Circadian rhythm sleep disorders are a family of sleep disorders which mainly affect the time of sleep and the people who experience these sleep disorders tend to sleep and wake up at unusual or far-from-normal timings. Basically, all humans have biological rhythms that are called circadian rhythms. These rhythms are controlled by the body clock and work on a daily time scale.
But in the case when a person is experiencing circadian rhythm sleep disorders, his/her body clock fails to work in a rhythmic manner and there are many ways to identify this condition. The following given circadian rhythm sleep disorder symptoms will throw more light on the same:
- Those individuals who are suffering from the delayed sleep phase type of this disorder tend to sleep late and find it difficult to change their sleeping schedules. Thus due to this reason, they often show sleepiness during the day at work or otherwise. They become physically less active and always experience tiredness or fatigue during the day. Infact when they sleep, they sleep well and for a normal length of time.
- Some people who have jet lag kind of circadian rhythm sleep disorder tend to demonstrate sleepiness during the wake portion of the day which happens because of the change in time zone. They face difficulty in sleeping during the desired sleep part of the day.
- People with shift work type of sleep disorder feel sleepy and often sleep at work or during the desired work portion of the day. This happens to people with rotating shifts.
- Ones with unspecified type of circadian rhythm sleep disorders also show daytime sleepiness and even insomnia in some cases. They have difficulty in fixing a certain time for sleep and a certain time for waking. Due to this, their sleeping pattern is very irregular.
Diagnosis of Circadian Rhythm Sleep Disorders
In order to diagnose a sleep disorder of this family, patients are asked to record their sleeping and waking timings. They may be put under observation and may have to go through sleep tests so that the doctor can decide which treatment is to be given to them. To treat these disorders, doctors often given a new schedule of sleeping to the patients and ask and recommend them to follow the schedule strictly. This disorder must be treated at the earliest possible and for that, a doctor’s help is advisable.
