Circadian Rhythm Sleep Disorders
What are circadian rhythm sleep disorders? Human beings sleep at night and stay awake in the morning. This common phenomenon is governed by body’s internal clock, also called the circadian clock. A chronic impairment in circadian clock leads to some serious disorders, called circadian rhythm sleep disorders. Circadian rhythm sleep disorders are commonly misdiagnosed. Physicians are usually unfamiliar of these disorders and misinterpretation of symptoms often leads to wrong treatment. However, it basically does not require medications all the time. These sleep disorders can be easily cured following few lifestyle changes.
Types Of Circadian Rhythm Sleep Disorders
Circadian rhythm sleep disorders are divided into the group of six different disorders.
- Advanced sleep phase syndrome: ASPS advances the sleep to its conventional bed time or a desired time to sleep.
- Delayed sleep phase syndrome: In DSPS the major sleep episodes are delayed with hour or two to its desired time resulting in daytime fatigue and sleepiness.
- Non-24 Sleep/wake syndrome – It follows a free running sleep.
- Irregular Sleep-Wake pattern – These are temporary disorganized sleep wake pattern.
- Jet lag
- Shift work
Circadian Clock Or Body Clock And Its Functioning
To understand various types of circadian rhythm sleep disorders you first need to understand the circadian rhythm. You might not know that much of the nature follows a rhythm. The most common of them are; four seasons, rotation of the earth, a year cycle of the earth. Like nature, our body also follows a rhythm and a few of them are closely tied to the nature. For example, a properly functioning circadian rhythm responds to the light and the darkness of the day and produces hormones that regulate sleep and wakefulness in the body. When the rhythm is out of balance there is also misbalance in the hormonal secretion and body suffer from the circadian rhythm sleep disorders.
Treatment For The Circadian Rhythm Sleeps Disorders
Numerous therapies are suggested to help correct the circadian rhythm sleep disorders but the best amongst the all would be making some lifestyle changes so that the body could easily sync with the nature, and this start with following sleep hygiene.
Lifestyle Changes To Help Treat The Circadian Rhythm Sleep Disorders?
- Establish a rule for time to sleep and to wake up. This will eventually normalize your circadian clock.
- Make sure your bedroom’s environment is comfortable and relaxing and there is no bright light in the room. Do not watch television or stay long in front of the computer. Bright light coming from all these sources can send wrong signals to the brain that ultimately make it hard to fall asleep.
- Exercise regularly. Exercising in the morning or in the afternoon stimulates serotonin secretion that helps release stress. But, avoid exercising near to the bedtime because exercising increases blood pressure, heart rate and prevent your body from falling asleep.
- Skip afternoon naps, this disrupts circadian rhythm and sleep wake cycle.
- Avoid caffeinated drinks. You might not know that caffeine have a longer life so when you take a caffeinated drink at 5 PM, it is still present in the body by 12 PM, and thus it prevents you from dozing off.
These are a few very simple lifestyle changes that may give you a lot of success in treating circadian rhythm sleep disorders.
