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When a person struggles to fall asleep or stay asleep without any obvious cause, it is referred to as insomnia, [2] which is the most common sleep disorder. [3] Other sleep disorders include sleep apnea , narcolepsy , hypersomnia (excessive sleepiness at inappropriate times), sleeping sickness (disruption of the sleep cycle due to infection ...
It has distinct meanings and causes. It can refer to the usual state preceding falling asleep, [1] the condition of being in a drowsy state due to circadian rhythm disorders, or a symptom of other health problems. It can be accompanied by lethargy, weakness and lack of mental agility. [2]
A hypnic jerk, hypnagogic jerk, sleep start, sleep twitch, myoclonic jerk, or night start is a brief and sudden involuntary contraction of the muscles of the body which occurs when a person is beginning to fall asleep, often causing the person to jump and awaken suddenly for a moment.
A circadian rhythm is an entrainable, endogenous, biological activity that has a period of roughly twenty-four hours. This internal time-keeping mechanism is centralized in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) of humans, and allows for the internal physiological mechanisms underlying sleep and alertness to become synchronized to external environmental cues, like the light-dark cycle. [4]
Advanced Sleep Phase Disorder (ASPD), also known as the advanced sleep-phase type (ASPT) of circadian rhythm sleep disorder, is a condition that is characterized by a recurrent pattern of early evening (e.g. 7-9 PM) sleepiness and very early morning awakening (e.g. 2-4 AM).
Subjects undergo a series of five 20-minute sleeping opportunities with an absence of alerting factors at 2-hour intervals on one day. The test is based on the idea that the sleepier people are, the faster they will fall asleep. [15] [16] The Maintenance of Wakefulness Test (MWT) is also used to quantitatively assess daytime sleepiness. This ...
Stress often leads to difficulties falling asleep and staying asleep, however, a lack of sleep can also contribute to one's stress levels. This relationship leads to a never-ending cycle of being too stressed to sleep and then being unable to control one's anxieties because of the impacts of a lack of sleep.
Some examples of this are: Stimulus control, which requires the patient to leave bed and move to another room if they are not asleep within 15–20 minutes, can be dangerous for those with an elevated risk of falling, such as those with restricted mobility or with orthostatic hypotension. [16]