• Do you lie awake staring at the ceiling?
• Do you sleep but drag around the next day because your sleep was not refreshing?
• Are you waking up before the birds do?
• Do you wake frequently through the night?
If your answer is “yes” to two or more questions, you may have a sleep disorder.
Most people require 7 to 8 hours of good, restful sleep. Some necessitate more and some less.
There are people whose function just fine on 4 hours a night and some that are cranky and sleepy after 8 hours. The question isn’t how many hours you have slept, but how you feel and function the next day. • There are two types of insomnia:
- The first is primary insomnia, which are sleep problems not associated with any other health concerns.
- Secondary insomnia is associated with medical problems such as depression, some medications, and pain.
• There are two relatively common conditions that can cause sleep problems.
- The first is called restless legs. A one suffering from this has legs that won’t let her sit or lie down for very long. There is a feeling that she must move her legs by getting up and walking.
The following may help:
Walking, jogging, stretching, taking hot or cold baths, and messaging legs.
And if these don’t work, a doctor should be consulted.
Then the second condition is sleep apnea. It is a potentially fatal condition where the person stops breathing repeatedly, sometimes hundreds of times a night and often for a minute or more.
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