What types of sleep problems are there?
Insomnia: a persistent difficulty in falling asleep or staying asleep for as long as you need to.
Obstructive Sleep Apnoea: a medical condition in which breathing is briefly and repeatedly interrupted during the night, so that sleep quality is poor. People with this condition often sleep for a normal amount or longer but feel exhausted during the day. Risk factors include loud snoring, high blood pressure, being very overweight (BMI > 35), male birth gender, age>50 and a neck circumference greater than 16” (collar size for men’s shirts). If reading this you are concerned that you might have this condition, you should seek further advice from your GP.
Restless Limbs Syndrome: a medical condition characterised by a feeling that usually starts a few hours before bedtime. People feel a strong and unsettling urge to move their limbs (usually legs), that can only be relieved by getting up and moving around. That makes it hard to get to sleep! If you think you might have this, discuss with your GP.
Sleep Wake Cycle Disorders: sleep disorders where the individual sleeps normally if left to their own devices but has difficulty in matching their sleep pattern to the expectations of those around them. Teenagers often have a transient form of this, that they usually grow out of; a tendency to want to go to bed later (12am-2am) and wake later (typically between 10am and 12pm). Fine for the weekends, not so helpful for school or workdays.
Some people can have this pattern (called Delayed Phase Sleep Wake Cycle Disorder) continue in early adulthood.
Parasomnias: Relatively rare sleep conditions such as sleepwalking or nightmare disorder.
Nightmares are quite common and not usually a health problem. Most people don’t have them often and fall straight back to sleep afterwards. Nightmare disorder occurs when someone has frequent, vivid nightmares that make them nervous about going to bed, stop them going back to sleep after the dream and are something they worry about during the day. The disorder is rare in the population as whole but more common in people who have experienced trauma, especially if they have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Content updated 26/06/2023