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sleep

sleep Nature evolves in regular pulsating rhythms. From tiny atoms to huge galaxies each being vibrates in the same fashion - up down, in out. Our bodies have over one hundred different cycles the metabolism of our cells, the pumping of our blood, our intake of oxygen, and even our moods and states of alertness. When the cycles mix appropriately with each other and with their environment our well being and progress are assured, for we our functioning as nature intended. When these rhythms are out of this pattern, our bodies suffer. The periodicity of these rhythms range from a fraction of a second to a number of years. Some, like the sleep/wake cycle are called circadian, from the Latin circa which means approximately and dies which means day. These cycles obey the daily pattern set down by the rotation of the earth, taking about 24 hours to run their course. Evening falls and flowers fold their petals. Plants fold their leaves. With the exception of owls and their nighttime predators, the creatures of land, sea, and air curl up into their bedroom niches in the rocks, trees, and sand. Dawn comes and the unfolding begins. The outside world, which has been barred from the senses of the sleepers, is once again admitted. This rhythm is the most natural thing in the world, intended no doubt to be accomplished effortlessly. Yet, many people find themselves disconnected by the natural flow of sleeping and waking that nature intended us to follow. How many people suffer from insomnia? The estimates vary, ranging from 20 million to 70 million Americans, from one tenth to one third of the population. If we accept the smallest estimate, that's a lot of tossing and turning. These estimates are usually based on the number of serious insomniacs, the definition of which varies considerably. Some doctors define insomniacs as those who cannot sleep at all; other are willing to categorize insomniacs as all those who merely complain about their sleep. The currently accepted definition, to become known as DIMS, is : one who has difficulty initiating or maintaining sleep. Several surveys have tried to pin down the exact cause of sleep problems. Of 1,000 households in Los Angeles, one third had someone with current problems, and in 42 percent someone had suffered from sleep disorders at sometime. Some doctor's polls have been revealing yet somewhat disparate. In one serve, roughly 19 percent of the patients seen by the 3,000 doctors had complaints of some type of insomnia. That figure may actually understate the case, for some say that more people in the United States visit doctors for help in getting to sleep than any other single complaint. It is also estimated that half of those not considered insomniacs have a sleepless night on occasion, and a large but undetermined number do not sleep as well as they should. Insomniacs take comfort in knowing that they are in excellent company, even if it does feel lonely in that dark room. As you roll over again and again, count sheep, make lists, or play word games; as you try to keep your mind still; as you contemplate what a lousy day tomorrow will be if you do not fall asleep immediately; as you inch dangerously closer to the medicine chest - you may be accompanied by as many as 50 million others. Mark Twain was a famous insomniac. The author once found himself at a friend's house unable to sleep. The problem was not a new one to Twain, yet he convinced himself that the reason for his failure to sleep was poor ventilation in the unfamiliar room. Unable to open a window, he tossed and turned for some time, cursing the stuffy atmosphere. Finally, very angry, he picked up his shoe and hurled it through the darkness at the window. He heard the sound of shattering glass, inhaled deeply, and fell asleep. In the morning the well rested humorous awoke to discover that he had not smashed the window, but a glass bookcase. This story contains many lessons, real and fictional. It cold well be that your sleep difficulties pertain to something as simple as ventilation, humidity, noise, type of mattress, or what you eat and when you eat it. In addition to environmental factors, situational ones can affect sleep. Everyone has experienced temporary sleep loss due to some obvious cause - jet lag, an unfamiliar bed, grief the loss of a loved one, or pressure on the job. If you lose sleep chronically, if you often awaken unrefreshed and feel tired during the day, it might be a big mistake to attribute your problem only to the situation or the environment. As Mark Twain's case reveals, even the most intelligent find it easier to point the finger of blame at something outside ourselves. Safe explanations are easier to live with. Unfortunately with insomnia, they often cover the real problems. Failure to sleep properly is a strange phenomenon. Unlike the failure run fast, write well, multiply numbers easily, or bake bread, it can not be attributed to lack of skill, poor education or inadequate talent. Everyone can sleep. Babies are terrific at it. Even dumb beasts can sleep. It should require no great skill or talent to be able to fall asleep and stay there. Nature has made it easier to fall asleep than it is to eat. To sleep you do not need to hunt, trap, trade, or manufacture. The comparison indicates just how important sleep can be. Someone can go without food much longer than one can last without sleep. Only breathing requires less effort than falling asleep. Nature does all the work. It is as if our nervous systems were automatic transmissions. We shift into the proper gear or stage of sleep when they are needed. There is no simple answer as to why sleep does not always occur. Many factors come into play and experts often disagree on which are the most important. Many authorities consider insomnia not a disease, linked to a germ or a faulty organ. They consider it an indication that the body is out of its rhythm. But which rhythm is hard to determine. In most cases, insomnia is usually a problem involving many areas of our lives that overlap so much that any attempt at identifying one single cause is almost impossible. Everything we experience affects our nervous system and therefore our sleep. For this reason, it is difficult to guess the causes of insomnia without detailed knowledge of the individual case. Certain factors have a definite and often predictable influence on sleep, and sleep experts are trying to identify those with great precision. Factors that are known to affect sleep. The causes of insomnia fall into three categories: physical, mental, and behavioral/situational. However, it is impossible to determine whether mental, physical, or other reasons are prime factors. The mind and the body affect each other in a circular way. Insomnia can also be broken down into three types - onset insomnia, maintenance insomnia, and early morning insomnia. Typically, the length of time it takes an adult to fall asleep is about eight to fifteen minutes. If you can not fall asleep lying in bed for thirty minutes, you are experiencing sleep onset insomnia. Maintenance insomnia is experienced in the middle of the night about an hour and a half to two hours after falling asleep following the first sleep cycle. The inability to fall back to sleep after waking in the middle of the night can happen frequently throughout the night or only once. Usually awakenings that last less than seven minutes will be forgotten the following day. But several periods of awakening or some long period can cause tiredness and irritability. There are several causes of maintenance insomnia. Aging, sleeping pills, certain medical conditions, alcohol, nicotine, and a sleep disorder called periodic limb movement are all known contributors. Early morning insomnia causes people to wake one to four hours before the normal waking time. This type of insomnia is caused most often by depression. People who suffer from depression tend to experience frequent pre-drawn awakenings. The environment of the room can be another cause of early morning insomnia. Factors such as light and noise can easily disturb a sleeper in the last four hours of sleep when sleep is not as deep. Sunlight coming through a nearby window or the sound of an early morning garbage truck can disturb a light sleeper. In these cases early morning insomnia can sometimes be cured by installing room darkening shades and by wearing ear plugs. It is often difficult to determine if a case of insomnia is caused by depression, or if depression is caused by lack of sleep. In many ways it is like the old question "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" People who suffer from depression tend to experience a less restorative sleep than those who are not. Depressives exhibit any or all of these types of insomnia : frequent predawn awakenings, less deep sleep, and diminished overall sleep time. By far the most common type of insomnia experienced by a depressive is frequent predawn awakenings. So, there are many forms of insomnia and different types of sleep disorders. Each type has its own distinguished features that makes it unique. Many of these forms of insomnia can be easily cured over a period of time. Some of these disorders can not actually be cured but treated so that patient can rest. Personally, I think everyone goes through some type of sleep disorder once or twice in their life. It only becomes serious when it causes a harmful pattern to occur in your own sleeping habits. Bibliography: Nature evolves in regular pulsating rhythms. From tiny atoms to huge galaxies each being vibrates in the same fashion - up down, in out. Our bodies have over one hundred different cycles the metabolism of our cells, the pumping of our blood, our intake of oxygen, and even our moods and states of alertness. When the cycles mix appropriately with each other and with their environment our well being and progress are assured, for we our functioning as nature intended. When these rhythms are out of this pattern, our bodies suffer. The periodicity of these rhythms range from a fraction of a second to a number of years. Some, like the sleep/wake cycle are called circadian, from the Latin circa which means approximately and dies which means day. These cycles obey the daily pattern set down by the rotation of the earth, taking about 24 hours to run their course. Evening falls and flowers fold their petals. Plants fold their leaves. With the exception of owls and their nighttime predators, the creatures of land, sea, and air curl up into their bedroom niches in the rocks, trees, and sand. Dawn comes and the unfolding begins. The outside world, which has been barred from the senses of the sleepers, is once again admitted. This rhythm is the most natural thing in the world, intended no doubt to be accomplished effortlessly. Yet, many people find themselves disconnected by the natural flow of sleeping and waking that nature intended us to follow. How many people suffer from insomnia? The estimates vary, ranging from 20 million to 70 million Americans, from one tenth to one third of the population. If we accept the smallest estimate, that's a lot of tossing and turning. These estimates are usually based on the number of serious insomniacs, the definition of which varies considerably. Some doctors define insomniacs as those who cannot sleep at all; other are willing to categorize insomniacs as all those who merely complain about their sleep. The currently accepted definition, to become known as DIMS, is : one who has difficulty initiating or maintaining sleep. Several surveys have tried to pin down the exact cause of sleep problems. Of 1,000 households in Los Angeles, one third had someone with current problems, and in 42 percent someone had suffered from sleep disorders at sometime. Some doctor's polls have been revealing yet somewhat disparate. In one serve, roughly 19 percent of the patients seen by the 3,000 doctors had complaints of some type of insomnia. That figure may actually understate the case, for some say that more people in the United States visit doctors for help in getting to sleep than any other single complaint. It is also estimated that half of those not considered insomniacs have a sleepless night on occasion, and a large but undetermined number do not sleep as well as they should. Insomniacs take comfort in knowing that they are in excellent company, even if it does feel lonely in that dark room. As you roll over again and again, count sheep, make lists, or play word games; as you try to keep your mind still; as you contemplate what a lousy day tomorrow will be if you do not fall asleep immediately; as you inch dangerously closer to the medicine chest - you may be accompanied by as many as 50 million others. Mark Twain was a famous insomniac. The author once found himself at a friend's house unable to sleep. The problem was not a new one to Twain, yet he convinced himself that the reason for his failure to sleep was poor ventilation in the unfamiliar room. Unable to open a window, he tossed and turned for some time, cursing the stuffy atmosphere. Finally, very angry, he picked up his shoe and hurled it through the darkness at the window. He heard the sound of shattering glass, inhaled deeply, and fell asleep. In the morning the well rested humorous awoke to discover that he had not smashed the window, but a glass bookcase. This story contains many lessons, real and fictional. It cold well be that your sleep difficulties pertain to something as simple as ventilation, humidity, noise, type of mattress, or what you eat and when you eat it. In addition to environmental factors, situational ones can affect sleep. Everyone has experienced temporary sleep loss due to some obvious cause - jet lag, an unfamiliar bed, grief the loss of a loved one, or pressure on the job. If you lose sleep chronically, if you often awaken unrefreshed and feel tired during the day, it might be a big mistake to attribute your problem only to the situation or the environment. As Mark Twain's case reveals, even the most intelligent find it easier to point the finger of blame at something outside ourselves. Safe explanations are easier to live with. Unfortunately with insomnia, they often cover the real problems. Failure to sleep properly is a strange phenomenon. Unlike the failure run fast, write well, multiply numbers easily, or bake bread, it can not be attributed to lack of skill, poor education or inadequate talent. Everyone can sleep. Babies are terrific at it. Even dumb beasts can sleep. It should require no great skill or talent to be able to fall asleep and stay there. Nature has made it easier to fall asleep than it is to eat. To sleep you do not need to hunt, trap, trade, or manufacture. The comparison indicates just how important sleep can be. Someone can go without food much longer than one can last without sleep. Only breathing requires less effort than falling asleep. Nature does all the work. It is as if our nervous systems were automatic transmissions. We shift into the proper gear or stage of sleep when they are needed. There is no simple answer as to why sleep does not always occur. Many factors come into play and experts often disagree on which are the most important. Many authorities consider insomnia not a disease, linked to a germ or a faulty organ. They consider it an indication that the body is out of its rhythm. But which rhythm is hard to determine. In most cases, insomnia is usually a problem involving many areas of our lives that overlap so much that any attempt at identifying one single cause is almost impossible. Everything we experience affects our nervous system and therefore our sleep. For this reason, it is difficult to guess the causes of insomnia without detailed knowledge of the individual case. Certain factors have a definite and often predictable influence on sleep, and sleep experts are trying to identify those with great precision. Factors that are known to affect sleep. The causes of insomnia fall into three categories: physical, mental, and behavioral/situational. However, it is impossible to determine whether mental, physical, or other reasons are prime factors. The mind and the body affect each other in a circular way. Insomnia can also be broken down into three types - onset insomnia, maintenance insomnia, and early morning insomnia. Typically, the length of time it takes an adult to fall asleep is about eight to fifteen minutes. If you can not fall asleep lying in bed for thirty minutes, you are experiencing sleep onset insomnia. Maintenance insomnia is experienced in the middle of the night about an hour and a half to two hours after falling asleep following the first sleep cycle. The inability to fall back to sleep after waking in the middle of the night can happen frequently throughout the night or only once. Usually awakenings that last less than seven minutes will be forgotten the following day. But several periods of awakening or some long period can cause tiredness and irritability. There are several causes of maintenance insomnia. Aging, sleeping pills, certain medical conditions, alcohol, nicotine, and a sleep disorder called periodic limb movement are all known contributors. Early morning insomnia causes people to wake one to four hours before the normal waking time. This type of insomnia is caused most often by depression. People who suffer from depression tend to experience frequent pre-drawn awakenings. The environment of the room can be another cause of early morning insomnia. Factors such as light and noise can easily disturb a sleeper in the last four hours of sleep when sleep is not as deep. Sunlight coming through a nearby window or the sound of an early morning garbage truck can disturb a light sleeper. In these cases early morning insomnia can sometimes be cured by installing room darkening shades and by wearing ear plugs. It is often difficult to determine if a case of insomnia is caused by depression, or if depression is caused by lack of sleep. In many ways it is like the old question "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" People who suffer from depression tend to experience a less restorative sleep than those who are not. Depressives exhibit any or all of these types of insomnia : frequent predawn awakenings, less deep sleep, and diminished overall sleep time. By far the most common type of insomnia experienced by a depressive is frequent predawn awakenings. So, there are many forms of insomnia and different types of sleep disorders. Each type has its own distinguished features that makes it unique. Many of these forms of insomnia can be easily cured over a period of time. Some of these disorders can not actually be cured but treated so that patient can rest. Personally, I think everyone goes through some type of sleep disorder once or twice in their life. It only becomes serious when it causes a harmful pattern to occur in your own sleeping habits.

Word Count: 1618