{"id":58013,"date":"2017-06-20T09:12:28","date_gmt":"2017-06-20T14:12:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=58013"},"modified":"2017-06-20T09:12:28","modified_gmt":"2017-06-20T14:12:28","slug":"when-your-sleeping-is-disordered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/when-your-sleeping-is-disordered\/","title":{"rendered":"When your Sleeping is Disordered"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a rough couple of months when it comes to getting enough sleep.\u00a0 <\/span>It starts with Pesach preparations culminating in a Seder that goes well into the morning hours.\u00a0 <\/span>We then have Lag B\u2019omer which occurring on Motzei Shabbos has us up half the night and those who go to Meron, all night.\u00a0 <\/span>And now we have just finished Shavuous where we are burning the candle all night learning Torah. \u00a0 <\/span>Besides these one-time cases of sleep deprivation, we now live in a world where time zones are becoming irrelevant.\u00a0 <\/span>In a global economy, companies are now doing business all over the world and therefore, there are times when employees are dealing with offices 5, 6, 7 or more hours of difference between them.\u00a0 <\/span>Only recently, a client of mine who works for a multinational company was telling me the difficulty of scheduling a meeting between himself here in Israel, a representative in London, the CEO of the company in the United States, and a representative in Hong Kong.\u00a0 <\/span>Someone is going to have to be up in the middle of the night.\u00a0 <\/span>Besides businesses, even individuals are staying up later to communicate with family members.\u00a0 <\/span>With the advent of cheap or free telephone communications and video tools like skype, it has become almost too easy to reach people wherever they are and whenever you want.\u00a0 <\/span>So you might have gone to sleep at 11 o\u2019clock PM but you waited up until your brother or mother gets home from work 7 hours away and instead you go to sleep at 12:30 in the morning.\u00a0 <\/span>But for most sleep problems, there are answers and people can make changes in order to get a good night\u2019s sleep.\u00a0 <\/span>But for others, they are sleeping disordered and correcting their sleeping problems can be a very involved process.\u00a0 <\/span>Let\u2019s first take a look at the negative effects of lack of sleep.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lack of Sleep<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

According to research done at the Mayo clinic, not sleeping enough results in impaired memory, slower reaction times, lack of alertness and grumpiness.\u00a0 <\/span>Tired people are less productive at work, less patient with others and less interactive in their relationships. And according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the United States, more than 100,000 crashes each year are due to drivers falling asleep at the wheel.\u00a0 <\/span>Needless to say, for those of us who exercise regularly, we all know how unproductive a session can be when we have failed to get a good night\u2019s sleep.\u00a0 <\/span>And we now know from recent studies that sleep deprivation can contribute to both higher cholesterol and type 2 diabetes.\u00a0 <\/span>Perhaps most important, people who are sleep deprived tend to be less active and therefore, give up on exercise and activity and will also have you overeating, particularly later at night.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to James Herdegen, MD, medical director of the Sleep Science Center at the University of Illinois “When you don’t get enough sleep, your body appears to require more insulin to maintain normal glucose levels.\u00a0 <\/span>Sleep deprivation seems to alter the sympathetic nervous system \u2014 the body’s stress-control center \u2014 and hormonal balances, all of which affects glucose regulation.” Eventually, sleeplessness causes insulin-producing cells to stop working properly, elevating glucose levels and leaves you wide open to diabetes. “Adding to the problem is the fact that fatigue also jolts the sympathetic nervous system into high gear, throwing off its ability to regulate blood sugar,” Dr. Eve Van Cauter says. Indeed, numerous experts point out that it takes just two nights of sleeping four hours or less to temporarily disrupt the process.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sleeping Disorders<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a sleep disorder characterized by episodes during which the individual stops breathing during sleep typically due to an airway obstruction. This can lead to serious health consequences, including cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. People with OSA can experience daytime sleepiness, snoring and shortness of breath that wakens the individual from sleep. Evidence-based treatments for OSA include continuous positive airway pressure and surgery. OSA is likely to be a barrier to exercise, given that the individual will often feel too tired to exercise. It should also be noted that 80 percent of OSA goes undiagnosed, meaning that most people with this disorder live with it unknowingly.\u00a0 <\/span>Some of the symptoms of Sleep Apnea are:<\/span><\/p>\n