Lifestyle
The risk of undetected sleep disorders
By
American Sleep Clinic July 24, 2023
Prof. Dr. med. Hartmut Schneider and Felix Fronek
American Sleep Clinic July 24, 2023
A service member sleeps after his duty day at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas, on March 24, 2023. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sleep is critical for heart health. Poor sleep habits have been linked to high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and obesity. (Photo by Jason W. Edwards, Brooke Army Medical Center)
Your quality of life starts when you turn off the lights. What happens to your body at night doesn’t only have consequences at night. A good night’s sleep is crucial for your physical and mental health, including your well-being. Despite its importance, sleep is often taken for granted, and many people suffer from undetected sleep disorders that can have serious consequences on daytime productivity and for achieving healthy aging. According to the American Sleep Association, it is estimated that up to 70 million adults in the United States have some sort of sleep disorder. A survey conducted by the National Sleep Foundation states that 35 percent of adults in the United States report “poor” or “only fair” quality of sleep. This indicates that a significant portion of the population is dissatisfied with their sleep. The consequences of sleep disorders are numerous.
Healthy sleep is essential for the proper functioning of the body and mind by promoting physical and mental restoration as well as learning ability and emotional regulation. During sleep, the brain cells get recharged with energy and the brain consolidates memories and creates the foundations for emotional stability. The body also rejuvenates from better sleep. Muscles get detoxified, leading to less muscle pain and better muscle function. Sleep also produces specific cytokines, which are proteins that help fight infection, inflammation, and stress, allowing us to wake up feeling refreshed and energized. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine, the National Sleep Foundation, and The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommend at least seven hours of nighttime sleep, up to nine hours for adults, while children and teenagers require more sleep. In summary, undisturbed and enough sleep is a crucial component of a healthy lifestyle and the precondition for healthy aging.
In contrast, irregular, insufficient, inadequate, unrestful, or overall unhealthy sleep can have severe effects on your health. Insufficient sleep increases your appetite, the risk of developing obesity or difficulties losing weight and diabetes. For example, it has already been proven that one week of sleep deprivation will disrupt blood sugar levels. Sleep disturbances reduce cognitive function increasing the risk of accidents and injuries, impairs immune functions and lead to mental disorders like depression or anxiety and difficulties managing PTSD. While these effects of poor sleep are present in early stages long-term effects are seen as well: Poor sleep can be a cause for other chronic diseases of the heart (atrial fibrillation and heart failure), the vascular system (arterial hypertension) and the brain (chronic headaches, poor concentration and memory and stroke).
The most common sleep disorders are Insomnia, Sleep Disordered Breathing, like snoring or obstructive sleep apnea, Restless Legs Syndrome, and a disturbance in the internal clock that regulates when and how long one sleeps. These sleep disorders can lead to sleep deprivation and its consequences, despite people sleeping a decent amount of time. This is why undetected sleep disorders can be the reason for unrestful sleep.
There are several ways to find out if you are affected by a sleep disorder. Specific diagnostic criteria for sleep disorders include factors such as a persistent pattern of sleep disturbance, abnormal behavior during sleep, daytime symptoms such as sleepiness, fatigue, and physical symptoms such as snoring and pauses in breathing during sleep. A valuable indicator is how you feel in your daily life. The questions to consider are those concerning your mental fitness, such as: “Can you keep up with challenges in your daily life?”, “Can you adapt to new ideas?”, “Can you take on extraordinary challenges in daily life without stress?”. When things around you become less exciting and are perceived as stressful, if new things are no longer challenging or exciting, and if they are considered as burden, you may have some sort of sleep deprivation caused by an undiagnosed sleep disorder.
Unfortunately, if your sleep is already disrupted by an undetected sleep disorder, causing sleep deprivation despite sufficient sleep time, the consequences can be unbearable stress or burn out syndrome. At this point it is difficult to compensate for sleep deprivation on your own. Therefore, it is most likely, that you end up in a vicious cycle from which it is difficult to escape without professional help. Without knowing the causes for unhealthy sleep, you may end up with a lack of concentration, unable to remember important things, difficulty staying focused, increased appetite and many more symptoms. Inadequate fulfillment of the functions of sleep due to sleep deprivation can give rise to symptoms that may be erroneously attributed to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children, depression or burnout in adults, or the onset of dementia in the elderly. In order to break the cycle and feel energized and refreshed in the morning, it is important for your health and well-being to be evaluated for possible sleep disorders.
Courtesy of the American Sleep Clinic in Frankfurt.
For more information, visit their website or call them at +49 69 808 807 777.