Sleep is a physiological requirement that covers more than 1/3 of human life. Sleep disorders can accompany many mental illnesses, and may develop primarily as a sleep disorder. However, sleep is not only an important part of mental life, but also a process that plays an important role in hormonal regulation. For these reasons, the cause of sleep disorders must be determined and treated immediately, and medication must be given for the cause.
What are Sleep Disorders?
Insomnia:
It is difficulty falling asleep. In fact, whether it is a psychiatric diagnosis classification or not is quite complicated. Most researchers claim that difficulty falling asleep occurs secondary to other psychiatric conditions and that difficulty falling asleep also disappears with the treatment of the disease. The opposing view states that sleep disorder is primary and some of the other clinical pictures develop secondary to sleep disorder. Insomnia is encountered quite frequently in our daily lives. Most patients do not consult a physician. Although insomnia generally tends to resolve on its own, it can be one of the first signs of a more serious underlying psychiatric disease. Therefore, careful monitoring may be necessary.
Hypersomnia-Excessive Sleeping :
This disease is divided into two categories: excessive sleepiness and daytime sleepiness. Hypersomnia, which literally means excessive sleepiness, usually accompanies other psychiatric diseases. It is rarely found alone and is called primary hypersomnia. Hypersomnia may not always be pathological. It is accepted that personality traits or familial predisposition cause hypersomnia. In addition, since hypersomnia can be a symptom of advanced lung and liver diseases, brain lesions and heart failure, hypersomnia patients should definitely be taken to a doctor. Hypersomnia can be easily corrected with anti-depressant or stimulant drugs.
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Sleepwalking:
It is an interesting disease. It is usually seen right after falling asleep. It occurs in the first 1/3 of sleep. It is often seen up to the age of 10. The person suddenly gets out of bed and makes some automatic movements. These can be movements such as walking, dressing, going to the toilet, driving. Although an underlying brain pathology has been suggested, no findings have been detected.
Teeth Grinding:
It is a sleep disorder that dentists also encounter frequently. In continuous cases, it can cause tooth, gum, and jaw problems. It increases after stressful situations.
Dream Distress Disorder :
During sleep, everyone can normally have scary dreams. However, in the normal type, these dreams usually do not wake the person up and do not tend to recur. However, in dream distress disorder, the person sees scary dreams and nightmares in addition to their normal sleep during sleep and wakes up in fear. When the person wakes up, they immediately understand that it was a dream. This situation usually occurs in the late REM periods of the night. It can disrupt the person’s sleep and tends to recur.
Sleep Paralysis :
Sleep paralysis, commonly known as “Nightmare”, is a condition characterized by the body being temporarily unable to move (paralyzed) immediately after waking up or, rarely, just before falling asleep. Sleep paralysis causes the person to be unable to move despite being fully conscious. This condition can also be accompanied by hallucinations.
Most of the time, the person experiencing sleep paralysis believes that it is due to a dream. That is why there are so many dreams in which people cannot move even though they want to. Hallucinations caused by sleep paralysis sometimes cause the situation to be perceived as a normal dream, and sometimes cause imaginary things to be seen in the room.
Since sleep disorders can occur as a result of some psychiatric, neurological and internal diseases, medical tests such as EEG, Cranial MRI, Iron deficiency anemia tests, B6, B12 and folic acid blood levels should be performed on patients suffering from chronic insomnia and as a result, they should be evaluated by both psychiatry and neurology.
