ANCSLEEP BLOG

Understanding Narcolepsy

Narcolepsy is a fascinating sleep disorder that can disrupt the very fabric of our daily lives. It is characterized by an overwhelming and sometimes uncontrollable desire for sleep, leading to sudden bouts of sleepiness at any given time, in any place. This can throw our normal sleeping patterns and rhythms off balance, making it challenging to live the life we truly desire.

One common aspect of Narcolepsy, affecting approximately 75% of sufferers, is a condition known as Cataplexy. Cataplexy involves the sudden loss of muscle tone triggered by intense emotions, causing our bodies to become slack and potentially leading to collapse. It's our body's way of challenging us to find balance amidst the chaos.

To better understand this sleep disorder, it's important to recognize the two distinct types of Narcolepsy. Type 1 includes the presence of Cataplexy, while Type 2 does not. Each type comes with its own set of unique challenges and experiences.

By delving into the depths of Narcolepsy, we can uncover the various symptoms and explanations that accompany it. Sleep attacks, for instance, are a common occurrence where extreme sleepiness engulfs us suddenly, similar to hitting a wall of exhaustion. These attacks can strike during the daytime without any apparent cause, making it impossible to resist the overwhelming urge to drift off into slumber.

Sleep paralysis, another symptom, renders us temporarily unable to move or speak upon waking up or just before falling asleep. This fleeting moment of powerlessness can range from a few seconds to over a minute, evoking a sense of terror and vulnerability. Some individuals even report brief periods of breathlessness, as if the very act of breathing has been momentarily suspended.

Hallucinations, too, play a role in the complex world of Narcolepsy. Around half of those affected will experience dream-like visions or delusions before falling asleep or upon waking up. These hallucinations may transcend mere visual experiences, encompassing a multitude of sensations. It's as if our REM sleep, the stage responsible for vivid dreaming, infiltrates the waking world when it shouldn't.

The impact of Narcolepsy symptoms extends far beyond mere inconvenience. Sleep attacks, particularly in severe cases, can pose significant dangers to our safety and overall functioning. Engaging in activities such as driving, operating heavy machinery, or performing high-risk work becomes perilous. Even maintaining job consistency and fulfilling the responsibilities of parenting or pregnancy can present significant challenges.

While there is currently no cure for Narcolepsy, managing its symptoms is crucial for leading a fulfilling life. This often involves a complex combination of medications, tailored to each individual's unique response. However, it's important to recognize that managing Narcolepsy requires a comprehensive approach that extends beyond medication alone.

Certain activities and occupations may need to be approached with caution or avoided altogether. Navigating daily life may require strategic planning and the ability to take necessary naps when needed, even in unconventional settings such as the workplace. Coffee, often seen as a temporary fix, can be both a helpful aid during sleep attacks and a hindrance to establishing normal sleeping patterns.

It's essential for sleep partners to be aware of the potential hallucinations and sleep paralysis experienced by Narcoleptics. Understanding and recognising these occurrences can alleviate fear and provide the necessary support and reassurance.

For those with Cataplexy, incorporating exercises such as meditation, yoga, and breathing techniques into daily routines can help manage strong emotional reactions and mitigate the risks associated with sudden muscle tone loss.

If you resonate with the experiences described in this article, it may be time to seek a diagnosis through a sleep study. Don't hesitate to take control of your sleep health and reach out for professional guidance.

What is Sleep Debt?

If you've ever heard of sleep debt, it’s the term that refers to how much less sleep you are getting than what you should be getting. The idea is that over time, a “sleep debt” forms that you need to get extra sleep to “pay back” your debt. In other words:

• Your body requires a certain about of sleep, which is different depending on your age
• As you get less sleep than required, you become sleep deprived
• This sleep deprivation causes a “debt” which you have to “pay” by sleeping more than the required amount

For example, if you should be sleeping 7 hours per night, and the last three nights you have slept 6 hours each night, then your “sleep debt” would be 3 hours. It’s important to understand sleep debts because they are more complex and nuanced than the above bullet points.

Even the term “sleep debt” is a bit misleading because you can’t “repay” a sleep debt like you repay a loan. Namely, you can’t just get a bunch of sleep one night and repay your sleep debt. It doesn’t work this way.

Why Alaskan Winter Darkness Can Cause Insomnia

Alaskan winters bring about extreme lighting conditions, with most of the day being shrouded in darkness or completely devoid of sunlight. However, contrary to popular belief, this prolonged darkness does not bode well for our sleep. Adjusting to the Alaskan darkness after our vibrant summers requires significant lifestyle changes, and the natural hormonal fluctuations that occur during these long, dark winters only exacerbate our struggle to achieve restful sleep.

Our lives tend to change in predictable ways during winter, sometimes to the point where, on paper, we look like different people between winter and summer in Alaska. The winters can hit many of us particularly hard:

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Restlessness
• Feelings of isolation
• Low levels of physical activity
• Little time outside
• Hormonal changes

These symptoms often end up either exacerbating or causing sleep disorders, most commonly insomnia. In addition to these natural responses to the darkness, our melatonin regulation can also be profoundly changed during all of the darkness.

Melatonin regulates our biological clock. It is produced in response to changes in light. The lack of light changes during winter can throw our melatonin regulation completely off, and in consequence, and combined with other factors, our sleep schedule can become whacky as well – i.e., exhibit or exacerbate classic signs of insomnia:

• Can’t fall asleep
• Can’t sleep until a normal hour in the morning
• Keep waking up throughout the night

If this sounds familiar, then keep reading. Let’s look at good ways to combat the darkness issue.  

Preparing for a good night's rest is more than just getting in the bed. It's essential that your environment is conducive for rest. Below is a list of 7 bedroom dos and don'ts for perfect sleeping. 

How Alaskan Winters Affect Our Lives

Alaskan winters pose and extremely unique challenge to our lives and sleep. Our winters mean either receiving mostly 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.

The extreme winter darkness means shifting our lives form summer in all ways:

• Sociologically
• Psychologically
• Physiologically
• Habitually

Most of us look like different people in the winter vs the summer: we get outside less, we might work different jobs, the things we do and places we go for fun change, and we may interact with friends less as a result. Furthermore, many of us respond in mental or emotional ways to the darkness, but ways which are unconscious, and our behavior further changes as a result.

An Ideal Sleeping Environment

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.

Having a good sleep environment means setting one up: if you are like almost everyone else, there are aspects of your sleep environment that are most definitely not ideal. The primary things to look for in a proper sleep environment are:

1. Dark
2. Quiet
3. No blue light (televisions, computers) – keep them out!
4. Nice sleeping apparel (sheets, pillows, mattresses)
5. Nice smelling
6. Clean

Does your room hit all of these marks? Probably not.

If you are having sleep trouble, the first thing you might do is ensure that your sleep environment is not the cause of your sleep problems. Let’s look at each of these in more detail.

Narcolepsy is a sleep disorder that brings about an overwhelming and sometimes uncontrollable longing for sleep. It causes sudden and unexpected episodes of sleepiness, occurring at any given moment and in any location. As a result, the regular patterns and rhythms of sleep become disrupted, leading to individuals with narcolepsy experiencing multiple sleep episodes throughout the day, followed by difficulty sleeping at night.

What is a Circadian Rhythm?

Your circadian rhythm is like the conductor of your body's sleep orchestra. It orchestrates the perfect balance of sleep and wakefulness, with melatonin playing a key role as the sleep hormone. Nestled within the depths of your brain, specifically the suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus, your biological sleep clock is strategically positioned behind the delicate nerves of your eyes. This prime location allows it to harmonize with the ebb and flow of light, effortlessly regulating melatonin production in response to changes in your external environment.

Thus, circadian rhythm disorders are often in response to your external factors:

• Extreme light conditions
• Extreme dark conditions
• Shift work
• A non-standard sleep schedule that conflicts with your work schedule, such as needing to start work at 7am but getting naturally tired at 2am

Symptoms of circadian rhythm disorders are fairly straightforward: when you want or need to sleep is when you can’t sleep. The result are insomnia symptoms and sleep deprivation.

There is a Condition for Frequent Nighttime Urination: Nocturia

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? This phenomenon is known as nocturia, or nighttime urination.

Nocturia is a nuisance that leads to sleep deprivation and should be taken seriously. Because of this, it's important to recognize the signs that one may be experiencing sleep deprivation versus the occasional instance of needing to urinate at night. 

Someone without nocturia will usually go the whole night without having to wake and urinate. At most, if too much alcohol or water was consumed before bed, such people will wake up once and go back to sleep after relieving themselves. With nocturia, an individual may wake up anywhere from three times or more a night.

This has the potential of causing wakefulness nearly every hour. A few consequences of the resulting sleep deprivation are: 

• Daytime sleepiness if waking three times a night
• Significant sleep deprivation if waking five times a night
• Severe sleep deprivation if waking more than five times a night

What is Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS)?

Restless leg syndrome (RLS) is a sleep disorder caused by nervous system, and is characterized by uncomfortable sensations in the legs and other extremities during the night. RLS usually causes enough discomfort to interfere with sleep, causing sleep deprivation.

The symptoms of RLS all have one thing in common: discomfort in the legs, though it can also occur in other extremities. This discomfort can be mild, uncomfortable, and even intolerable. Frustratingly, your RLS can:

• Come and go over long periods of time
  
• Be chronic (all the time)
  
• Be intermittent – some nights RLS symptoms appear and some nights they don’t

This can make it difficult to identify that there is even a problem or a sleep disorder present. Continue reading to learn more about RLS and how to treat it.