What Is Idiopathic Hypersomnia?
If you’re feeling tired from either too much or too little sleep, then you could be suffering from idiopathic hypersomnia. It is fairly common, with nearly five percent of the population affected. However, without proper treatment, people who have this condition can fall asleep at any time. This can prove debilitating and even dangerous if the person happens to be working or driving at the time. As with any sleep disorder, hypersomnia can lead to a variety of other health symptoms. In this article, we’ll examine the likely candidates for this condition and the treatments that are available.
Patients suffering from hypersomnia often lose the ability to function in family, social and occupational settings. The condition most commonly impacts teenagers, young adults and people who are overweight. This can exacerbate their weight problems, as their excessive sleep patterns means that they will use less energy. In addition to excessive sleepiness and long nighttime sleeping, symptoms include irritability, mild depression and difficulty concentrating. For this reason, people with hypersomnia should be cautious when driving or operating machinery. Kleine-Levin syndrome is a form of hypersomnia that features slightly different symptoms. Sufferers may sleep for eighteen or more hours a day and are irritable, uninhibited, and make indiscriminate sexual advances. People with Kleine-Levin syndrome often eat uncontrollably and rapidly gain weight. However, this form of recurrent hypersomnia is very rare.
Recurring hypersomnia involves periods of excessive daytime sleepiness that can last from one to many days, and recur over the course of a year or more. With recurring hypersomnia, a person will have prolonged periods where they do not exhibit any signs of the malady. However, persons experiencing idiopathic hypersomnia are affected by it nearly all the time.
There is no known cure for idiopathic hypersomnia, but a combination of lifestyle modifications and medication can help. A regular sleep schedule, even on weekends, will make a world of difference. It’s not unusual for patients to think they may have narcolepsy or hypersomnia, when the real problem is insufficient sleep time each night. It’s also important to avoid caffeine, alcohol, activities or medications that may affect sleep. Some drugs used to treat hypersomnia are also used to treat narcolepsy. These include medications that stimulate the central nervous system such as Provigi, Ritalin and various amphetamines. Provigi is a newer stimulant that isn’t as addictive as other medications and doesn’t produce the highs and lows often associated with other drugs. Amphetamines, while effective, can cause nervousness and heart palpitations in some patients.
Idiopathic hypersomnia can lead to other medical disorders, so getting immediate treatment is essential. A sleep problem will have a ripple effect through the rest of your life, so addressing the disorder will help you perform better at work and improve your overall quality of life. There’s no need to struggle with those feelings of drowsiness. A simple visit to the doctor can put you on the road to a better night of sleep.
March 30, 2009
Dealing With Sleep Problems With Food
The meals you eat can have a direct outcome on the quality of rest you get and, as a matter of fact, there is a direct relationship between sleep troubles & food. The majority of people think little of seizing a “midnight snack” or consuming a late meal but regrettably, doing these things can really be causing you to receive nothing less than a dreadful nights rest.
You need to learn what types of foods cause your sleep issues and start taken them off your food list. The first thing that comes to mind for most people is coffee or other caffeinated produces because these are designed to reduce the feelings of tiredness.
In order to reduce the effect coffee has on your sleep patterns you might drink your final mug prior to three. Coffee can make it hard to sleep, so if you drink coffee at noon try to switch teas instead.
Alcohol is a major cause of insomnia, so that last glass of wine at bed time can be keeping you up. In order to avoid this simply drink prior to dinner time an eliminate the ever popular evening drinks like the nightcap or after dinner glass of bourbon. In order to ensure that a needed bathroom break does not disturb your sleep do not drink ninety minutes prior to going to sleep. These simple things can be amazing in your sleep routine.
In general you want to avoid foods disruptive to your sleep like spicy foods that will warm you and kick in your circulation and can wake you up! Some spicy foods can tend to create gastrointestinal issues such as heartburn and indigestion. These are two things that will make it hard to sleep so try to avoid spicy foods when you can. It could be ok to have spicy foods at lunch if you must. Your body needs time to digest, so eat 3 hours before you are planning on going to sleep.
Digestion can actually cause you to have a restless night’s sleep or not being able to get fully into the REM and deep sleep stages that occur during the sleep cycle. Since your body has to digest the food you eat, try not to eat right before bed. If you know you have a slow digestion process consider eating dinner earlier to ensure you get a good night’s rest.
March 28, 2009
Cures For The Condition Known As Insomnia
To be able to relax and drift off into a warm and fuzzy state of slumber and wake up refreshed knowing that you have had a good night's sleep has to be one of the best feelings you can encounter.
Can you imagine then how it must feel to know that as many as 1 in 5 of the population have been denied the above, simply because they suffer from insomnia a cruel condition that robs people of vital rest.
Insomnia is the inability to fall asleep and stay asleep. It can affect anyone at any time and at any age. Common insomnia causes include:
Waking up tired and not feeling rested.
Feeling tired or sleepy throughout the day.
Having difficulty focussing on everyday tasks.
Feeling irritable and depressed.
Sleep is essential for good health. It is the body's way of rejuvenating and repairing itself, and without it health problems such as heart disease and diabetes can occur. Indeed studies from New York and Chicago Universities have shown that a good night's sleep can cause you to live longer and even help you to stay slim!
There are two types of insomnia, primary and secondary.
Primary insomnia is insomnia that occurs without an underlying cause. Secondary insomnia is insomnia that is caused by an emotional, physical or neurological disorder such as stress, grief, pain, jetlag or illnesses such as dementia or Alzheimers.
Secondary insomnia is easier to treat than primary insomnia as you can usually find the cause. When it comes to sleep everybody needs are different and we should have a rough idea of how much sleep we need to function well. The following tips below are recommended to improve or restore the sleep of the insomniac. We need to be in tune with our body's daily rhythm and try to arise at the same time even on weekends. Try not to take naps during the day. Do moderate and regular exercise such as walking or swimming. Drink alcohol in moderation, it may make you feel sleepy but it can cause you to wake early. Avoid coffee and tea products in the evening as it is full of caffeine and will keep you up at night. Do not have a heavy meal late at night, a classic reason for insomnia. Eat a light meal 4 hours before bed and choose protein foods such as eggs, fish or bake beans as these contain trytophan an amino acid which aids sleep.
Some cures for insomnia include drinking hot milk containing nutmeg as both are calming and can induce sleep.
Sprinkle a few drops of lavender oil on your pillow at night as this has a sedative affect.
Avoid doing anything mentally stimulating before bed, wind down and relax using meditation and yoga to prepare the body for sleep.
Keep your bedroom dark, quiet and well ventilated. Turn off the television or the computer.
Play soft music and make sure that the bed is comfortable.
Doing any or more of the above should encourage sleep to come back and allow you the privilege of a good nights rest.
March 27, 2009
How To Find The Cause of Your Snoring
One of the most frequent questions that I get except for “how do I stop snoring”, is “what is causing my snoring”.
Way too often people think they have an idea of what might be causing their snoring. Guess what? Most of them are wrong, and that’s why they’re still snoring.
Many think that they have to lose weight or stop smoking to stop snoring. Don't get me wrong, since I'm not saying that these things wouldn't work. In fact, it would probably greatly reduce your snoring and maybe even cure it.
(And as a side note, it’s worth mentioning that your snoring might prevent you from losing weight. Seems pretty stupid to try to lose weight to stop snoring when it is your snoring that is keeping your weight in a headlock, right?)
Nevertheless, there are easier ways!
So let’s forget about the issues on the surface that seems to be causing your snoring for one second, and dig down to the very root causes of your snoring.
Very few are looking at the root causes of snoring, even though this, in most cases, is essential to curing snoring.
To really understand that causes of snoring, we need to look at what snoring is really caused by, which is “any narrowing or blockage in the breathing passage”. This is the cause of every single case of snoring, no exceptions.
With this in mind, it sounds easy to cure any type of snoring, but you need to know that this airway block could be located anywhere in your breathing passage.
For instance, it is possible that you are suffering from having a tense jaw, which often leads to open-mouth breathing, which in turn increases the resistance in breathing, causing the soft tissues to vibrate and make the snoring sound.
In that case it would make more sense to cure your tense jaw than to lose weight or stop smoking, right?
“Hey Andreas, I have no idea of knowing if I have a tense jaw or not?”
Well, actually, I’ve made it very easy. Since I got this question just about all the time, I decided to create a tool that can easily indentify all the root causes of your snoring and give you a list of personalized cures and treatments that you can do at home.
You can actually try it for free, simply by clicking on the link below and entering your first name and email address. In addition I’ll give you some good tips that will give you immediate relief of your snoring:
Stop Snoring
Find your snoring cause and get those quiet nights,
Andreas Henderson
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