The Mystery of Sleepwalking

I met a girl once who told me quite a peculiar story about her. She’s the sweetest girl ever. Imagine a red head, with big blue eyes and freckles, a high-pitched voice and a constant dazzling smile. I had never met anyone who could change from such a sweet angel to a screaming, scary woman! The only thing is, she doesn’t do it on purpose, she sleepwalks! She wakes up at night and occasionally have normal conversations with her husband. Other times she gets very agitated and warns him that they're all in grave danger.

After she told me this incredibly interesting story, I went on the internet and looked up some information about the topic and I somehow stumbled across a forum. I kept trying to post a new topic so that I could see if they had any stories or information to share. After about 15 minutes I gave up and watched with amusement as they got into this heated discussion about the perfect way to cut toenails (!).

I eventually managed to find some interesting studies and information about symptoms of sleep disorders, namely, sleepwalking, which I’ll be sharing with you.

The characteristics of sleep walking include sleep talking and walking when one is asleep. The person’s eyes are usually open and look glassy. Although it’s more common in children, sleep walking in adults is quite common. Statistics show that 15% of children experience sleep walking between ages 4-12. A sleep walking child usually grows out of it.

Symptoms of sleepwalking

Sleepwalking episodes vary, some people may walk quietly, others run anxiously around the room. If you attempt to question them, their answers may be given slowly, or they may not make sense at all.

Causes of sleep walking

Sleep consists of 5 stages. The first 4 are called non-rapid eye movement sleep or NREM sleep and the fifth stage consists of rapid eye movement sleep, or REM sleep, which is typically associated with hormone surges and dreaming. Each cycle consists of stages 1 to 5 and takes around 100 minutes to be completed and keeps repeating through the night. Sleepwalking generally occurs in the 1^st or 2^nd cycle during the 3^rd and 4^th stages, when there are slow brain waves occurring. A clear cause of sleep walking does not exist; however, scientists have come up with various theories regarding the matter;

Some scientists believe that fever, stress, sleep deprivation, chaotic sleep, drugs, such as tranquilizers, stimulants, hypnotics may cause sleep walking. Some scientists believe there is a relationship between stress hormones and sleep walking. People who sleep walk generally get stressed because their condition worries them, and may try to stay awake. However, the more you try stay awake, the bigger the chance of sleepwalking when they eventually do go to sleep.

Other theories include medical conditions such as asthma, gastroesophageal reflux, night seizures, psychiatric disorders (posttraumatic stress disorder or panic attacks) as causes.

PTSD and panic attacks form part of a wide range of anxiety disorders. Anxiety is defined as a constant feeling of worry or fear and includes varying degrees of these feelings.

Anxiety treatments

Anxiety may be treated or reduced with exercise, deep breathing exercises such as yoga or engaging in activities that relaxes the person, such as shopping, going for a walk, going to a spa, getting a massage etc. Scientists believe the activities mentioned, especially exercise, reduces anxiety because they can get rid of all the epinephrine build-up in their body, which is caused by stress, and typically results in anxiety symptoms.

Precautions to take

I will only be mentioning what you could do at home to avoid harming yourselves when you sleep walk. If you wish to look into treatments, I think the best thing to do would be to consult your doctors.

• Meditation or relaxation exercises may help with sleep walking as mentioned above.
• Remove potentially harmful object from your house.
• Try and sleep on the ground floor to prevent any falls.
• Don’t forget to lock all your doors and windows; you don’t want to go on a night hike on your own while you’re sleeping.
• Try to avoid auditory or visual stimuli before you sleep