Getting enough sleep

As we grow older and our lives get busier many people tend to think that it is all right to not sleep as much as they used to. However if you do not receive up to 6-8 hours of sleep you are putting your health at risk. Not to mention that 50-70 million Americans also suffer from a chronic sleep disorder such as insomnia or sleep apnea.

Weight for example may be affected because insufficient sleep spikes the hormones in the body causing changes in hunger, weight and behavior. Appetite is directly altered because the body produces more ghrelin, which is the hormone that stimulates appetite. As a result you tend to eat more carbs and cholesterol. This is also why it is important that you have a healthy sleep routine if you want to lose weight.

Another thing to consider is that lack of sleep may also negatively affect your mental state. It’s no secret that when you do not receive enough sleep there is a tendency to be more grumpy and irritable. Getting enough sleep is important for the mind as well because during this period the mind restores itself and processes all the information that it picked up during the day. People with a lack of sleep tend to suffer from symptoms on increased stress and depression.

Diary of an Insomniac

The older I got, the more my sleeping problems began to affect me. First it was just a restless night here and there. But ever since recently, it seems like every night I find myself ready and able to sleep only to be wide-awake in the wee hours of the morning – bone-tired.

Maybe it’s something in my diet? Coffee? Could it be the caffeine in the things I drink? Or could it be that there’s too much sugar in the things that I eat. I begin to avoid all the things that could potentially keep me up the whole night. I wait a couple of weeks to see if my abstinence has its desired effect. To no avail, I spend the last 4 nights out of the week slave to the whims of my restless mind. And the other days of the week I wake up a zombie to the world and spend the rest of my day fatigued. I backtrack a little and try to see what else could be the culprit for all my restless nights. I stare at my bare bed in rapt trying to think for clues. Could it be that I have some sort of sleeping disorder? Impossible. I couldn’t possible have anything like that. I try taking melatonin. It actually works for a little bit. But after a couple of weeks, I find that I need more and more to sleep. As my body grows more familiar with the natural supplement, I find that Melatonin no longer helps me sleep.

I decide that getting myself tested is probably the best thing to do at this point. Because if there really is something wrong with me, then nothing I do will work anyways. I use the Internet to gather relevant information. I schedule an appointment to be tested for the entire range of possible disorders that could apply to my case: Restless legs syndrome, sleep apnea, and even narcolepsy. It turns out I have sleep apnea. Meaning that I don’t get enough oxygen to the brain because there is an obstruction in the movement of air to my lungs. In my case the soft tissue located at the top my throat blocks the passage of air when relaxed.  Now I have to sleep with a CPAP machine by my bedside to make sure that I receive the proper amount of sleep. It has helped though, it has allowed me have more peaceful sleep even though the machine makes a low humming at night. You grow used to it after awhile. I hope that more insomniacs’ get tested because there a millions of people out there who were like me and didn’t know that there was an underlying reason to their nightly affliction.