Sleep is one of the most important activities for almost all complex organisms. It is an essential part of living. You can survive for a long time without food and just water, but you can never survive without sleep. Most average people can probably go on without sleep for a day or two but beyond that, it will be very hard. Even at two days without it, the human capability to function both mentally and physically is diminished to a very large level.
Anyone deprived of sleep for a long period of time also experience psychological symptoms such as hallucination and delirium. At the worst case, they will just plain go crazy, suffering from complete mental breakdown.
When you sleep, your body starts to repair worn tissues and replace cells. Your brain in particular starts to process all the information gathered that day, discarding the unnecessary data and information and retaining the important ones; this is why when you don’t get enough sleep your mental capability drastically decreases; the brain can only handle so much information before it needs to properly process them all. Sleep gives it the chance to sort everything out, hence the feeling of being refreshed after sleeping. The expression “sleep it over” probably comes from the idea that things will have gained a better perspective after sleeping.
Sleep-related illnesses are also rather well-known and, just as important as sleep is, are also as serious. Most can easily affect your lifestyle and day to day activities. One of them is narcolepsy, a condition that is as serious as it is interesting.
Mr. Sandman, Send Me A Dream
Narcolepsy is categorized as a neurological illness. It’s characterized by what is called Excessive Daytime Sleepiness (or EDS), a condition in which the person falls asleep during inappropriate times of the day, such as when at school or at work. Pathological sleep attacks may occur with or without warning and it is not unheard of that people get into accidents, sometimes with tragic results, because they suddenly asleep either while driving or engaged in some other activities that need their full attention. When they do sleep during the night, narcoleptics will often experience disturbed, fragmented sleep, mostly with brief awakenings.
Most of the time, narcolepsy is unrecognized by the patient for many years. Especially now that pace of life has quickened, most people will often dismiss the symptoms as a result of the stress and grind of modern lifestyle. In some cases, there could be a delay of ten years between the start of the condition’s symptoms to its diagnosis. Approximately 50% of the adults who have the condition in retrospect report symptoms beginning in their teenage years; mostly, narcolepsy begins between the ages of 15 and 30. In less percentage (about six percent), it occurs in children who are less than 10 years old.
Causes of Narcolepsy
There is no definite cause for narcolepsy, although researchers think that they may have found certain triggers that can increase the risk of a person getting it. Genetics may play a role, although most believe that an infection that damages certain brain cells that are important to sleep is a big factor.
Abnormal sleep pattern for an individual may also be a contributor to narcolepsy. Normal people usually go to a pattern when they sleep: it begins with what is called as non-rapid eye movement (NREM) where brain activity slows down. After an hour or so, brain activity picks up and they enter into REM sleep, where dreaming occurs. For people with narcolepsy, the NREM phase is skipped, going straight to REM instead, and it happens at abnormal times.
Lack of certain brain chemicals are also looked upon as factors. Hypocretin is an important brain chemical responsible for controlling appetite and sleep patterns. It helps regulate staying awake, as well as keeping REM sleep stable and occurring at the appropriate time when a person is sleeping. In narcoleptic people, the cells that make hypocretin are severely damaged, causing them to have low levels of hypocretin.
Getting Rid of Narcolepsy
It should be stressed that currently, there is no cure for narcolepsy. However, you can still manage the symptoms via medications and lifestyle changes. Here are some of the things you can do to better control the condition.
- Take medications as prescribed by the doctor. Stimulants are often prescribed by doctors to help narcoleptic people stay awake during the day. Examples include modafinil, as well as some amphetamines. Antidepressants are also prescribed as they suppress REM sleep, and help alleviate symptoms of cataplexy, sleep paralysis and hypnagogic hallucinations.
- Set up a sleep schedule and keep it. Sleep hygiene has been known to improve symptoms of narcoleptic people as long as they maintain regular sleeping habits. Scheduled naps during the day can also help. Studies have shown that the best results often show when scheduled nighttime eight hours of sleep is combined with two 15-minute naps during the day.
- Avoid alcohol, nicotine and heavy meals. These make you drowsy and will interfere with your sleeping pattern. Avoid them especially at night. As much as possible, you should get a complete and uninterrupted 8-hour sleep.
- Exercise regularly. Aside from keeping you fit, exercise can also help you with your sleep problem by stimulating your brain during the day. Moderate exercise done regularly four or five hours before bedtime can also help you sleep better at night.
It will take dedication and discipline to keep a regular schedule especially since you really can’t control the condition in the beginning. However, with enough training and practice, you will feel the shift in your sleeping condition until it becomes a habit. While the above steps may not totally eliminate narcolepsy, they will allow you to have a semblance of a normal life and help you get on with your daily activities with as little interruption as possible.
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