How Are We To Understand These Sleepwalking Behaviors In Sleep?
In the sleep lab, researchers noted that sleepwalking occurs during the end of a period of deep sleep, just as the sleeper is rising in to the lighter twilight zone of transitional sleep. For this reason, sleepwalking is considered by many to be a disorder of arousal. Sleepwalking, and its cousins sleep walking and night terrors, are all lumped together as partial arousal. You will recall that the normal night’s sleep begins descent into deep sleep the latter segment lasting approximately forty to forty five minutes. After this period of sleep, remember, the brain is not functioning well, it’s confused and befuddled if awakened.
It seems that in sleepwalking, the body wakes up before the mind does, the muscles are able to function in walking and moving and so on before the brain is wide awake and able to process external stimuli properly. This is why it’s called a partial arousal. The brain is still on cruise control. During sleepwalking the brain waves exhibit a mixture of patterns not wide awake, but not in deep sleep either. In a way, the body id fully awake and the brain is still partially asleep.
Children who are habitual sleepwalkers are more prone to the behavior at times of increased stress and anxiety when fatigued. The explanation is though to be that all of these factors cause an increase in deep sleep. The restorative phase of sleep and somnambulism occurs on exiting this stage of sleep. Obviously, an increase in segments of deep sleep leads to more frequent exits from it, and therefore to more incidents of sleepwalking.
The likelihood of a child’s of a child’s sleepwalking increases tenfold if his or her parents or siblings are habitual sleepwalkers. Through sleepwalking episodes can increase in frequency during periods of stress, children who sleepwalk are usually not physiological abnormal in any way, or more emotional or less stable than children who do not sleepwalk. The vast majority of youngsters who walk in their sleep will not continue the behavior in to adult life.
Keywords: 
sleepwalking, 
somnambulism, 
sleep disorder, 
insomnia,
Loading ...
