What Is Sleep Walking
By: Mark ShowalterTotal Views: 272, Word Count: 538,
The answer to what is sleep walking would be that it is a type of sleep disorder which is characterized by walking or doing similar activities while the person is still asleep. Medically sleep walking is known as Somnambulism which is accompanied by rapid eye movement of REM. In normal cases while a person sleeps the body secretes a chemical that paralyzes all the body parts and resists any form of movement. In case of patients suffering from sleep walking, the body fails to produce the chemical which results movement. The following are the symptoms and associated with sleep walking.
- Often the pre-pubertal children have the habit of walking or moving in the sleep which is termed as Ambulation.
- It becomes quite difficult to make the patients wake up while they are in the episode of sleep walking.
- Most of the patients can not recall after he or she wakes up from the sleep walking episode.
- Though not counted as a symptom but the sleep walking can be accompanied by the mental or psychiatric disorders.
- Symptoms like fatigue, stress or anxiety are common with sleep walking.
- Sometimes patients can turn out to be moving quite agitatedly instead of a slow walk.
- While walking often patients are seen to be moving with their eyes wide open with a glassy or blunt staring appearance.
If you are interested to know what is sleep walking, you first need to know what is actually responsible for sleep walking. This sleep disorder can occur due to genetic reasons, poor environment and those who are medically unfit.
Medical science says heredity is responsible to some extent for sleep walking. Often identical twins suffer from this type of sleep disorder. It is studied that a person is prone to get affected with the disorder of sleep walking if any of his or her first degree relative has the background of sleep disorder.
The environment factors that influence sleep walking can due to deprivation of sleep for a continuous period of time. Irregular sleep, stressful work schedule, too much intoxication and even intake of drugs and various forms of sedatives or hypnotics drugs for sleep disorders, neuroleptics drugs for psychosis and antihistamines for drugs to treat allergies can be responsible for sleep walking.
The patients who are suffering from certain diseases like Arrhythmias or the phenomenon of irregular heartbeats, fever, Gastroesophageal reflux or backward flow of the food or the water from the stomach to the food pipe, suffering from asthma during night, sleep apnea or the disorder that causes blocking of breathing while sleeping and various forms of psychiatric disorders can lead to sleep walking.
As a sleep disorder treatment you may use a good sleep aid called Melatrol. Unlike most other sleep improvement drugs Melatrol is free from any form of harmful side effects.
About the Author
Mark Showalter is an expert in treating various types of sleep disorders. He has carried out series of research works that deal with the various mysteries of sleep and its associated disorders. If you find your self to be too stressed out during the day or suffer from disorders caused by improper sleep, you may take a good medical sleep aid. You must be prudent enough to select the right one for you that would keep you away from any form of harmful side effects.
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