Night Terrors Are A Sleep Disorder
Night terrors are a sleep disorder that can extremely disturbing for people to deal with. Some people suffer from them for years starting when they are a very young. They can start as the result of a traumatic experience but most individuals have no idea why they are experiencing them. There has been plenty of research on the subject but a great deal about it still remains a mystery.
In various night terror studies at sleep clinics, it has been noted that there is an increase in brain activity during the night terror episodes. Most people only suffer from one of them per night and they can last for short periods of time. Some people suffer from night terrors several times a week, nightly, or only a couple of times a year. In most instances it is the same or very similar experience each time. Some individuals never do remember what the night terror was about though. They simply wake up terribly afraid but don’t understand why.
This brain activity has led many in the area of sleep disorders to believe that there is a chemical imbalance to be dealt with. Others continue to argue that it is a sign of suppressed trauma or anxiety. Parents of children with night terrors are often given disturbing information by medical professionals. It can be assumed that they are the victim of sexual abuse which is later found to be untrue.
Sometimes night terrors are the result of something terrible that has happened to someone. For example sexual abuse, rape, and even post traumatic stress disorder can lead to night terrors. In these types of cases counseling and therapy can help the person to overcome their night terrors. The more support they have the more then can gain control over the situation. As a result the night terrors may eventually go away on their own.
For most people with night terrors, they suffer in many ways. Their body isn’t allowing them to adequately rest while they are sleeping due to the episodes. They often wake from the night terrors with an overwhelming sense of fear. This makes it very difficult to go back to sleep. Their anxiety also increases at bed time because they are afraid that they will experience an episode.
Sleep Terror Disorder At Any Age
Whether a child or adult, a person with sleep terror disorder has symptoms that are distressing to anyone seeing them. They will usually awake in the night, generally within a few hours of falling asleep, with a feeling of sheer terror. They are waking abruptly from stage 3 or 4 of non-rapid eye movement sleep cycle, and it would seem to the onlooker that they are stuck between sleep and wake. When they wake, they’ll usually scream, or gasp, or moan, and they have a very hard time awaking. It is much more effective to gently help the person fall back into a deep sleep, which they usually do within fifteen minutes. With a child, this role is usually performed by a parent. For an adult, if their spouse or roommate can help them back to sleep, it is ideal.
Other symptoms are physical ones that are to be expected when the person is feeling terror. They will tend to be sweating, with large pupils. Their pulse will usually be racing, and they are likely to be breathing very fast and have a look of fear or panic on their face. They can also look very confused. Reassurance by a person near them can help them relax and fall back into a deep sleep more easily.
Adults And Sleep Terror Disorder
Sleep Terror Disorder usually occurs only in children between the ages of two and eight although occasionally older children can too. When adults have sleep terror disorder, look for other causes. There are many avenues to check and methods to try to alleviate the symptoms, since (unlike children) they are unlikely to get better within a few weeks time, without helping the causes.
Things for adults with sleep terror disorder to check include: getting a proper diet and enough sleep, and managing stressful events in life. Sometimes adults with sleep terror disorder have additional triggering factors, like trauma-based situations (post tramatic stress syndrome, for example) and genetic or chronic factors. If this is the case, the adult with sleep terror disorder should be in therapy. Psychotherapy and antidepressant medicine can often help immensely.
The adult with sleep terror disorder should also be checked for other physical factors, as there is some evidence that adults with hypoglycemia can have night terrors, as well as other symptoms.
