Common sleep disorders

Despite occupying more than a third of our lives, sleep is a real unknown, but is studied that about 20% of the population suffers a sleep disorder.
Sleep disorders are changes that affect our rest. Difficulty at falling asleep or alterations during it.
There are several factors that can cause sleep disturbance:



- Stress or nervous states.
- Changes in work schedule or travel with Jet-Lag
- Diseases, injuries and pains. 

- Aging. 

- Consumption of alcohol, caffeine.
- Conditions not suitable for the rest: noise, temperature, ventilation, etc. 

Insomnia

It is the difficulty at fall asleep,  to stay asleep or early morning awakening. In all cases, upon waking, our sense is that of not having rested properly.
At present almost 30% of the population suffers from insomnia, although half of all cases suffer chronic insomnia, and the other 50%, a transient insomnia.
The sleep-onset insomnia is more common in adolescence, while the difficulty in staying asleep or waking up early is more common in adults or the elderly.
Possible causes of insomnia include: 



- Depression, anxiety, stress and nervousness.
- Aging.
- Pain or discomfort. 

- Medication. 

- Environmental change or schedules misalignments. 



The symptoms the patient may go through the physical and mental fatigue, reduced concentration and memory, irritability and nervous states.

Sleep apnea

This is a group of serious disorders in which breathing stops repeatedly during sleep, for a fairly long time to cause blood deoxygenation and a higher carbon dioxide concentration.
The person with sleep apnea snore while sleep and at a particular time stops breathing (apnea). These periods of not breathing are followed by sudden attempts to breathe, accompanied by a change to a lighter stage of sleep, discontinuous, leading to excessive daytime sleepiness.



There are three types of apnea:



- Obstructive sleep apnea. More common in men, and especially in smokers men or with obesity. Obesity causes an obstruction of the breathing ways making it difficult. 

- Central sleep apnea. It is caused by a lack of communication between the muscles of breathing and the brain that controls them. It is a kind of rare disorder commonly linked to other diseases.
- Mixed sleep Apnea. It is a combination of the two previous types. 



In any case, it is essential to visit a specialist because it may consist of a serious problem related, possibly, with other pathologies.

Snoring

It consists of noisy breathing during sleep.

It is produced by the vibrations caused by air moving trough our palate. These vibrations will cause the collapse of the soft tissue between the oral cavity and pharynx.

Perhaps none of us consider snoring as a sleep disorder. Rather, we believe that this is a nuisance to family and social level.

But basically, this is a disorder that directly affects our rest, making it inadequate, ineffective and of poor quality.