Are Sleep Problems Destroying Your Energy Level?

We all need enough sleep at night in order to restore our levels of mental, emotional and physical energy.  When you suffer from a lack of sleep, problems with fragmented sleep or just get up too early in the morning, the oxygen levels in your bloodstream are diminished and you are sluggish and irritable during the day.  Your circadian rhythm is disrupted so that you aren’t sleepy when you’re supposed to be sleepy. You can also suffer from sleep apnea, chronic insomnia or snoring difficulties.

Sleep schedules are normally pretty straightforward.  You develop a body clock that controls the times you are awake and the times you want to sleep.  Sometimes that rhythm is disrupted and you suffer from things like jet lag, where the time zone change has disrupted the wake-sleep cycle.  Your internal body feelings aren’t the same as what your eyes are telling you.

If you work a split shift work schedule, your sleep patterns can get out of whack.  Our bodies are really wanting a lot of routine and when your work schedule doesn’t allow for that, you suffer from disturbed and chaotic sleep.  We cannot learn when it is appropriate to sleep and when it isn’t and this can be very dangerous for the body.  Shift workers generally have very poor sleep schedules and very poor health.  Even changing our own schedules, like sleeping in on the weekends, can do a great deal of damage to your sleep and wake schedule.  It makes it very difficult to get up on Monday morning or to go to bed on time Monday night.

Insomnia can represent part of another disorder or can be a sleep disorder in and of itself.  You can lose sleep because of a great deal of anxiety or stress in your life or if you are suffering from major depression.  Insomnia doesn’t always have to be mental; it can be related to poor sleep hygiene, excessive nicotine or caffeine taken in at night or eating too big of a meal at night.  Insomnia can be related to some prescription or OTC medications.

Snoring is a problem in one out of eight American people and if severe, it can be a sign of sleep apnea.   Those who are heavier or who have a family history of snoring tend to have worse problems with the condition and when it becomes sleep apnea, you don’t get enough oxygen during sleep and often gasp in order to get some oxygen to your system.  Snoring is the noise that occurs when the air passes through relaxed air passages. Up to 18 million people suffer from sleep apnea at any given period of time.

If you think that any of these sleep disorders apply to you, see your doctor and look into all the various possibilities that can underlie having the sleep problem.  Take a look at things you can do to improve your sleep hygiene and consider using natural sleep aids to improve the amount and quality of sleep.

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