Sleep is a natural recurring physical and mental state of rest, in which a person becomes unconscious and relatively inactive. Sleep is characterized by decreased body movements, breathing rate and blood pressure among other bodily functions. The mind, however, remains relatively active. Sleep disorder is a health condition that interrupts the quality of sleep. There are many kinds of sleep disorders such as insomnia sleep, apnea snoring and sleep deprivation. Sleep disorder has recently become a common problem where research indicates that more than half of the population in the USA is affected by this problem.
Sleep is a very important activity that every individual should observe daily. Though the number of hours one should sleep per day varies from one individual to another, experts recommend eight hours for a normal person. People who sleep enough is normally active, happy and productive during the day. Their concentration on activities and tasks they engage in during the day is normally high leading to a high productivity. Researchers also argue that enough sleep boasts individual immune system (Culebras 45). People who sleep at least eight hours a day is not affected by the small ailments like the common cold. Sleeping enough, therefore, makes a person live a healthy, active and productive life.
There are many sleep disorders but the most common is insomnia. Insomnia, also called sleeplessness, is a state in which one finds it hard to fall off to sleep. Such a person will hardly sleep over the night resulting to fatigue and dizzy when they wake up the following morning. It can affect all ages but prevalent in the elderly people. Depending on the period, one experiences this condition, thus insomnia is classified into three categories. Chronic insomnia is a prolonged period of the sleeplessness that goes over one month. Acute insomnia lasts for a few weeks then the person re-assume the normal sleep. The third insomnia is transient insomnia that affects people for the few days. Insomnia is mainly attributed to the poor lifestyle that causes stress and depression (Grobel 16).
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Sleep apnea is another common sleeping disorder. It is caused by abnormal low breathing which sometimes results to a pause in the breathing system. These periodic pauses which last for few seconds are caused by blockage of the breathing system which causes one to wake up hence interrupt the quality of sleep. One feels exhausted, dizzy and fatigue in the morning due to the lack of enough sleep. It has no engage bracket though common among adults. The symptoms of this disorder include fatigue, daytime sleepiness and a notable level of sleep disturbance (Lader et al. 67).
Other sleep disorders include snoring, restless legs syndrome, circadian rhythm sleep, and nightmare disorder and sleepwalking disorder. Snoring is caused by blockage of the airway resulting to snoring sound. The actual cause of snoring is not knowing but smoking and overweight contributes to this. It affects one's quality and quantity of sleep. The sound may affect the people around hence affecting their sleep. Legs syndrome, though, not very common but also interrupts the quality of sleep. Circadian rhythm sleep is characterized by many short naps throughout the day and night. Nightmares are common to almost all people and lows the quality of sleep. Sleepwalking disorder refers to the condition where one unconsciously engages in activities done by woken up person. It also interrupts the quality of sleep and is characterized by the exhaustion in the following morning (Culebras 56).
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Sleep disorder has both short-term and long-time effects on an individual. The effects on people's life include death and poor performance in life. Sleep disorder is widely known to cause accidents. Moreover, sleep disorders impair visibility hence poor judgment. Judgment is important to drivers and pilots. Most roads accidents are attributed to the poor judgment due to the sleep disorder. Road accidents kill many people which separate them from their loved ones. Pilots are required to sleep enough as poor visual impairment can be fatal. Example of this accident is the jet, NY, crash in buffalo which let fifty people dead (Grobel 33).
The sleeping disorder also causes poor performance in life. Sleep disorder causes loss of memory and poor concentration in activities that one involves in life. The level of reasoning and decision making is also impaired by the sleep disorder. This result in poor performance in every activity they undertake. Students in school who are affected by this problem perform poorly due to the lack of concentration in class and in their revision. The productivity of these individuals in their working place is also very low as most of the lack of concentration required and the self-motivation that increases the individual productivity in the workplace. The people affected by the problem generally have dull and less enjoyable life (Grobel 81).
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Long terms effect sleep disorder include serious medical sickness, retardation and obesity and pool quality of life. Sleep disorders such as insomnia cause depression. Prolong depression results in the development of other related diseases such as high blood pressure, heart failure, stroke and heart attack. Weight gain or obesity is another healthy problem associated with the sleep disorder. Research has indicated that people experiencing sleeping disorder have a higher chance of having obesity than the people who sleep normally (Lader et al. 54). People who have less sleep is highly susceptible to a common ailment like the common cold. Blockages of the airways can contribute to the development of high blood pressure in the long-run.
Sleep disorders also affects the physical and mental growth. Children who experience this problem at early development stage are more likely to have abnormal or retarded growth. These children end up having healthy complications in their adult age. The mental power is also reduced among adults while among the children, the mental development is retarded (Lader et al. 38). Sleep disorders are characterized by less active people that are ever exhausted and tired. The quality of their life is generally low and unhealthy.
My personal experience occurs when I joined college. I could spend most of my time studying and hardly slept. I spent less than five hours in day sleeping. Later I have realized that I was doing more harm to myself than good. My concentration in class was very low. My performance was also very poor. Life generally seemed less interesting. When I realized my mistake, I resolved it by ensuring I slept enough hours every day. My life changed greatly. My concentration in class improved and consequently, improved in performance. This incident taught me the importance of sleep and how destructive sleep disorder can be.
This essay has discusses sleeping, sleep disorders, its affects on people's life and long term affect on the affected person. Sleep rejuvenates both the body and the mind power. Sleep disorder is an interruption of the quality of sleep. There are many sleep disorders which include insomnia, sleep apnea, snoring leg syndrome and walking sleep disorder among others. Some of the common effects of the sleeping disorder include visual impairment attributed to cause most road accident and poor personal productivity. The long term effects include retarded growth, development of obesity, health problems and poor quality of living. People should try to spend enough time sleeping as this increase their productivity. People suffering from a sleep disorder should seek help from doctors in order to help them overcome their problem.
Works cited:
- Culebras, Adan. Sleep Disorder and Neurological Disease. New York: M. Dekker, 2004. Print.
- Grobel, Boberta. Sleep. NewYork: Chelsea House, 1992. Print.
- Lader. et al. Sleep and Sleep Disorder: A Neuropsychopharmarmacological Approach. New York: Springer Science Business Media, 2006. Print