14 DAY TRIAL // A paper published in today's issue of the journal Neurology explains what a disorder commonly referred to as sleep drunkenness is all about and argues that, maybe even without their knowing it, quite a lot of people are affected by this condition.
Specialists explain that sleep drunkenness boils down to being terribly confused and/or acting inappropriately when suddenly forced to wake up sometime during the first few hours of the night or early in the morning.
Oddly enough, it appears that some of the folks who suffer from this condition fail to remember one such episode after waking up from their state of sleep drunkenness. Simply put, they get amnesia and are clueless about the experience.
The sight of a person who because of sleep drunkenness fails to turn off the alarm and instead answers the phone might amuse some people, but specialists warn that this condition is no joke, and that it can really take its toll on an individual.
Thus, it appears that, when experiencing a sleep drunkenness episode, some people can actually turn violent. Hence, they risk injuring either themselves, or those around them, researchers who have taken the time to study this condition explain.
“These episodes of waking up confused have received considerably less attention than sleepwalking even though the consequences can be just as serious,” claims study author Maurice M. Ohayon, MD, DSc, PhD, with Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California.
What's interesting is that, according to evidence at hand, this disorder is way more common than one would assume. In a nutshell, it appears that as many as one in seven people might be suffering from it, maybe even without being aware of it.
Thus, while researching the sleep patterns of 19,136 individuals, scientists found that over 50% of these volunteers went through a sleep drunkenness episode at least once per week, and that 15% had one such experience on a yearly basis, Science Daily informs.
Although sleep drunkenness is yet to be officially linked to other conditions, it looks like this disorder is more common among people who have trouble sleeping or who are suffering from various mental health issues. The use of drugs such as antidepressants appears to also go hand in hand with an increased risk to experience sleep drunkenness.
“People with sleep disorders or mental health issues should also be aware that they may be at greater risk of these episodes,” says Maurice M. Ohayon. Furthermore, “These episodes of confused awakening have not gotten much attention, but given that they occur at a high rate in the general population, more research should be done on when they occur and whether they can be treated.”