Blogpost 1: Sleeping Disorders: Non-24-hour sleep-wake syndrome

You climb into bed worn out and exhausted. But the minute the lights go out, you’re wide awake, worrying. The clock ticks ahead. Your anxiety builds. You wonder how you’ll survive the next day. You can't sleep. You've tried counting sheep, drinking warm milk, maybe even taking medications like Benadryl or sleeping pills.

With our busy lives, it can be tempting to shrug off those difficulties with sleep. Trouble falling asleep, difficulty staying asleep throughout the night, waking feeling tired and unfresh; these are commonly experienced disruptions to sleep for millions of us. Too often, these sleep problems we aren't taken seriously, or are considered the less-than-ideal price to pay for living full and sometimes hectic lives. 

Difficulty falling asleep, waking during the night, waking very early in the morning, and experiencing restorative sleep are all symptoms of insomnia, a serious sleep disorder. Many of us can experience these symptoms all at once, or some of us and not others. We may experience them chronically or every so often. They are signs of disrupted, poor quality sleep and they should never be ignored.

I read an article entitled "10 Reasons It's Awesome to Be an Insomniac" by Jill Smokler in hestir.cafemom.com. According to the article Insomnia helps you improve your critical thinking. Our brain is most active at night. As connected in having an insomnia, a quotation given by Banana Yoshimito N.P. in goodreads.com “That's the advantage of insomnia. People who go to be early always complain that the night is too short, but for those of us who stay up all night, it can feel as long as a lifetime. You get a lot done”'.

That's why at night,  it was very difficult to get to sleep at bedtime, I  found myself "out like a light" in front of the TV, at a movie, or even reading, texting, and drawing.

But staying up just one night without sleep can increase the amount of the chemical dopamine in the human brain, According to new imaging research in the Journal of Neuroscience in sfn.org. Because drugs that increase dopamine, like amphetamines, promote wakefulness, the findings offer a potential mechanism explaining how the brain helps people stay awake despite the urge to sleep. However, the study also shows that the increase in dopamine cannot compensate for the cognitive deficits caused by sleep deprivation.


Sometimes, many of us can experience also a temporary insomnia from a few days to a few weeks, such as a  stressful event, emotional stress, illness, temporary pain, disturbances in sleep hygiene. 


As  I read further, according to the article, SleepHabits: More Important Than You Think by Michael J. Breus, PhD. in webmd.com. This article tells that poor sleep is well understood to have a serious, negative impact on heart health. Not sleeping well, or enough, raises the risks for a number of cardiovascular problems, including high blood pressure, heart attack, heart failure, and stroke. Protecting the quality of sleep as we age is a critical component of protecting long-term cardiovascular health.

If you have symptoms of insomnia, don’t ignore them. Share them with your doctor. Make an honest assessment of your sleep habits and make a commitment to taking simple steps to improve your sleep routine and your overall sleep hygiene. Taking steps to improve the quality and quantity of your sleep is one important way to protect your cardiovascular and overall health for the duration of your life. And sleeping well may actually help you extend that duration.