5 Most Common Sleep Disorders

Insomnia is characterized by an inability to fall or stay asleep throughout the night, resulting in the dreaded “non-restorative sleep” that leaves you slogging through the day in a haze, impairing your ability to enjoy life to the fullest. While everybody has a bad nights sleep here and there, what insomniacs suffer from is a bad nights sleep on most nights — and that lack of sleep really takes a toll. It’s the most common sleep disorder on this list and one that, let’s face it, you might likely have.

Sleep Apnea is a very common sleep disorder — your breathing suddenly stops for several moments during the night due to blockage, preventing adequate oxygen flow and a restful sleep. The soft tissues in the throat relax, as a result the airway collapses, blocking air from getting to the lungs. While partial blocking of these airways simply leads to snoring, full blockage causes you to jolt out of deep sleep, leaving you unrested. Over the course of a night, your brain doesn’t get a chance to regenerate with the deeper sleep phases you need, leaving you with headaches and poor cognitive function the next day.

Caused by an irresistible urge to move the legs (and other limbs), RLS commonly kicks in (pun intended) in the evening when you’re trying to wind down or sleep. Sensations of itchiness, crawling, pulling, or throbbing in the limbs can be anywhere from uncomfortable to painful and the easiest immediate relief is moving around, pacing, or tossing and turning, which is less than ideal when you’re trying to fall asleep.

Narcolepsy is a neurological disorder that makes it difficult for your brain to control sleep-wake cycles. It’s common for narcoleptics to unwillingly fall asleep during everyday activities, making it difficult (and unsafe) to do things such as driving or operating machinery. Narcoleptics may also experience “sleep attacks” where the body goes from alert to very sleepy with little to no warning (this is appropriately called “excessive daytime sleepiness” and can be measured with the Epworth Sleepiness Scale) as well as more serious issues like cataplexy (a temporary muscle weakness that causes the person to go limp) or sleep paralysis.

A sleep disorder with a long pop culture history, sleepwalking is, well, walking while sleeping! But, yes, it also encompasses things other than just walking such as eating unexpected night meals, moving your stuff around the house, or pouring milk down the drain. It’s a common misconception that you shouldn’t wake up a sleepwalker (you should gently steer them back into bed), and it’s likely hereditary.