Health Problems that Interrupt Your Sleep

We have all heard that eight hours of sleep is important. But the quality of our sleep is just as important as how long we sleep.

We have gotten out of bed after a night of tossing and turning. It feels like we barely slept, even though we may have been in bed for 8 hours.

Interrupted or fragmented sleep contributes to insomnia, sleep deprivation, daytime sleepiness, and the numerous other potential consequences of insufficient sleep.

What Are the Symptoms of Interrupted Sleep?

For most people, the main symptom of interrupted sleep is simply waking up from sleep one or more times during the course of the night.

The timing and length of these episodes vary. A person may have only a few breaks in sleep or many. A person may awake or remain awake for a while before falling back to sleep. A person may experience restless sleep, tossing and turning or feeling only half-asleep without drifting off into deeper rest.

Some people may never know they are experiencing brief and minor awakenings or arousals. People with obstructive sleep apnea suffer from repeated lapses in breathing that cause brief arousals from sleep. These periods of awakening are short enough that people with OSA don’t realize or know that they are happening.

Why Does Interrupted Sleep Matter?

People who have interrupted sleep tend not to get enough overall sleep. Research has found a strong correlation between sleep continuity and total sleep time, indicating that people with disturbed sleep are at a higher risk of not sleeping enough hours. Insufficient sleep can cause daytime sleepiness that detracts from school or work performance and heightens the risk of accidents while driving or operating machinery.

Even when it doesn’t reduce sleep quantity, a mounting body of evidence points to the harm of interrupted sleep. During healthy sleep, a person progresses through a series of sleep cycles, each of which is made up of distinct sleep stages. Repeated interruptions disrupt and affect brain function, physical health, and emotional well-being.

Multiple studies have identified sleep continuity as important to thinking, memory, and decision-making. While the exact mechanisms underlying sleep’s role in brain health are not fully understood, research points to uninterrupted sleep as promoting memory consolidation.

Sleep disruptions have also been associated with neurodegenerative diseases including age-related cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s dementia, and Parkinson’s Disease. Fragmented sleep is considered an early symptom of these conditions, but research suggests that it may also be a contributing factor to their development and/or progression.

Interrupted sleep is also connected to mood disorders like depression. One study demonstrated a stronger correlation between interrupted sleep and a decreased positive mood compared to reduced total hours of continuous sleep.

The problems caused by interrupted sleep got worse compounded with consecutive days of interrupted sleep, suggesting that the effect can accumulate over time.

Disrupted sleep also causes detrimental impacts on physical health. Healthy people have a higher sensitivity to pain after just two nights of fragmented sleep. The long-term inability to proceed through each sleep stage combined with the activation of multiple systems of the body during repeated awakenings is tied to higher rates of cardiovascular disease, weight gain, and metabolic problems including type 2 diabetes. Disturbed is also connected to increased cancer risk, although further research is necessary to better understand the complexity of the relationship between sleep and cancer.

All of these potential effects of interrupted sleep on the brain and body indicate that healthy sleep means more than just sleeping enough hours; it also requires avoiding disruptions that inhibit sleep continuity.

What Causes Interrupted Sleep?

There is a wide range of potential causes of interrupted sleep, and often involves multiple factors in any specific person’s situation.

Sleep fragmentation is often a problem for older adults because they experience a natural change in their sleep patterns resulting in less time in deep sleep. With more time in light sleep stages, older people are more easily awoken, leading to a greater number of disturbances and awakenings.

Sleep disorders like obstructive sleep apnea and restless leg syndrome disrupt sleep. Other medical conditions, such as pain, nocturia (frequent nighttime urination), cardiovascular issues hormonal imbalances, and neurological problems may threaten sleep continuity. Side effects from prescription drugs can also interfere with sleep. Sometimes, you need to take them at specific intervals, which means intentionally waking up throughout the night.

Stress causes interrupted sleep. So does worrying about our problems. Often worrying about our problems keeps us from falling back to sleep after waking up. Of course, infants or caring for our family members can also interrupt our sleep.

When Should You Talk to a Doctor About Interrupted Sleep?

If you have interrupted sleep that has been going on for a long time, is persistent, or is worsening, you should talk with your doctor. You should also consult your doctor if you have any of the following issues:

• Significant daytime sleepiness
• Mood changes during the day
• Snoring that is loud and/or involves gasping or choking sounds or other abnormal breathing during sleep

How Can You Prevent or Address Interrupted Sleep?

While not all causes of interrupted sleep are under your control, there are concrete steps that you can take to try to prevent interrupted sleep before it happens or address it if you’ve already found it to be a problem.

Habits and Routines

Going to bed and waking up at the same is one of the most important things you can do to start getting consistently good sleep. Here are other things you need to do to improve your sleep:

• Going to bed and waking up at the same time every day, including on weekends
• Following a steady routine before bed, including plenty of time to wind down and relax
• Avoiding alcohol, cigarettes, caffeine, and big meals in the evening, especially in the hours before bed
• Reducing your use of electronic devices before bed and trying to never use them when in bed
• Getting outside or opening your blinds to get daily exposure to sunlight
• Finding time to be physically active every day

Sleep Environment

To facilitate sleep continuity, you want to eliminate as many possible sources of sleep disturbances from your bedroom as you can:

• Use blackout curtains, a low-wattage bedside lamp, and if necessary, a sleep mask to avoid being bothered by excess light
• Wear earplugs or use a white noise machine to block out noise
• Set your bedroom temperature to be comfortable, erring toward a cooler setting
• Make sure your mattress, pillows, blankets, and sheets are comfortable and inviting
• Talk to a bed partner or roommate if they snore, grind their teeth, or otherwise cause potential sleep interruptions