It’s recommended that adults and older people get 7 to 9 hours of sleep. It is okay if you wake up once or twice briefly during the night.
But if you wake up for prolonged periods at least four times over the course of about eight hours, you have interrupted sleep.
According to researchers from LifeBridge Health, there are four sleep stages the body goes through during the night: non-REM (rapid eye movement) sleep (stages 1 to 3) and then REM sleep, which is associated with dreaming.
But when a sleep stage is interrupted, the body has to reset and start going through the stages all over again.
This means it is hard to get deep, restorative sleep.
Interrupted sleep will not only cause sleepiness but also affect your immune system and heart as well as brain health.
Common health risks include increased stress, decreased creativity, decreased accuracy, aches, and memory lapses or loss,
It may also lead to symptoms similar to ADHD and harm heart rate and increase heart disease and stroke.
Amit Narula, D.O., medical director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Carroll Hospital, provides several tips to prevent interrupted sleep:
Keeping your bedroom dark and cool; Limiting time in bed to sleep and sex; Sticking to a consistent sleep schedule; Avoiding the use of light-emitting screens (television, phone, etc.) before sleep; Using comfortable bedding; Keeping pets out of the bedroom; Not wearing tight clothes to bed; Write down the next day’s to-do list to prevent overthinking.
The researcher also suggests that if people are experiencing daytime sleepiness, they may have a sleeping disorder and should see a doctor about it as soon as possible.
Most sleep disorders are highly treatable.
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