Have you ever wondered why sometimes, even after sleeping a lot last night, you still feel sleepy all the time while sitting and working? It’s not just feeling sleepy after eating or just during the afternoon when feeling a bit bored, but feeling sleepy all the time, which unusually excessive sleepiness isn’t common, but a disease caused by mental or physical abnormalities, and it can be life-threatening and requires proper treatment.

Causes of Abnormal Sleepiness

The causes of abnormal sleepiness include several factors:

1. Commonly found in people who feel very sleepy, wake up not feeling refreshed, and feel sleepy all the time, even though they had enough sleep at night and experience irritability.
2. Some people just watched a horror movie and think they are haunted, but that is considered one of the symptoms. They might feel as if something is crawling on them at night, hear ringing in their ears, or even experience sleepwalking.
3. People who have irregular sleeping patterns, suffer from sleep deprivation, or habitually stay up late are also at risk of this disease.
4. Caused by sleep apnea, which leads to a loss of neurotransmitters in the brain, showing symptoms of falling asleep and waking up alternately, commonly found in people who feel very sleepy to the point where they could fall asleep while eating at the dining table.
5. Suffering from breath cessation while sleeping without realizing it.
6. People who like to snore or those in whose family someone snores frequently, also if they experience headaches in the morning, should urgently consult a doctor as they may have sleep apnea interrupting their sleep, which can affect conditions like high blood pressure, and arteriosclerosis.

Treatment for Sleep Disorders

The correct way to treat sleep-related diseases must include a Sleep Test to observe the patient’s sleeping behavior, conducted during both day and night, for a thorough diagnosis of the cause by a neurologist specialized in epilepsy and abnormal sleep disorders. After seeing the doctor, an appointment at the Sleep Lab will be arranged to find the cause requiring a hospital stay for 1 night, with the examination details as follows:

• Sleep Test conducted at night, attaching devices to measure breathing, blood pressure, chest, sleep position, leg twitches, abdominal movements, snoring sounds to see if there is unclear breathing cessation, with 7 – 8 hours of sleep and during the day, to check for daytime sleepiness to see how short the naps are, how quickly one falls asleep, how many minutes they dream, by letting the patient stay in a dark room, turning off the lights to try and sleep to see how many minutes it takes to fall asleep. A total of 4 – 5 naps (the start time between each nap is 2 hours apart). If it takes less than 8 – 10 minutes, it is considered abnormal, from turning off the lights to falling asleep, considered seriously sleepy, especially if dreaming occurs during the nap.
• Treatment with a CPAP machine is another effective method without surgery. This machine helps make sleep comfortable, breathing easy, reducing sleep apnea, leading to feeling refreshed upon waking.

Throughout all these procedures, staff will supervise and monitor 24 hours a day, with CCTV cameras and close data analysis of the patient. After which, the diagnosis results are followed up to determine further treatment.

Because sleeping is the most important thing for our body, if there is any abnormality, it should not be ignored or neglected, as it can affect other health problems later. Therefore, anyone who feels abnormal should promptly see a doctor for analysis and treatment because good rest is the starting point of our good health.