Sleep paralysis is being unable to move or speak during the transition between wakefulness and sleep. Sleep paralysis occurs either right after you wake up, or right before you fall asleep. It is result of your body not smoothly transitioning between stages of wakefulness and sleep. And it can be mildly disconcerting to terrifying, especially if you are unaware what sleep paralysis is.
Does your bed partner tell you that you whisper, laugh, mumble, or even outright talk in your sleep? Or does your child shout or give long, incomprehensible speeches? It’s called sleep talking, or somniloquy, and you’ve likely heard of it, and may have experienced it yourself or been witness to it.
Excessive daytime sleepiness is a hallmark sign of sleep deprivation. As adults, we should be getting at least 7 hours of sleep every day – nearly all sleep research agrees on this point. When you don’t get enough sleep, you become sleep deprived.
The connection between diabetes, obesity, and sleep apnea is fairly well studies and undeniable. Regardless of whether the chicken or the egg comes first in this case – i.e., the root cause of the sleep apnea, diabetes, obesity connection – the point is that all they are linked in ways that negatively affect each other.
Sleep attacks are the sudden strong urge to sleep at otherwise abnormal times, such as the middle of the day. These urges can range from sudden onset of tiredness to sudden onset of irresistible urge to sleep. They are not the same as getting sleepy after a big meal or because of sleep deprivation – rather, they strike suddenly, seemingly randomly, and can be quire powerful.
Parasomnias are not a single sleep disorder. Rather, they are a collection of sleep disorders that disrupt your circadian rhythm and impact sleep quality. Some parasomnias are no more than a nuisance to your bed partner or others in your household.
When you don’t get enough sleep, you become sleep deprived. The different between how much sleep you have been getting and how much sleep you personally need is often called a “sleep debt.” The implication here is that over time, a “debt” forms where you need to “catch up” on sleep in order to not suffer from sleep deprivation any more. Unfortunately, overcoming sleep deprivation is not as simple as simply
Binge sleeping – the thing many of us do when we are suffering from sleep deprivation and want to quickly feel normal again. A common scenario that illustrates this: all week you stay up late on your computer, and then get up at normal time to go to work – maybe getting only 6 hours of sleep. Then on the weekend you sleep in an extra few hours each day, maybe even taking naps. This is the essence of binge sleeping – but it doesn’t work.
Your circadian rhythm is your innate biological clock that helps your body function in patterns and rhythms. It regulates your natural sleep schedule, and is closely tied to both melatonin, the sleep hormone, and changes in light.
Shift work sleeping disorder is a circadian rhythm disorder that causes sleep deprivation as a result of doing shift work. Not everyone who works outside of the typical M-F, 9-5 shift develops this disorder, but sleep problems among people who work irregular, long, or night shifts are prone enough to developing sleep problems that there is a disorder named for it.