About

Founded by professionals afflicted with sleep disorders, the World Sleep Foundation and its blog, “Sleep Well Live Well,” which features sleep news and sleep tips, provide information and educational resources about the latest clinical advances, management and treatment options for a wide variety of sleep issues. WSF, believing that knowledge of issues related to sleep is crucial to all individuals, offers the online resources in convenient, easy-to-read formats for patients, medical professionals and the general public.

“I would say that right now, the social consciousness of this country on the issue of sleeping and driving is the same place drinking and driving was 30 years ago,”
Dr. Charles Czeisler, Director of sleep research, Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Commonly Known Sleep Disorders

Sleep apnea, narcolepsy, insomnia, restless leg syndrome: these are just a few of the recognized disorders that keep their afflicted from getting enough sleep. Studies reflect that nearly half of the world’s populations have difficulty sleeping.

The World Sleep Foundation is dedicated to education, research, diagnosis, treatment and continuing education of sleep disorders to the international community.

The following is a brief overview of the most commonly known sleep disorders. Follow the links for more detail, treatment and clinical trials.

Insomnia Chronic and persistent difficulty in either (1) falling asleep (initial insomnia), (2) remaining asleep through the night (middle insomnia), or (3) waking up too early (terminal insomnia). All types of insomnia can lead to daytime drowsiness, poor concentration, and the inability to feel refreshed and rested in the morning.

Narcolepsy is a disabling neurological disorder of sleep regulation that affects the control of sleep and wakefulness. It may be described as an intrusion of the dreaming state of sleep (called REM or rapid eye movement sleep) into the waking state.

Excessive daytime sleepiness or Hypersomnolence Excessive can be best defined by considering the following categories of excessive sleep problems: Narcolepsy, Recurrent Hypersomnia, Idiopathic Hypersomnia, Posttraumatic Hypersomnia

Parasomnias are undesirable behavioral, autonomic nervous system, or experiential phenomena during sleep, usually characterized by increased motor and/or autonomic activity, sleep-wake state dissociation, altered responsiveness to the environment, and retrograde amnesia.

Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS) occurs most often in middle-aged and older adults. It is worsened by stress . The cause is not known.

Sleep Apnea-Sleep apnea is a common disorder in which breathing stops during sleep for 10 seconds or more sometimes more than 300 times a night.

Jet lag is best described by a disruption of the body’sown 24-hour clock. Frequent travelers for example, experience changes in time zones resulting in jet lag. Shift workers may also experience jet lag.