Sleepwalking: Information, Symptoms and Causes

Sleepwalking (Noctambulism or Somnambulism): Information, Symptoms and Causes

Sleepwalking (also written as Sleep Walking and also called Noctambulism and Somnambulism) is a parasomnia sleep disorder where the sufferer engages in activities that are normally associated with wakefulness (such as eating, dressing, or walking) while asleep or in a sleep-like state, without the conscious knowledge of the person.

Most cases of Sleepwalking occur when the person is woken up as a result of something or someone disturbing their Short Wave Sleep (SWS). In the vast majority of these cases, the person may sit up, look around, and immediately go back to sleep. It is much rarer for a person to perform various activities before returning to sleep.

Symptoms

The main symptom of Sleepwalking is engaging in activities that are normally associated with wakefulness (such as eating, dressing, or walking) while asleep or in a sleep-like state, without the conscious knowledge of the person.

Sleepwalkers engage in these activities with their eyes open, meaning that they can navigate in their surroundings.

Random Sleeping Tip

There are a lot of people who are in a habit of eating large meals before going to bed. This is a very unhealthy practice that these individuals follow because eating large meals that are fatty and greasy can cause you to suffer from heartburn during nighttime and that can break your sleep cycle. Therefore it is really important that you do not eat a large meal just before bedtime and must space it out by about 2 to 3 hours before going to bed so that you do not suffer from indigestion.

A Sleepwalker's eyes may have a glazed or empty appearance, and if they are spoken to or questioned, then the Sleepwalker will be slow to answer and will be unable to respond in an intelligible manner.

Please Note: Sleepwalkers do not walk around or perform activities with their eyes closed and their arms outstretched as parodied in cartoons and various Hollywood productions.

Causes

Sleepwalking is affected by the following factors:

Age

Sex

Sleepwalking can affect people of any age, and usually occurs when an individual awakes suddenly from Slow Wave Sleep (SWS), also called Stage 3 and 4 Sleep, triggering the sleepwalking episode.
In children and young adults, up to 25% of the night is spent in SWS. However this decreases as the person ages until none can be measured in the elderly people.
For this reason, children and young adults (or anyone else who achieves high amounts of SWS), are more likely to be woken up and, for the same reasons, they tend to have more Sleepwalking episodes than older people.
Some research suggests that the highest prevalence of sleepwalking occurs in children of 11 to 12 years of age, and affects 16% of children in this age group.
Boys are more likely to sleepwalk than girls.

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