Circadian Rhythm Disorders: Causes, Symptoms And Effects
If you are one of the people who has problems when it comes to “sleeping when it’s time”, perhaps it would be useful for you to know what the circadian cycle disorders.
The importance of sleeping well for our health has been known for a long time. However, the moment in which we enter a dream state is not decided by us: it is a matter of the so-called circadian rhythmswhich are the oscillations in the biological functions of our body that regulate the intervals in which we sleep and in which we are awake. Alterations in these oscillations can lead to circadian rhythm disorders, which have a very negative impact on our quality of life, so it is worth knowing what mechanisms are behind them.
But first, we have to understand well the concept of homeostasis.
The sleep rhythm obeys a property called homeostasis, which is the way in which organisms try to maintain biochemical balance between all their parts so that the whole works well. An easy way to understand what homeostasis consists of is to think about what happens when we run: at first, the body extracts the energy necessary to keep the muscles working by “burning” the sugar that is available in the blood, but after a few minutes This begins to become scarce, so, to avoid falling into an imbalance, our body begins to use stored fat as fuel.
The same happens with the circadian rhythm, which also works based on a logic of homeostasis balances. If we slept a lot the night before, we won’t feel sleepy that day until after midnight, but if we haven’t slept almost at all we will want to go to sleep shortly after dinner.
What are circadian rhythm disorders?
Of course, people’s sleep schedules are not created spontaneously independently of the body’s environment; It adapts so that wakefulness tends to coincide with the hours when there is more light, and sleep occurs during the night. Therefore, the simple act of keeping our eyes close to a source of artificial light in a sustained manner just before going to sleep delays the onset of sleep.
Since the time we dedicate to sleep is regulated homeostatically, nothing happens if our schedules are occasionally affected by anomalies: During the following hours, this “lag” is regulated and returns to normal. But if the jet lag in our sleeping hours persists for a long time, then we will be talking about a circadian rhythm disorder.
Symptoms of circadian rhythm disorders
Circadian rhythm disorders appear when there is a mismatch between the times when we are sleepy (or not) and the periods of day and night, which also correspond to socially agreed upon schedules.
Thus, A person with circadian rhythm disorders may sleep well, but they will do so when “not playing”. The consequences of this usually lead to lack of sleep in the wee hours of the morning and, at the same time, the appearance of drowsiness during the day. The latter are the two basic symptoms of these disorders, and at the same time they shape the types of circadian cycle disorders.
On the one hand, there is the disorder in which the sleep schedule is advanced, arriving early at the moment when the desire to sleep appears and when one wakes up. Another type of circadian cycle disorder is one in which sleep is delayed, so that one is unable to sleep until the early hours of the morning and experiences lack of sleep if work or study schedules require waking up in the morning. tomorrow. A third type would be a chaotic mixture of the previous two.
However, It must be taken into account that the diagnosis must be made by a specialist who offers personalized treatment.
Possible causes of these sleep disturbances
Among the possible causes that explain the appearance of circadian rhythm disorders there are basically two:
1. Biological factors
It is about structural or biochemical alterations in parts of the brain that are involved in the regulation of sleep, such as the hypothalamus.
2. Factors linked to interaction with the environment
These causes They have to do with the environment and the people with whom the individual interacts. For example, starting to work night shifts in a warehouse can cause problems in this regard, or getting used to using your mobile phone in bed and with the lights off.
Treatment of circadian rhythm disorders
The way to intervene in this spectrum of disorders is based on two actions: advance or delay the onset of sleep and advance or delay the time of awakening. For this, it is customary to use the oral administration of melatonin, a substance that the human body also produces to regulate the circadian rhythm and whose presence in relatively high levels is linked to the onset of sleep, and exposure to light, which It serves to delay the onset of sleep.
Both tools should be used on a sustained basis under professional supervision, and A single session is not enough, since the objective is to modify a habit that by definition is persistent.
