Alaskan winters pose and extremely unique challenge to our lives and sleep. Our winters mean either receiving mostly (or only) darkness or only darkness, depending on where you live. This extreme lighting condition is contrasted against summer, which is the opposite, and entails making fairly drastic changes to our lives – changes which be very disruptive towards sleep.
Creating an ideal sleeping environment is absolutely essential to getting a good night’s rest. It can also play a crucial role in the process of identifying and diagnosing a sleep disorder (or ruling it out). A sleep environment is, unfortunately, not something many people think about when they think about having sleeping problems. The common reaction is to instead reach for a sleep aid, such as melatonin. But I repeat, a sleep environment can make all the difference in the world.
Narcolepsy is a sleep disorder characterized by a frequent and sometimes uncontrollable desire for sleep. This can result into sudden lapses into sleep at any time, any place. The result is that normal patterns and rhythms of sleeping become abnormal. For example, someone suffering from narcolepsy may end up sleeping several times during the day and then having trouble sleeping at night.
Your circadian rhythm is your biological sleep clock. It regulates sleep and is closely tied to melatonin, the sleep hormone. Your biological sleep clock exists in a part of your brain called the superchiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus. It sits right behind the nerves of your eyes, which is ideal for regulating melatonin in response to changes in light.
Are you waking up several times or more throughout the night to go pee? Is it causing you to feel tired in the morning and sleep deprived throughout the day? It might be validating to know that there is a term for frequently waking up at nigh to urinate: nocturia.
Restless leg syndrome (RLS) is a sleep disorder caused by nervous system, and is characterized by uncomfortable feelings in your legs and other extremities during the night. RLS usually causes enough discomfort to interfere with sleep, causing sleep deprivation, which is why it is considered a sleep disorder.
Alaskans’ sleeping schedules are unique. While it sounds reasonable to think, “Summer in Alaska is for long, fun days and winters are for lots of sleep,” it’s actually not quite that simple. As you go further north, things get even more complex. Our extreme lighting conditions affect our lives in many different way – ways that can be incredibly disruptive towards sleep.
Parasomnias relate to a number of different sleep disorders, not just a single sleep disorder. Parasomnias are considered sleep disorders because they are conditions that affect your ability to get sleep – hence, they disrupt your circadian rhythm and lead to sleep deprivation. Some parasomnias will be obvious and easy to identify, others will require a bed partner in order to identify.
Alaskan winters mean daily darkness for most or all of the day. The extreme lighting condition of Alaska, especially as you go north, affects our lives in many different and important ways:
A sleep-related painful erection is exactly what it sounds like: a painful erection that appears during REM sleep. It is not produced by sexual activity, sexual activity will not produce it, and there are no lesions or physical damage from this condition. It only occurs during sleep.