My father slept for thirty years. That’s because a person who lives to be ninety has spent a third of his or her life asleep, or at least they should have. It’s clear now that the quantity and quality of that sleep predict the type of quality of life that each of us spends while awake.
It has been said that the only thing that a good night’s sleep accomplishes is freedom from sleepiness. However, a bad night’s sleep leads to many many medical problems and personal difficulties.
In the United States, 100 million Americans complain about their sleep. There are eighty-four sleep disorders, from simple restlessness to severe life threatening sleep apnea. Insomnia is common and usually causes daytime dysfunction more than illness.
There’s an old Russian saying: “Sleeplessness murders judgment.” There is, perhaps, no one who understands this more than a physician trying to make decisions after a loss of sleep while on duty. Shift workers and pilots who live with jetlag can also attest to the fact that restricted or fragmented sleep can interfere with effective work and even safety.
Why is it that a cardiologist would be interested in sleep? That’s an easy question. There are multiple cardiovascular problems that are consequences of sleep disorders. For example, hypertension is directly related to sleep disorders, especially obstructive sleep apnea, which is a common disorder effecting perhaps more than 6 percent of Americans. In addition, there are irregular heart rhythms, strokes, congestive heart failure, elevated pressures in the lung arteries, and thickening of the heart muscle.
I frequently hear patients say, “I sleep seven or eight hours but still don’t feel rested.” This is because they have poor quality sleep, mostly due to fragmentation or interrupted sleep. A multiple of factors can prevent them from getting into the cycle of restful and restorative sleep stages:
- Snoring heavily and gasping awake
- Cessation of breathing or long pauses known as apnea
- Limb movements that kick a person awake
- Prolonged sleep latency, which means it takes much too long to fall asleep, which is a form of insomnia
PREVIOUS PAGE
