Throughout our lives, at various times, almost everyone will occasionally deal with a lack of sleep. Almost always, these periods of sleeping disorder are easily explained by influences like temporary stress, illness, excitement, or other temporary reasons.
But, if you are waking up tired or are experiencing periods of sleepiness during the day and still sleeping through the night, then these may well be indications of a sleep disorder of some type. But what is the best way to determine if you do have a sleep disorder? It is very difficult to tell because, after all, youre asleep!
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I believe the best way to decide if you do have some sort of disorder is to keep a sleep diary every night for a period of time. Keep this diary faithfully and record everything that you eat, drink, medications used, whether or not you exercise, the time you go to bed, how long it takes to go to sleep, the time you wake up, how often you woke up during the night, how many hours of sleep you got, and how sleepy (or not) you felt the next day.
There are many places on line that have sleep diary templates you can download for free. Just do a quick search for sleep diary or sleep diary template and take your pick. Which one you use is not nearly as important as being accurate in your record keeping.
This record should be kept for a minimum of two weeks to establish your personal patterns and habits. One pattern you should look at is the relationship between the number of hours spent sleeping, how often you woke up during the night, and how tired you felt the next day. Looking at these relationships, you will get a much better idea of just how much uninterrupted sleep you personally need to avoid being sleepy the next day. If you have recorded everything accurately the diary will also help you see other practices and patterns of behavior that might be preventing an uninterrupted, restful nights sleep.
If your diary indicates patterns such as you always take more than a half an hour to fall asleep, or you wake up several times each night for long periods then you may have a sleep disorder. Other indications include a practice of taking frequent naps during the day or feeling so sleepy during the day that you fall asleep inadvertently at inappropriate times.
If any of these symptoms are present, they may well indicate a serious sleep disorder and you should consult with your doctor as soon as possible.
Please read more about sleep disorders and their symptoms here: Sleep Remedies.
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