Mon 26 Mar 2007
There are a multitude of different sleeping and eating disorders that affect a large number of people across the world. Sleep eating is a particularly common sleeping and eating disorder, which in fact combines the activities of sleeping and eating just as the name suggests.
Sleeping and Eating Disorders: Sleep Eating
The Most Common Sleeping and Eating Disorders
March 29th, 2007 at 7:29 am
Sleep disorders are the disorders in sleep pattern. Sleep is a complex neurological state. Its primary function is rest and restoring the body’s energy levels. Repeated interruption of sleep by breathing abnormalities such as cessation of breathing (apnea) or heavy snoring, leads to fragmented sleep and abnormal oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in the blood, all these things lead to sleep disorders.
Sleep consists of a rhythmic combination of changes in physiological, biochemical, neurophysiological and psychological processes. When the circadian rhythm is disturbed or the individual processes are abnormal during sleep, a variety of sleep disorders may result.
Two types of sleep occur with distinct physiological patterns, rapid eye movement sleep (REM), and non-rapid-eye-movement sleep (NREM) or deep sleep. In normal sleep, REM occurs about 90 minutes after a person falls asleep.
The REM and NREM recur in cycles of about 90 minutes each, with four non-REM stages (light to deep slumber) at the beginning and REM towards the end. The amount of sleep needed by each person is usually constant although there is a wide variation among some individuals.
Some sleep disturbances are simply temporary inconveniences while others are potentially more serious. Sleep apnea is the most common sleep disorder. Other serious sleep disorders are narcolepsy and clinical insomnia.
“Jet lag syndrome,” caused by rapid shifts in the biological sleep-wake cycle, is also an example of a temporary sleep disorder. So do the sleep disorders experienced by shift workers.