What is sleepwalking? Is it dangerous to health?

Do you often sit up or move around unconsciously while sleeping? Do you often say meaningless and uncontrollable things? These symptoms are most likely you are sleepwalking. Refer to the article below of Tnhelearning.edu.vn to know what sleepwalking is and how to treat sleepwalking!

What is sleepwalking?

Sleepwalking is a phenomenon in which a sleeping person suddenly gets up, walks or says nonsense. This is a sleep disorder that usually occurs at night, between the deep sleep phase and the waking stage, rarely during nap time.

Sleepwalkers are unable to react to events and cannot remember what they did after waking up.

Sleepwalking occurs in about 1 to 15% of the population, which occurs more often in children between the ages of 4 and 8 . In addition, some adults can also develop this condition, but will not be affected with any serious psychological or neurological problems.

What is sleepwalking?

Causes of sleepwalking

There are many factors that increase the risk of sleepwalking, specifically:

• Stress, fatigue.
• Depression.
• Insomnia, sudden disruption of daily sleep habits.
• Concerned.
• Fever.
• Using certain short-acting medications such as sleeping pills, tranquilizers, or a combination of drugs for mental illness and alcohol use.
• Gene (inherited): If one parent has had sleepwalking, the chances of their children having this condition may increase.
• Age: Sleepwalking is more common in children, decreasing gradually during adolescence.

Causes of sleepwalking

In addition, certain health conditions that affect sleep can also cause sleepwalking, including:

• Disturbance of breathing during sleep.
• Migraine.
• Somnolence.
• Restless leg syndrome.
• Gastroesophageal reflux disease.

Common symptoms of sleepwalking

Sleepwalkers often experience some of the following symptoms:

• Sit up and open your eyes.
• Get up and walk around.
• Eyes open but eyes are dull.
• Perform routine actions such as talking, dressing, snacking, etc.
• Do not communicate or react to others.
• Hard to wake up.
• Quickly go back to sleep after being awakened.
• After being awakened, they are disoriented or confused for a short period of time.
• I can’t remember what I did while sleepwalking after waking up the next morning.

Common symptoms of sleepwalking

In addition, there are some possible but rarer cases, such as:

• Leave the house.
• Drive.
• Doing unusual behaviors like going to the bathroom in the closet.
• Sex without awareness.
• Injury (falling down stairs or jumping out a window).
• Become violent while sleepwalking, even after waking up.

Common symptoms of sleepwalking

Sleepwalking is hardly worrisome. However, if your sleepwalking episodes have any of the following symptoms, see your doctor right away!

• Frequent (more than 1-2 times/week).
• Danger and injury to yourself or those around you.
• Affects the sleep of other family members or sleepwalkers feel ashamed of their actions.
• Sleepwalking begins to appear in adulthood.
• Lasts from childhood to adolescence.

How to treat sleepwalking?

To diagnose sleepwalking, your doctor will use polysomnography (an intensive sleep test) to graph your brain pulses, breathing, and heart rate while you’re asleep.

In addition, observing the movements of your arms and legs and what you do while sleeping will also show your doctor that you are sleepwalking.

Polysomnography technique to diagnose sleepwalking

Children with sleepwalking will go away on their own by the time they reach adolescence without needing treatment. If you see your sleepwalking child getting up and walking, simply carry her gently back to bed.

However, if sleepwalking has negative effects, then treatment will be necessary. Some common ways to treat sleepwalking are:

• If sleepwalking is caused by medication, the prescription should be changed.
• Take certain medications, such as benzodiazepines or antidepressants , if sleepwalking causes injury or trouble for family members.
• Learn to self-hypnotize.

What is an effective cure for sleepwalking?

There is no way to completely prevent sleepwalking. However, you can build a suitable lifestyle to minimize the possibility of this condition, specifically:

• Get enough sleep.
• Reduce stress by meditating or doing appropriate exercise on a regular basis.
• Avoid auditory or visual stimuli before bed.

Conduct a suitable lifestyle to minimize the possibility of sleepwalking

In addition, some tips can limit your ability to avoid injury when sleepwalking you can refer to such as:

• Sleep in an environment free of potentially hazardous objects.
• Lock the main door and windows when sleeping.
• Use window blinds .
• Set an alarm clock in the bedroom.

Above are the sharing of Tnhelearning.edu.vn about problems related to sleepwalking when sleeping and how to sleepwalk. Hopefully with this article, you can pocket useful knowledge. Thanks for watching!

Source: Vinmec.com, MEDLATEC General Hospital

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