Sleep Disorders and their causes

There are people who talk loud while sleeping. There are also those who move a
lot while sleeping as if they are awake. Because of these troubles, many have
become affected from their happy family life.

If you are experiencing such troubles, read further below as you may find the
answer you are looking for.

One of the reasons of your troublesome involuntary sleep movements may be caused
by an underlying illness.

By observing eyelid movements, you can determine whether someone is in deep
sleep or in light sleep. This way, you can also determine symptoms of dementia
or Parkinson's disease.

We are now studying how to calm the involuntary movements while sleeping by
means of herbal tea treatment.

Is dream a form of illness? Sleepwalking, sleep-talking...are they a form of
illness or disorder?

Sleep can be classified into two stages. During the first phase, which is a
light sleep, our eyes tend to move left and right. The second phase, which is
when you enter deep sleep, the eyes will stop moving.

However, it is hard to determine when or at what stage dream happens. Also, it
is difficult to say that dreaming is an illness or not. Some dreams seem to be
natural but there are dreams (especially frequent nightmares) that need medical
intervention.

Disruption or Malfunctioning of Neurotransmitters Can Lead to Various Sleep
Disorders

Nerve-signaling chemical substances called neurotransmitters are responsible in
making us sleep or staying awake. Actually, there are many brain chemicals that
are involved in sleep and dreaming, but the two most important ones are
serotonin and melatonin, which are all produced by the brain.

Melatonin is meant to calm the brain and induce sleep. On the other hand,
serotonin triggers the brain to dream. If these neurotransmitters are not
working properly, then poor sleeping postures, involuntary sleep movements,
sleep-talking, and sleepwalking, may occur.

The majority of patients who dream are male, aged above 50 years old. Usually,
family members are the one who first discover that the patient is suffering from
a sleeping disorder. If you have this kind of problem, doctors usually prescribe
the same or similar drugs used for Parkinson's disease and epilepsy.

12 Interesting Trivia You May Not Know About Sleep

1. People can take catnaps "with their eyes open" without even being aware of
it.

2. During deep sleep, we are almost completely paralysed. The only parts of our
bodies not affected by this paralysis are the muscles of the intestines,
diaphragm, blood, eyes, and heart.

3. It is not known if animals can also dream. There is no way we can determine
this since animals cannot communicate and directly tell us if they dream or not!

4. An average person spends about 6 years dreaming (2 hours every night) in
his/her lifetime. On the other hand, 1/3 of our lives are spent sleeping.

5. Five minutes after the end of the dream, half of it is forgotten. After ten
minutes, 90% of the dream is forgotten.

6. For adults, sleeping more than 9 hours every night is just as bad as sleeping
6 hours or less.

7. The average dream lasts about 10 to 15 minutes.

8. Our brains are more active when sleeping than when watching television.

9. In Portugal, 75% of the population stay up until past midnight. This is so
far the highest percentage of any country in the world.

10. Seven of the top 10 nocturnal areas are in Asia, led by Taiwan, where 69% of
people sleep after midnight.

11. Japanese people sleep less than anyone else on the world. 41% of the
population sleep just 6 hours or less every night.

12. In the world, people who go to bed the earliest and sleep the longest are in
Australia. Nearly one-fourth of the population in Australia go to bed by 10 PM,
while 31% get to sleep for more than 9 hours every night.