Causes of sleep deprivation

Posted on July 4, 2007 in Insomnia Causes and Cures

Causes of sleep deprivation can be classified into divided into four areas. These include lifestyle, health complications, medication side effects and clinical disorders.

Fatigue and sleeplessness are due to lifestyle choices. One of the common causes of sleep deprivation is drinking caffeine or alcohol before bedtime. Night shifts can change normal circadian patterns though it is unavoidable.

Often medication can interfere with natural rhythms in your body. This can lead to restlessness, insomnia and tiredness. If you use sleeping pills over long periods of time, it can lose its effect. Pills interfere with the natural rest patterns of the body.

Some health problems can create fatigue when it interferes with the sleep patterns in the body. Some physical health problems may make sleeping difficult. Asthma can do that to your sleep. Mental health problems like depression and post-traumatic stress disorder leads to insomnia. The three common sleeping disorders include Narcolepsy, parasomnia and apnea. More than seventy different types of such cases exist and can pose serious health risks. This also requires good medical treatment. By keeping a daily record of sleeping habits, you can tell the doctor about the disturbance patterns. Your sleeping pattern is your bedtime schedules.

Apart from recording your schedule, you should note how good the quality of your rest periods is. You need to record what you ate that day, especially before bedtime. You also need to note down if you have had caffeine or alcohol. You can list any daytime activities. Your emotional state before bed has to be noted down. By maintaining a diary, you can allow you and your doctor to detect disturbing in your rest period.

Sleep deprivation is more because of the lifestyle choices you make in life. Today, sleeping is seen as an inconvenience since it takes time from working or playing. People who suffer from sleep deprivation have only seventy percent of their productivity.

These causes of sleep deprivation can be cured with appropriate measures. Some of the common causes of sleep deprivation in the day include work shifts. Since shift work involves long work hours in the night, the bodies’ internal clocks are under assumption that we should be resting. Shift work reverses natural order of sleep. The body does not completely adapt to the change.

You do have a solution for this. You can keep your schedule as regular as often as you can. You can go to bed and wake up in regular timings.

Substance abuse can also be other causes of sleep deprivation. The use of stimulants like cocaine can stop you from getting the rest you need. These depressants confuse the body. This also causes sleepiness at odd times of the day.

Comments

One Response to “Causes of sleep deprivation”

  1. Lisa Says:
    December 14th, 2007 at 9:06 am

    Hi there,

    My name is Lisa, and I work in a recycling plant as an assembly line worker.

    The hours that I work are slightly irregular. Starting at 5am, I wake at 4, and do a minimum of 2 hours overtime. It could be as much as 4 or 5 hours without any notice. I do not have the choice not to work overtime. The work itself is boring, highly repetitious and involves no real job rotation. The work environment is not supportive, communicative or open to real suggestions for improvement.

    My coworkers and I struggle within this environment on a number of levels. Sleep deprivation is a norm, and levels of stress, reduced productivity and general happiness, as well as absenteeism is a problem that is seemingly disproportionate to the nature of the work. Boredom compounds the problems in real and measureable ways.

    I am looking for information that would support the workers at the plant in an effort to obtain proper measures of safety with regards to fatigue in the workplace: and in so doing reduce stress, open dialogue regarding the compulsary nature of extended hours, and prevent increased illness and injury that creates a cycle of preasure at work.

    Are there any resources you could suggest? They would be greatly appreciated!

    Kind Regards,

    Lisa

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