Sleep Deprivation, Disorders, and Drugs - Essay Example

? Sleep Deprivation, Disorders, and Drugs Sleep disorders are common to many people. They have adverse effects and have different ways of treating the same. This paper is going to discuss common sleep disorders and effects of long-term sleep reduction. Sleep Deprivation, Disorders, and Drugs Introduction There are two theories for sleep: recuperation theories of sleep and circadian theories of sleep (Pinel, 2009). Recuperation theories explain why people need sleep, while circadian theories explain when we need to sleep (Pinel, 2009). It is these two concepts of sleep that explanation and articulation of sleep disorders are based on. There are many different causes of sleep disorders ranging from change of work schedules, psychological disturbances and even medical problems. Common signs of sleep disorders include daytime sleepiness, sleepless nights, and fatigue and sleep disturbances (Carney et al., 2005). The eve of the Christmas day was such a horrific one. My friend and I were to cerebrate it in a special way. We were to meet at 10 pm and leave for our party destination. I prepared myself as early as 8pm ready to take off immediately after my friend arrived. Some minutes before 10 pm, I called him and he told me he grabbed a cab and that he was on the way coming. However, I waited till 10 pm, but he didn’t show up. I was a bit worried of what could have happened to him. Half past 10pm, I called his mobile number but I could not reach him, his phone was off. I got a bit nervous. I kept trying till midnight with no avail. Shortly, I saw in the news that there was a cab involved in an accident some eight kilometers from my home. My mind told me that it could be my friend. I could not do anything since it was late in the night. I decided to wait until the following morning to find out what had happened to my friend. I tried to sleep but I couldn’t. My mind was throughout preoccupied with what might have happened to my friend. I was anxious the whole night. Early in the morning, I woke up and headed towards the scene of the accident only to find that the casualties had been taken to hospital. As I was thinking of the next step to take, my friend called me. I was so anxious to know what had happened to him. I quickly answered the phone and asked him too many questions ranging from whether he was okay, what had happened, where he was at that time, and so on. I was astonished when he told me that he was okay and that he was sorry he couldn’t make it to my place the previous night because the cab broke down and as they were waiting for the mechanic to come and fix it, some thugs came and robbed them of all their valuables, and that’s why he didn’t call me. I was not used to less sleep and this affected me for over one week before I went back to my normal sleeping time. In my work place, I could not concentrate since I always found myself dosing. Sometimes, I fell asleep in the middle of conversation with my workmates. I realized that for the whole of that one week, I was unproductive since most of my work was incomplete. However, these entire disturbances ended on the weekend that followed when I decided to sleep enough. Effects of long-term sleep reduction It is believed that long term sleep reduction may have adverse effects of sleep loss which may slowly make the brain adapt to the amount of sleep it usually gets – even though this amount of sleep may be far from what it needs (Pinel, 2009). The worst is when there is a sudden reduction in the amount of sleep. However, naps have recuperative capacity to reduce long-term. The drugs that are used to reduce long-term sleep are known as Antihypnotic drugs. These are stimulants which act on REM sleep (Pinel, 2009). However, these drugs are sometimes risky. Most of them are highly addictive and are also accompanied with adverse side effects, with loss of appetite being the most obvious one. Sleep disorders The majority of sleep disorders fall into insomnia and hypersomnia categories. These include all disorders of excessive sleep and sleepiness (Pinel, 2009). However, there is also another category of sleep disorder associated with REM- sleep dysfunction. Yet, according to various surveys, most of complainants of sleep related problems have sleeps that appear to be normal. For example, people who complain of insomnia are said to sleep a average reasonable amount of6 hours a night, although they believe they ought to sleep more (Pinel, 2009). As a consequence, they try to spend a lot of time in order to sleep more only to find it difficult to sleep; thus, the anxiety related to their inability to sleep makes it difficult for them to fall asleep (Pinel, 2009). However, such patients can only be assisted by subjecting them to counseling in an effort to convince them to go to bed only when they feel sleepy. Insomnia It is believed that many cases of insomnia are mostly physician created due to use of sleeping pills which are typically prescribed by physicians (Pinel, 2009). Although hypnotic drugs are considered to be effective in escalating sleep, they are associated with some withdrawal symptoms. However, insomnia can be treated by sleep restriction therapy. The first step involves reduction of time in bed. Then, after some duration of sleep restriction, the amount of time spent in bed is gradually increased while maintaining sleep latency in the normal range (Pinel, 2009). Insomnia can be caused by sleep apnea whereby the patient stops breathing many times in the night and each time they awaken, they begin to breathe again, and get back to sleep (Pinel, 2009). This leads to a sense of having slept poorly, hence, being diagnosed as insomnia. Another cause of insomnia is related to the restless legs syndrome. It is characterized by periodic, involuntary movements of the limbs during sleep. Most of the patients who suffer from this disorder complain of poor sleep and daytime sleepiness (Pinel, 2009). Hypersomnia Statistics indicates that hypersomnia occurs in 1 out of 2000 individuals and is associated with two prominent symptoms (Pinel, 2009). One of them is severe daytime sleepiness and repeated episodes of daytime sleep. Unlike normal daytime sleep that occurs, maybe, while on the beach, while watching television, or in a dimly lit places, people with hypersomnia sleep in the middle of conversation, while eating or even while making love, on and other unexpected occasions (Pinel, 2009). The other prominent symptom is a recurrent loss of muscle tone during wakefulness, which is mostly triggered by emotional experience. In most occasions, it may force the patient to sit down for a moment until it passes (Pinel, 2009). In its extreme type, the patient may actually fall down for a few minutes. However, hypersomnia has always been traditionally treated with stimulants. Nevertheless, they have potential addiction and have undesirable side effects. REM-sleep-related disorders REM-sleep is rare. However, several sleep disorders are specific to REM-sleep (Moorcroft & Belcher, 2005). Its implications have theoretical backgrounds. Some patients experience REM-sleep without core-muscle atonia. It is presumed that REM-sleep without atonia is caused by damage to the nuclear magnocellularis. Conclusion Many people are affected by sleep disorders but they rarely know. Sleep disorders affect people greatly. When people try to reduce sleep time, most of them end up having more complications, especially when they opt to use antihypnotic drugs. However, sleep disorder patients can be assisted by subjecting them to counseling and ensuring that the model used to reduce sleep maintains sleep latency in the normal range. References Carney, R., et al. (2005). Clinical sleep disorders: Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Moorcroft, H, & Belcher, P. (2005). Understanding sleep and dreaming. New York: Springer. Pinel, J. (2009). Biopsychology. Boston, Mass: Allyn & Bacon. Read More