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So far in our three-part series on how sleep deprivation affects your life, we’ve explored the causes and effects of sleep deprivation on different age groups, and how having sleep apnea can pose a real danger to your health, if not treated.Today we bring you the final chapter in our sleep series, as KSMU’s Ryan Farmer reports on the bizarre night time behaviors of sleepwalkers.
It’s Three a.m. and you’re fast asleep.You jump up with a startle.A loud crash just boomed from the kitchen.You rush to see what it is, but your heart thumps fade away at the sight of your spouse routing through the pots and pans, trying to cook a meal.No, they don’t have the late night munchies, they are sleep-walking.
“Sleep walking is an arousal out of a different stage of sleep called delta sleep,” says Lynch.
Dr. Jennifer Lynch, is a neurologist and the medical director of the Cox Sleep Disorder Center in Springfield.She says she’s treated her share of sleepwalkers.
“It tends to be somewhat genetic. It tends to be somewhat age related so that it happens usually in younger ages. School age children about 5-17 is the peak time. Then it tends to go away, but some people it does not," says Lynch.
She says that though the condition can be attributed to a person’s genes, sleep walking can also occur from medicinal side-effects.
“Sometimes medications can increase the likelihood that sleep walking behavior, or what we call ‘confusional arousals’ can occur. So what we see with this is, people on various sleeping pills will wake up and have either nighttime eating behaviors, or I have heard of people even getting in the car and driving," says Lynch.
So what would cause someone who is deeply asleep to suddenly behave as if they’re awake?Dr. Lynch says that often the awakening mechanism for sleep walkers can come at the same time every night.
“Any sort of arousal can trigger this. I certainly had some kids that lived near train tracks for instance. And when the 2 a.m. train would come by, that’s when they’d get up and walk. So the parents knew in this instance that they would get up and walk their kid back to bed after that 2 a.m. train every morning,” says Lynch.
Dr. Lynch says sleepwalking can continue on into the adult years.James Holder is a sophomore at Missouri State University.He says he started sleep walking when he was a young boy.
“One time when I was about six I apparently walked outside of my house into the backyard with my dog for about half an hour, and wandered around the backyard. And then my parents had to put locks on top of the doors so I wouldn’t do that anymore. Then I would walk around and just do random things,” says Holder.
Holder says that he still sleepwalks today, and that his last incident was in January.
“Recently I fixed supper at like 3:30 in the morning, while asleep the whole time. My roommate was talking to me I didn’t respond at all, I just stood there,” says Holder.
Holder says that after going to the doctor at first he thought he might have sleep apnea due to his daily fatigue.But he says it turned out he was tired because he was too active while he was sleeping. For those who wonder what to do when they find a loved one sleepwalking, Dr. Lynch says to simply show them the way back to bed.
“The proper response when somebody is sleep walking is to just gently redirect them, because if you do wake them up they will be very confused. They may not react in the way that you would like and they may not be really fully responsible for their actions at that time. So usually they are very easily redirect able. You just sort of guide them back to their room and into bed and they go back to sleep,” says Lynch.
Lynch says that medications can help to reduce night time behaviors like sleepwalking.But she added that parents and others living with a sleepwalker need to take precautions to make sure the sleepwalkers don’t unintentionally endanger themselves.She suggests, in severe cases, to lock doors, cover windows, and put mattresses on the floors of the room for the sleepwalker.
For KSMU News, I’m Ryan Farmer.
