Insomnia

I had suffered from insomnia since I was very young. Sometimes, I woke up in the middle of the night and was not able to get back to sleep. Sometimes, I didn’t know whether I had slept through the night or not. Difficulty in initiating sleep was most often a problem to me. The room was dark and quiet. The temperature was just right. After lying on bed for an hour, I still couldn’t get into sleep. I slept on my back and rolled over on my stomach. I turned this side and that side. I was tired but just couldn’t fall into sleep. Each hour passed and I was anxious about my work in the day. I couldn’t empty my mind. After a few hours had gone, I took off the blanket because it seemed that hot flashes went through my body. Getting out of bed in the early morning, my head was heavy and my heart felt tight. I even felt nauseated. To cope with insomnia, I had tried many methods but in vain. I counted the number of stars from one to thousands. I drank hot milk before bedtime. Nothing worked on me.

For long, I didn’t know the cause leading to my trouble sleeping. Perhaps, it was because I worked shift, I thought. But there was nothing that I could help myself because there was no way to change job. After many years, I eventually found out that my trouble sleeping was due to the effect of caffeine. Whenever I drank tea or coke, I had trouble sleeping at night. I had never tried coffee. I am very sensitive to caffeine. The caffeine effect lasts long in my body. I could only tolerate caffeine drinks before 10 o’clock in the morning.

Mouth Breathing during Sleep in Children

People with severe nasal allergy often suffer from sleep deprivations. Stuffy nose will turn bad during sleep. When the nose is blocked, the individual needs to breathe through his/ her mouth and the mouth becomes dry and uncomfortable. The quality of sleep is therefore affected. Children may not be able to express the problem. Poor sleep in children may not be noticed by parents.

Many parents do not consider mouth breathing as a problem. In fact, long-term mouth breathing could lead to serious problems such as facial and dental development in young children. Other than nasal allergy, mouth breathing during sleep could also be resulted from various problems such as sinusitis, deviated nasal septum, or enlarged tonsils. Therefore, when mouth breathing happens very often, medical advice should be sought. In many cases, mouth breathing improves after treatment. Nasal allergy and sinusitis could be treated by medicines. Deviated nasal septums need to be straightened by means of operation. Enlarged tonsils need to be removed by surgery.