Sleeping Disords

There are 5 stages of sleep. Stage 1: transition into sleep. Falling asleep, but still alert. Stage 2: Sleep spindles-start to go into a deeper sleep. Stage 3 and 4: Deep sleep-many delta waves. REM: intense brain activity sleep-mind goes crazy, body is paralyzed.

I find sleep disorders very interesting. Personally, I cherish my sleep and I don't know what I would do if I didn't have it. To have a sleep disorder, for me, is just more difficult to actually picture.

There is insomnia which is where you can't fall asleep at night or where you wake up in the middle of the night. I know someone who has insomnia that I used to babysit for. Their siblings would go to bed when I told them, but every so often, she would come out of her room and see what was going on because she couldn't fall asleep. She would either wait until her parents came home to go to sleep, or she would fall asleep way past her bed time.

Then there is narcolepsy which is a sleep disorder that you would randomly fall into an REM sleep. This can be very dangerous because just out of no where, unexpectedly, you just fall asleep. There is also sleep apnea, which is where there is a partial blockage in your throat and you take a gasp of air throughout the night. Both my parents have sleep apnea. With sleep apnea, you will never get a full cycle of sleep.

The one that seems like the most difficult sleep disorder to me is night terrors. From a parent's point of view, it has to seem like something so scary. Randomly, your child will just start screaming and there is no way that you can stop it, they just scream and scream. Also, they are sleeping, so it's not like they're awake and aware. They won't remember it happening to them in the morning either. It's just something so scary and out of this world.