There are many types of sleep disorders. Following is an overview of the most common sleep disorders.
Sleep Apnea
When you sleep, the muscles that control your upper airways relax. When they relax too much, you begin to snore and may even experience breathing difficulties. You are likely unaware of the sleep disturbance at the time it occurs, but you’ll see the signs in the next day—a morning headache, excessive daytime sleepiness and/or trouble focusing your thoughts. These are symptoms of sleep apnea.
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Narcolepsy
At various times throughout the day, people with narcolepsy experience fleeting urges to sleep. If the urge becomes overwhelming, individuals will fall asleep for periods lasting from a few seconds to several minutes. Interestingly, narcolepsy is not definitively diagnosed in most patients until 10 to 15 years after the first symptoms appear.
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Insomnia
It's three o'clock in the morning, and you can't sleep. You stare at the clock, aware that the alarm will go off in a few hours, but you can't sleep. You know you have a busy day ahead and need to be rested, but you can't sleep. No matter how hard you try, you can't sleep. You have insomnia.
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Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS)
People with RLS sense unpleasant feelings in their legs—creeping, crawling, tingling, pulling or painful sensations. Unlike other conditions, RLS symptoms get worse when relaxing or lessening activity, particularly during the evening and nighttime sleeping hours. If not treated, RLS can cause extreme tiredness and daytime fatigue.
A closely related disorder is periodic limb movement (PLM)—uncontrollable episodes of simple, repetitive muscle movements. PLMs don't usually keep a person from falling asleep but affect quality of sleep during the night. While the movement may or may not wake the afflicted person, his or her bed partner likely notices.
The primary difference between the two disorders is the ability to measure the movement. RLS is a subjective description of a feeling reported by the patient, whereas PLMs are measurable on a polysomnograph.
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