More than 63 million American adults suffer sleep deprivation, and an estimated 40 million people suffer from a chronic sleep disorder and don't even know it. Yet 52 percent of all adults report having driven while impaired by drowsiness, and many more suffer through their days feeling chronically sleepy. Even some physicians do not take these symptoms seriously enough, prescribing sleeping pills when other diagnoses, therapy, devices, or treatment will better cure or cope with an individual's sleep disorder. But there is good help available. Today, however, sleep disorder centers have sprung up across America.
Insomnia is the most common sleep complaint.
Factors that cause short-term insomnia can be external, including alcohol, caffeine, or nicotine before bedtime, room temperature extremes, light, noise, and of course, stress. Sleep apnea is a more serious, potentially life-threatening condition. It's actually a breathing disorder, in which certain structural problems in the breathing passages cause blockage during sleep, preventing oxygen from getting to the lungs and the bloodstream. The blockage causes the body to wake up briefly in order to resume normal breathing. These brief sleeping interruptions during the night can come as often as 20 to 100 or more per hour, destroying the possibility and benefits of a good night's sleep.