Health Articles

I wanted to talk to you about the problems caused by snoring because I don’t think people really address this enough. Since people really don’t understand the problems they don’t want to fix anything. This is why people can go their entire lives doing this. It really isn’t that hard to fix, but you have to be motivated to do it. I guess without the education on the subject than you’ll never have that overall motivation, which you see for other problems like weight loss. At least with weight loss people know why they should fix the problem. Even if they fail, they still try.

Shallow Sleeping: This is a huge problem for a lot of people. Have you ever went to bed and got a full 9 hours of sleep, but were still tired in the morning? This is probably due to your shallow sleeping. The sleep that helps with tired feelings comes from deep sleep. You can’t get into this deep sleep when you’re making loud noises all night. You also can’t forget that the rumbling in the throat is a vibration that resonates into your head. This only makes it more difficult to get meaningful sleep.

Marital Problems: I think this is one thing that people often miss out on. You’re going to have your spouse in the bed next to you each night and they’re going to hear your snoring all night long. They’re going to get a lot less sleep. At least when you’re snoring, you’re asleep when it happens. They have to fall asleep and it is difficult. This leaves a person in a frustrated and stressed out state all the time. This will put strains on any relationship.

Read more about sleep disorders.

Recurring sleep problems in a child with autism can affect mood, stamina, behavior, socialization, and their ability to do well at school or with their work. Having trouble falling asleep each night, talking, waking up once or more per night, waking after too little sleep and staying up all day: it’s a wonder they can perform at all with such a low amount of energy and rest to rely upon. Naturally, this also affects everyone working with the child and those caring for them. Therefore it is in everyone’s best interest to look into different ways to help these children overcome these barriers to being at their best each day.

Some important factors to consider are:

- diet

- schedule

- bedtime and pre-bedtime routines

- exercise (different kinds can have different effects on alertness or a relaxed state in the body)

- recognizing problems that require medical attention

- keeping a diary to record the day and night time observations and progress

- maintaining progress made

There are many available resources to help with this. If you belong to an autism family/parent support group, listen and ask if any other parents have autistic children with sleep problems, and ask them how they are working on it. There are a number of people who may already be involved in the therapies for your child whom you are already consulting or seeing for appointments that you can ask, and they may even have other clients or patients whom they know are successfully making progress with improving sleep. These could include your family doctor, your pediatrician, your naturopath, your child’s psychologist, your speech pathologist, your occupational therapist…the list goes on. There are also accredited sleep centers and support groups that you can look for on the Internet to see what is local or closest to your area.
Movement Disorders
A proper night’s sleep each night that includes enough deep sleep is essential to your child’s happiness and directly affects how well they do each day. It is no different for the rest of us, either; being at our best gives us better access to the best in ourselves, which means we feel better and have more to give, too.