14 Top List of Sleep Disorders

Sleep disorders are a nuisance to a person’s lifestyle. Not only is it threatening to your health, it can also cause many problems to our daily activities.

Top 14 Sleep Disorders
1. Insomnia
2. Fatal Familial Insomnia
3. Sleep Apnea
4. Restless Leg Syndrome
5. Sleeping Beauty Syndrome
6. REM Sleep Behavior Disorder
7. Narcolepsy
8. Sleepwalking
9. Sleep Terrors
10. Sleep Paralysis
11. Bruxism (Teeth Grinding)
12. Exploding Head Syndrome
13. Hypersomnia
14. Non 24-Hour Sleep-Wake Syndrome

1. Insomnia

Insomnia is a sleep disorder that causes difficulty in sleeping. Insomniacs find it hard to fall asleep or stay asleep, causing them to feel tired and become irritable. Some also become excessively sleepy during the day.

People with insomnia may experience different problems caused by the disorder, but it mostly involves having low energy levels and emotional problems.

Insomnia can be short term or long term. It may last for days, weeks or a month. It can also come independently or as a symptom of another disease a person might have.

There are many factors that can potentially cause insomnia such as psychological stress, chronic pain, heart failure, hyperthyroidism, restless leg syndrome, sleep apnea and certain medications.

Treating insomnia can be done in many ways, but it is a fact that lifestyle changes or improvement with sleep hygiene can contribute positively more than actual medications.

2. Fatal Familial Insomnia

Fatal Familial Insomnia is basically a rare type of insomnia that is inherited through genetic mutation and is fatal enough to cause death after several months.

Fatal insomnia has no known cure and involves progressively worsening insomnia, which leads to hallucinations, delirium, confusing states like that of dementia, and eventually death.

Insomnia is when you are having a hard time sleeping, but fatal familial insomnia means the level is severe, it’s enough to cause death.

Unlike regular insomnia which can be controlled with the help of sleeping pills, fatal familial insomnia is a lot more difficult to cure.

Fatal familial insomnia has two forms, first is the autosomal dominant and second is sporadic fatal insomnia.

3. Sleep Apnea

Sleep apnea is when a person experiences pauses in breathing during sleep. This can be noticed by bed partners or family members who might have seen the patient during sleep.

It can be dangerous since it can interrupt a person’s breathing for seconds that may last up to minutes. This will eventually affect the heart and brain and may cause other illnesses.

There are three types of sleep apnea. Sleep apnea can come independently or come as a sign of another existing disease.

For some cases, sleep apnea may go away on its own but most of the time, sleep apnea requires medical attention for proper treatment.

Obstructive Sleep Apnea
- Obstructive sleep apnea is the most common type of sleep apnea that can be present in all ages.
  
  It occurs when the breathing is obstructed. For example, the upper airways (the throat) is blocked by certain factors.
  
  Obstructive sleep apnea may require surgery for treatment unlike other types of sleep apnea that can go away on its own.
Central Sleep Apnea
- When your brain fails to send the proper signals to your body to command it to “breathe”, it is because of central sleep apnea
  
  Central sleep apnea is less common than obstructive sleep apnea. Central sleep apnea may occur as a result of other conditions, such as heart failure and stroke.
  
  Sleeping at a high altitude also may cause central sleep apnea.
  
  Treatments for central sleep apnea may involve treating existing conditions, using a device to assist breathing or using supplemental oxygen.
  - (Related: “How to Reverse Central Sleep Apnea“)
Complex Sleep Apnea
- Complex sleep apnea is the combination of the first two sleep apneas (Obstructive sleep apnea and central sleep apnea) and also poses higher risks than a normal obstructed sleep apnea.
  
  It may also be more difficult to treat this not knowing the major cause of the condition.

4. Restless Leg Syndrome

Restless leg syndrome is a long term disorder that causes a strong urge to move one’s legs.There is often an unpleasant feeling in the legs but “improves” when moving the legs.

Restless leg syndrome is also called the “Willis-Ekbom Disease” and it is often described as aching, tingling or crawling in nature. For rare cases, the arms can also be affected by this disease.

The disease normally occurs before sleep or when simply at rest. Meaning, the legs are usually unable to relax and urges the patient to keep moving them.

Due to the fact that it definitely makes sleeping difficult, may patients experience the consequences of sleep-deprivation and often face daytime sleepiness or hypersomnia.

It is also common for patients to feel tired all the time and lose control of their emotional stability. Some even lose control of their weight gain.

There are two main types of restless leg syndrome one can be diagnosed with.

Two Main Types of Restless Leg Syndrome:
1. Early Onset Restless Leg Syndrome
  - Usually starts before age 45 and runs in families, implying that it can be inherited. As the affected person ages, the disease also worsens.
2. Late Onset Restless Leg Syndrome
  - Begins after age 45 and it can start all of a sudden, but does not worsen unlike the early onset RLS.

5. Sleeping Beauty Syndrome

Sleeping beauty syndrome is excessive sleeping. Some even sleep for 16 hours up to an entire day and it can go on uninterrupted. It is also when a person is experiencing excessive daytime sleepiness or hypersomnia.

This disease is also called “Kleine-Levin Syndrome” and is characterized by persistent episodic hypersomnia, along with some cognitive and mood changes.

Sleeping beauty syndrome is very rare, occurring at a rate of one in 1 million which is why research is limited into genetic factors.

The condition primarily affects adolescent males, though females can also be affected and the age of onset varies. There is no known cure, and there is not enough evidence supporting drug treatment.

People with sleeping beauty syndrome also experience excessive appetite or unusual cravings at random hours too. Patients, especially male, tend to experience hyper sexuality or increased libido caused by the syndrome.

Patients generally experience recurrent episodes of the condition for more than a decade and may return at a later age.

Individual episodes generally last more than a week, sometimes lasting for months.

The condition greatly affects the personal, professional, and social lives of sufferers. The severity of symptoms and the course of the syndrome vary between sufferers.

Patients commonly have about 20 episodes over about a decade. Several months generally elapse between episodes.

The sleeping beauty syndrome occurs at a much higher rate in Jews and in some families, it is likely that there is some genetic component in addition to environmental factors.

6. REM Sleep Behavior Disorder

REM Sleep behavior disorder is when people “act out” their dreams. For example, people with this condition this may “sleep talk” or for rare cases, “sleepwalking” may also occur.

This condition apparently occurs when there is a loss of normal voluntary muscle atonia during REM sleep which leads to uncontrolled motor behavior responding to the person’s dreams.

Rapid eye movement behavior disorder occurs when there is a loss of normal voluntary muscle atonia during REM sleep resulting in motor behavior in response to dream content.

It is categorized among other parasomnia which may be confused for other sleep disorders. The condition is classified as either idiopathic or symptomatic.

Idiopathic REM sleep behavior disorder is the term used when disease is not associated with another ongoing neurological condition.

7. Narcolepsy

Narcolepsy, a long term neurological disorder that disrupts a person’s ability to regulate their sleep-wake cycles.

In other words, narcolepsy normally messes with your natural body clock, causing you to become excessively sleepy during the day and also become unusually tired all the time.

The symptoms of narcolepsy can last from seconds to minutes, but other symptoms may persist longer.

According to research, about 70% of those affected by narcolepsy may also experience episodes of sudden loss of muscle strength, or what they call “cataplexy”.

Those with narcolepsy tend to sleep about the same number of hours per day as people without it, but it’s the quality of their sleep that tends to be affected negatively.

The exact cause of narcolepsy is unknown but there are several potential causes or factors that may worsen narcolepsy. In up to 10% of cases, there is a family history of the disorder.

Unfortunately, there is still no cure. However, a number of lifestyle changes and medications may help.

8. Sleepwalking

Sleepwalking is a phenomenon of combined sleep and wakefulness, with patients confusing dreams with reality and acting out on it. It is similar to experiencing hallucinations, but the person is actually asleep.

This condition is also formally known as “somnambulism” or “noctambulism”.

During sleepwalking episodes, the person may move around or talk with their eyes open like a normal, wake person but they are actually still in deep sleep.

When sleepwalking occurs, the affected person would barely recall the details of the episode.

Episodes may last from a few seconds up to 30 minutes, but for some cases, it can be longer than that and it can happen once a night.

But in recent observations, it shows that more and more people are stating that they are able to recall their episodes and what they were doing, but they also cannot explain how or why they cannot stop it.

It is not known what causes sleepwalking, but there are a number of possible theories that may be accurate enough to explain the disorder.

9. Sleep Terrors

Sleep terrors are episodes of screaming and feeling extreme fear while still asleep and can be paired with sleepwalking. It is typical for a person with sleep terrors to to wake up screaming and / or kicking.

It usually begins in childhood but the severity is known to decrease with age. Severe sleep terrors among adult can be rare, but it can be associated with other influencing factors.

Sleep terrors are more extreme and dramatic than a common dream as the feelings of terror or dread can last for one up to ten minutes, continuously “haunting” the person suffering from it.

There are different factors that can potentially cause sleep terrors.

10. Sleep Paralysis

Sleep paralysis is when a person is aware, but is unable to move or speak. Whenever an episode occurs, most people experience hallucinations that tend to be related to seeing demons, weird creatures or such.

Sleep paralysis happens when falling asleep or waking up and people in the past, including some people until today, associate sleep paralysis with demonic signs or sayings.

During hallucinations, the person may see, hear or feel something that isn’t really there which also causes confusion for the person upon waking.

There are also times when the person would feel like they are unable to breathe and they will experience hallucinations that may cause them to want to scream, move, or run away but they simply can’t.

Sleep paralysis episodes usually last for less than a couple of minutes and it can happen once or become a recurrent problem. About 5% of people have regular episodes, any gender are equally affected.

11. Bruxism (Teeth Grinding)

Bruxism is excessive teeth grinding or jaw clenching. It can happen whether you are are asleep or awake that can lead to jaw disorders, damaged teeth and headaches.

As of today, the condition is still being studied to fully understand the root cause of it but right now, there are only minimal threats unless it is severe and is not expected to cause an emergency.

Bruxism is identified as a sleeping condition since it can happen during sleep and will continue to cause teeth grinding or jaw clenching after waking up.

Usually, when this happens, the affected person may not notice by themselves that they are grinding their teeth or clenching their jaw too hard.

This is why plenty of people go undiagnosed since they are not aware of the condition at all.

There are two main types of bruxism, but both can definitely cause dental damage and cause pain. Learn about the difference between the two for easier identification.

Nocturnal Bruxism
- Occurs when you are asleep. The grinding of teeth can be so loud, it can wake your partner up and be compared to loud snoring.
- Other symptoms may also occur during sleep such as cheek biting. Both men and women are equally affected by nocturnal bruxism.
Awake Bruxism
- Usually a lot worse than nocturnal bruxism as it can last longer at wake but gradually fade away throughout the day.
- More common to occur in females

There are also three different types of sleep bruxism when it comes to severity.

3 Severity levels for Sleep Bruxism:
1. Mild bruxism
  - Occurs less than nightly and doesn’t damage teeth or cause psychosocial impairment
2. Moderate bruxism
  - occurs nightly with mild impairment of psychosocial functionality
3. Severe bruxism
  - Occurs nightly with damage to the teeth, causing tempormandibular disorders and other physical injuries with severe psychosocial impairment

It can also be classified by its duration or how long it lasts with a person.

3 Duration levels for Sleep Bruxism:
1. Acute bruxism
  - Only lasts for less than one week
2. Sub-acute bruxism
  - Lasts longer than one week but less than one month
3. Chronic bruxism
  - Lasts for months

Please consult your dentist for better diagnosis as bruxism can be a secondary symptom of other dental related problems or other sleeping conditions.

12. Exploding Head Syndrome

Exploding head syndrome is a type of sleep disorder classified under parasomnias wherein people “hear” loud noises like explosions for a short period of time when falling asleep or when waking up.

Often times, the noise they hear are frightening sounds like roars, lighting strikes or such. However, it can happen only rarely and is believed to not be a serious health concern as of now.

Waking up after an exploding head syndrome episode is similar to how we suddenly wake up from a horrible nightmare.

Although they can hear loud noises, it is often like a hallucination since there are no actual noises in their environment. There are also no real, physical pain detected when the syndrome “attacks”.

There are reported cases of people with exploding head syndrome to experience a “flash of light” when falling asleep or waking up.

Usually, people with exploding head syndrome does not get diagnosed since they choose to ignore the syndrome due to its rare occurrence.

Due to insufficient details to support the study of exploding head syndrome, majority of its nature still remains unknown and a strange thing to wonder about for some people.

13. Hypersomnia

Hypersomnia is a neurological disorder wherein the patient experiences excessive daytime sleepiness. This is a consistent problem that may persist every day.

Also known as “Hypersomnolence”, this problem can cause distress and affect cognitive abilities.

It’s normal to feel sleepy during the day, but too much sleepiness or feeling too tired constantly every morning might be a sign that you have hypersomnia.

Hypersomnia is identified as a pathological state characterized by lack of alertness during the waking episodes of the day.

When hypersomnia is untreated it will continue to affect a person’s ability to focus and it will slowly impact their quality of life.

Due to hypersomnia, you may end up sleeping longer than usual which is actually, not healthy for your body. Learn about the symptoms, risks and everything you need to know about hypersomnia as you read forward.

14. Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Syndrome

Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Syndrome refers to the unstable sleep pattern caused by a dysfunctional, internal body clock that cannot follow the normal light-dark sleep pattern.

The Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Syndrome is one of the several chronic circadian rhythm sleep disorders (CRSDs).

You are unable to follow a proper sleep pattern because your internal body clock is not working well.

This syndrome often occurs in blind people but sighted people can also be affected for several reasons.

Our internal body clock responds to light and when there is no longer light, your body will automatically know that it is time to “sleep” but people with non-24 hour sleep-wake syndrome may struggle with this.

Every animal and plant have an endogenously generated near-24-hour “circadian” clock rhythm, the real term for “internal body clock”

The circadian clock rhythm’s job is to regulate the normal 24-hour cycle of biological processes like sleeping or hormone production. The rhythms have a period close to but not exactly 24 hours.

They are synchronized daily by environmental time cues which is, for us mammals, day light.

For mammals, the circadian rhythms are generated by the hypothalamus, a term you’ve probably read or heard about in biology class or so.

The hypothalamus is also called “suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN)” which is a structure inside our brain that follows the regular “day and night” cycle which is why most mammals sleep and wake during similar times.

The ability to sleep at night and be awake at day is deeply controlled by the internal body clock which is generated by the hypothalamus.

The Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Syndrome prevents your hypothalamus from working or from perceiving daylight as waking time and night as cue for sleeping.

Types of Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Syndrome

Although the majority of people with the Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Syndrome are blind people, it also occurs in a small number of sighted people, making it two types of the syndrome.

Blind

Most blind people do have certain level of light perception, meaning, they are still able to synchronize their internal body clock with the normal 24-hour day-night cycle that most people follow, like sighted people.

Without light to the retina, the hypothalamus will not be able to perceive when it is time to sleep and wake, making it dysfunctional and now falls into the Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Syndrome.

Apparently, studies reveal that even when a person goes blind or is born blind, as long as their light perception remains in the retina no matter how strong they can perceive light they can be safe from the syndrome.

Researchers mentioned that even the slightest amount of light exposure at night can affect the body clock.

Sighted

Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Syndrome among sighted people is still continuously being studied, but is commonly believed to be caused by neurological disorders.