Have you’ve ever had sleep issues in the past or still suffer from them now and then or far more common than you would like to admit it yourself? Well, you are not alone. In reality, millions of people toss and turn each night for various reasons. Some can’t sleep because of their preoccupation with tech gadgets while the other half suffer from medical conditions like sleep disorders. If you happen to belong to the latter, no need to fret because help is readily available if you just learn to ask for it. Have you heard of sleep clinics? It’s high time you know them. There are numerous sleep clinics scattered all over the country that can help you get to the bottom of your sleep issues once and for all.
Sleep clinics are lifesavers to individuals who struggle with sleep every single night. There was a time when the rest of the world simply shrugged off sleep issues but not anymore. You can head to the nearest sleep clinic in your area and spend the night there to get assessed in your slumber. That way, the sleep doctors/experts can give a more accurate diagnosis about your condition and come up with a more tailor-fit medical management that fits your needs. Getting diagnosed and treated is a must especially if you are suffering from a deadly condition like sleep apnea because you literally stop breathing in your sleep and it predisposes you to other more deadly conditions like heart disease and diabetes.
Sleep apnoea affects about 10 per cent of the adult population. Treatment options include weight loss, exercise, surgery and mouthguards “but if it is severe, the only thing that really works is continuous positive air pressure (CPAP) therapy”.
“I assess people and send them home with a monitor to use while they’re asleep so we can work out what’s happening,” Mrs Aplin said.
“Sleep apnoea covers about 90 per cent of sleep disorders so we need to rule that out before looking at other issues.
“If a patient has sleep apnoea, they can trial a CPAP therapy machine which keeps the airways open. If it’s a different issue, we can talk about other sleep practices that people can try, such as cognitive behavioural therapy programmes that are often available online.”
Poor sleep quality is second to breathing pauses that many sleep apnea sufferers complain about. It makes people generally sleepy throughout the day. It is risky if you work in an industry that requires you to operate machinery or have to drive on a daily basis. By now, we all know that CPAP is the ideal treatment for sleep apnea but we also know how much patients hate it because of its sheer inconvenience during bedtime. With the help of sleep clinics, you can also explore other treatment regimens like cognitive behavioral therapy to help you combat the condition without making your life miserable. You can also choose from handy anti-snoring devices like https://snoringmouthpiecereview.org/zquiet or https://snoringmouthpiecereview.org/sleeptight that helps correct those anatomical problems that lead to snoring and sleep apnea.
Dr Alex Bartle, director of New Zealand’s Sleep Well Clinics, believes up to 15 per cent of adult Kiwis have chronic insomnia which affects their waking lives.
“That’s a fair number of people who have disrupted sleep at least three nights a week, and have had for more than three months,” says Bartle.
“Part of the problem is that many people who can’t sleep accept it as normal and insomnia is not normal.”
Although we spend about 24 to 26 years of our lives asleep, how much we really need varies from person to person. The gold standard for an average night’s sleep, set by the US Sleep Foundation, is 6½ hours.
“Any less than six hours and we don’t compute very well,” says Bartle.
He’s right: when we’re sleep deprived we tend to be grumpy, unproductive and often unable to think straight. Research from the University College London Medical School revealed that people who fail to get a full night’s sleep score significantly lower on tests of logic and vocabulary and, more worryingly, have slower reaction times which can impact on everything from operating machinery to driving.
People today can attest to the rise in popularity of sleep clinics as some actually have to wait for weeks to get an appointment. Whether it is insomnia, sleep apnea, or some other sleep disorder, the best place for you to get checked and treated is a sleep clinic because they have the facility, equipment, and expertise over this matter. Giving patients sleeping pills is not always a good idea but may be used in conjunction with other management programs like cognitive behavioral therapy, which is found to be more effective as it helps rewire the brain to adapt better sleeping habits that are mostly helpful for insomniacs.
If you find yourself counting sheep in the middle of the night, snap out of it and get an appointment to the nearest sleep clinic as soon as you can because that’s where you can find the help that you desperately need.
