; however, the average teen gets about six and a half hours of sleep on a school night, while some get even less.

Adolescent sleep disorders are thought to be caused by irregular sleeping patterns. Most teens are forced to wake up early to attend school, which conflicts with their natural tendencies to stay up later at night and wake up later. To compensate for this, teens try to catch up on their sleep during the weekends, oftentimes sleeping well into the afternoon. But experts agree that teens need to establish regular sleep patterns in order to avoid adolescent sleep disorders.

Sleep Deprivation Effects

Teens with adolescent sleep disorders are often deprived of sleep, which has many negative effects. Sleep deprivation could hinder both memory and creativity, which in turn could cause issues with learning abilities. Lack of sleep can result in mood swings, stress, and difficulty controlling emotions, depression, and a weakened immune system. A weakened immune system could cause many other long term problems as well.

What Can Be Done to Fix the Problem?

The solution to reducing adolescent sleep disorders is by no means simple. Because studies have shown that teenagers have a natural inclination to sleep late and go to bed late, the best solution would be to change the schedule of when students attend school. Currently, in many school systems throughout the world, high school students attend school, beginning as early as 7:25! This means that many high-schoolers are required to make it to the bus stop by 6:45 or earlier. Middle schoolers begin school next, with elementary schoolers beginning school the latest. But many people have expressed their support for reversing this schedule, allowing the high school students to begin school last.

There are problems with this solution, however. It would cost a lot of money to change the schedule that the busses run on. Additionally, many students have pointed out that a potential schedule change would interfere with extra curricular activities. Many students don’t leave the school until 4:00 already—with the new system, many high school students that are involved in clubs and sports would not arrive home until 7:00 or later.

It’s late at night and after a long day the kids are settled and its time for bed. Once the dogs have come in its off down the hall to the bedroom. The big dog is only a puppy so she sleeps in the crate. The rest of the dogs jump up onto the bed to find a spot to sleep. A few minutes of reading and then the light goes out. But sometime during the night a low background noise begins to seep into your dream, waking you up, the sound is coming from the sleeping dog at the end of the bed. Does that sound familiar?
Interestingly of the nearly sixty percent of pet owners who permit their pets to sleep with them in their bedrooms most of them allow their cats on the bed but not their dogs. Yet pet owners, even ones with dogs in their bedrooms, tend to brush the snoring off claiming not to be disturbed by it. Studies have shown that twenty one percent of dogs snore. Most of those are the shorts faced or pushed in faced ones. Although the snoring may wake their owners up, it probably isn’t bothering most breeds of dogs.
Like human beings there may be more than one reason why your dog is snoring. The animal may be allergic to something in his surroundings. The allergic reaction can constrict the airway causing the snoring. There may be an obstruction like postnasal drip or a floppy bit of tissue in the throat; any of this can be the reason behind the snoring. None of these is a problem that you need to be concerned about.
Or it’s possible that your dog is overweight. Like people, excessive weight is a snorers curse. If you weigh too much you will snore, so will your canine companion. If you correct your dog’s weight the snoring should disappear unless your dog is one of the breeds with the pushed in faces. This list includes, but is not limited to, English Bulldogs, Pekinese, Pugs, Boston Terriers, Shih Tzu, Boxers and Cavalier King Charles Spaniels.
These beautiful animals have been bred to have a rather usual face shape. A short snout or pushed in face affects the nostril openings. It means these dogs are trying to push air with a constricted passageway. It would be like a human being trying to breathe using only twenty five percent of the space of their nostrils. If your dog is one of the breeds with a short face it takes a lot of work for them to get enough air; hence the snoring sound.
One concern with these breeds is that eventually the windpipe could actually flatten which of course would make it even harder for them to breath and increase their sleep time racket. There are some vets that are suggesting a little minor surgery when the dogs are still young that will open the nostrils, improve their breathing, not affect appearance and solve the snoring problem.

Sleep is necessary to functioning effectively while awake so any type of sleep disorder is damaging to the professional life of individuals. Some experts figure that there are more than one hundred types of sleep disorders spread throughout the population. Some of these types of sleep disorders are slight variations of others. There are enough sleep disorders to make this a significant problem to the general population. Some statistics show that these more than one hundred types of sleep disorders affect forty million Americans. This means that there are many Americans whose work is affected by the different types of sleep disorders.

The different types of sleep disorders affect people at work, and these disorders also affect the driving, education and moods of many people. One type of this disorder may affect one person directly, but indirectly this disorder affects many more people. A type of sleep disorder affects a driver, but it also could affect all of the other people on the road at the same time. One type of sleep disorder that affects a mother also affects her significant other and all of her children to some extent.

The Types of Sleep Disorders Have Significant Differences

All sleep disorders affect sleep, but these disorders act in different ways. Some types of sleep disorders keep a person from falling asleep or staying asleep. Other disorders include sleeping too much, falling asleep at inappropriate times, and restless sleep that does not refresh the human system. Some disorders keep the person from sleeping during the night so they need to sleep during the day. The different disorders disrupt sleep patterns differently but these disorders have some symptoms in common.

The different types of sleep disorders can be diagnosed through a series of tests that are available. Any person affected by a sleep disorder should discuss the problem with their personal physician. There are remedies for some of the sleep disorders that affect people. Some of these sleep disorders can be treated with behavior modification while others should be treated with drug therapies or other treatments. These sleep disorders are not necessarily life threatening, but the effects they have on the human system could make them life threatening. Fortunately for those who suffer from a sleep disorder, there is treatment available. Anyone affected by a sleep disorder should visit their personal physician to discuss the problem and the possible remedies.