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Constant drowsiness can be completely harmless in nature or be a symptom of serious disorders in the body. It is the irresistible desire to lie down after school hours that indicates the inhibition of brain cells and disruption of the central nervous system. In medicine, this condition is called hypersomnia.
Almost everyone has had moments when they wanted to take a nap at work or lie down on the weekend. If such a desire arises infrequently and, as a rule, after a restless night, there is nothing to worry about. But excessive drowsiness, accompanied by a constant breakdown, irritability and decreased performance can be dangerous.
Disease or normal?
What does drowsiness mean? This term is understood as a feeling of lethargy, dullness of perception, lethargy, a desire to take a nap during the day or just lie down and do nothing.
For a healthy person, the norm is activity during daylight hours, a cheerful and positive attitude, and a good mood. On average, it is enough for him to sleep 8 hours to fully work and feel great. The drowsiness that occurs during the day is called physiological and only indicates that the brain needs rest.
But it also happens that the desire to lie down becomes obsessive. Drowsiness occurs at any time and does not depend on the quality of the night’s rest. If during the day you constantly want to sleep, apathy and lethargy appear, efficiency has decreased, you should be wary. This condition indicates serious disorders in the body and requires a visit to a doctor.
Physiological causes
Constant drowsiness and fatigue can be caused by completely harmless reasons, including a violation of the daily regimen, malnutrition, and overwork. To restore good health and vivacity, a person just needs to relax and get distracted from problems.
natural factors
High air temperature, rainy and cloudy weather, short daylight hours can cause weakness and drowsiness. It has been noticed that in autumn and winter you want to sleep much more than in spring or summer. Lack of sunlight slows down metabolism, dulls consciousness, depresses the psyche and inhibits the production of cholecalciferol – one of the vitamins of activity and vigor.
The desire to lie down often arises in a stuffy room or before a thunderstorm. In this case, drowsiness is associated with a lack of oxygen and a drop in atmospheric pressure.
meal
Weakness and drowsiness often become a constant companion of people who love to eat a lot. After a hearty meal, blood rushes to the stomach, as a priority organ in this case, and the brain experiences oxygen starvation. To restore balance and saturate the bloodstream with air, a person begins to actively yawn. It is by this mechanism that drowsiness develops in those cases when we are bored, tired or lose interest in work. In each of these episodes, oxygen starvation of the brain occurs.
Constant lack of sleep
A banal lack of sleep can become the cause of drowsiness and fatigue. If you constantly go to bed after midnight, you will definitely want to take a nap during the day. Otherwise, a person will feel lethargic and exhausted, think slowly and turn off literally on the go.
Stress
If there is no strength at all, he constantly pulls to sleep and everything falls out of his hands – it may be a matter of nervous overexertion. The problem begins with a regular release of adrenaline, which causes overexcitation and insomnia. But over time, the adrenal glands deplete the reserves of the hormone and there comes a period of decline in strength, lethargy and drowsiness.
Medicines
Another reason for pulling to sleep constantly is the use of sedatives and psychotropic drugs. They cause not only drowsiness, but also a decrease in attention, deterioration of vision and hearing, dry mouth, slow reactions, imbalance. Such medicines should be used very carefully and only as prescribed by a doctor.
Drowsiness while taking can be provoked by the following medications:
- antihistamines – Suprastin, Fenistil, Diphenhydramine, Clemastine, Diprazine;
- drugs for motion sickness – Dramina, Aeron, Diazepam;
- narcotic analgesics – Morphine, Promedol, Nalbuphine.
If a patient suffering from drowsiness begins to take such drugs, their side effect will increase many times over. Therefore, before taking any medication, you need to carefully read the instructions and warn the doctor about your craving for sleep.
Pathological causes
If a person, despite proper rest, proper nutrition and optimal living conditions, still feels constant drowsiness, fatigue and apathy, one should think about the pathological causes of the condition. A similar symptom can be observed in various diseases, so it should be considered only in conjunction with other signs of pathology.
Hypotension
Constantly want to sleep, do not have enough strength to get out of bed and nothing in life makes you happy? Possibly low blood pressure. With long-term hypotension, the brain suffers from malnutrition and temporary ischemia. In addition to drowsiness, the pathological condition is accompanied by apathy, fatigue, dizziness, nausea.
Anemia
One of the signs of anemia is a constant desire to lie down. A decrease in the amount of hemoglobin disrupts the transport of oxygen to the brain tissues, causing hypoxia. In an acute condition, a person is very tired and wants to sleep, suffers from dizziness and perversion of appetite. The condition of hair and nails noticeably worsens, the skin becomes dry and acquires a waxy pallor.
Atherosclerosis of cerebral vessels
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Constantly pulls to lie down and with chronic cerebrovascular accident. A person suffers from drowsiness during the day, and in the evenings suffers from headaches and severe fatigue. Other symptoms of cerebral atherosclerosis include:
- noise in ears;
- unsteady gait;
- deterioration of attention and memory, decreased reaction.
If the sleepy state does not leave during the whole day, there are signs of oppression of the respiratory center and speech impairment – an ischemic stroke may develop.
Idiopathic hypersomnia
One of the severe conditions of the body, in which a person cannot sleep, is idiopathic hypersomnia. The feeling of drowsiness literally haunts the patient, he falls asleep at the slightest opportunity at work and at home, wakes up hard, showing aggression towards those who are trying to wake him up. In such patients, the quality of life deteriorates, professional skills weaken.
Narcolepsy is considered to be a variant of pathological hypersomnia. With this disease, a person is able to fall asleep anywhere and anytime. Sleep lasts a few minutes and passes as easily as it comes.
Endocrine Causes
A constant feeling of fatigue and drowsiness is typical for patients with dysfunction of the endocrine glands. With hypothyroidism, in addition to the desire to relax, there is an impoverishment of emotions, a person loses interest in life and loses some of his cognitive abilities.
There is absolutely no energy and strength in people with hypocorticism. This malaise leads to constant drowsiness, a drop in blood pressure, a decrease in body weight, and a violation of the stool. Patients complain of severe weakness, bad mood, low self-esteem and inability to have fun.
Diabetes mellitus is manifested by increased fatigue and drowsiness. Fluctuations in blood glucose can lead to ketoacidosis, which causes a constant desire to lie down during the daytime. Other symptoms of diabetes: increased thirst, dizziness, lethargy, itchy skin.
Apnea
Constant drowsiness often acts as a sign of sleep apnea. Respiratory failure causes cerebral hypoxia, intermittent and restless sleep. As a result, a person does not get enough sleep, becomes irritable, gets tired quickly and tries to compensate for lack of sleep with a minute of rest during the day.
Causes of constant sleepiness in women
The causes of exhausting fatigue in women are most often hidden in the development of vegetovascular dystonia. This disease is functional, it is based on numerous violations of neuroendocrine regulation. Symptoms from the nervous system come to the fore in case of a disorder of neurocirculatory functions:
- lowering blood pressure;
- dizziness;
- drowsiness;
- lethargy;
- irritability.
In addition to apathy and fatigue, girls complain of interruptions in heart rate, cold hands and feet, chilliness, sweating.
Another cause of fatigue and drowsiness in women can be hormonal failure. Hypersomnia is a common symptom of conditions such as PMS and menopause.
Dysfunction of the hormonal status causes:
- anxiety;
- prostration;
- tearfulness, frequent mood swings;
- sweating, chills, hot flashes;
- prone to tantrums;
- decrease in performance.
Women in this state are in constant tension, feel tired and drowsy, lose interest in life. The fair sex, who have crossed the 40-year milestone, may experience pain in the joints and muscles.
Other causes of constant sleepiness in women:
- Pregnancy. Especially often, an irresistible desire to take a nap occurs in the last trimester, when the body is preparing for childbirth and there is a natural inhibition of brain activity by placental hormones.
- Frequent diets. One-sided nutrition without vitamins weakens the body, depletes vitality, impoverishes blood flow and impairs brain trophism.
- Overwork. Problems at work, taking care of household, cooking, washing and cleaning – all this sooner or later causes chronic fatigue with accompanying drowsiness.
The desire to sleep arises with all sorts of abuses. The body of a woman is designed in such a way that smoking and drinking alcohol very adversely affect the activity of brain cells and the whole organism as a whole. Slowdown of metabolic processes, drowsiness, fatigue, lack of energy – these are just a few of the symptoms that can occur against the background of intoxication of the body with toxic substances.
What to do if you constantly want to sleep?
If drowsiness is caused by an illness, then it naturally needs to be treated. To do this, you need to consult a doctor, undergo a medical examination and start taking medication. It is useless to prescribe symptomatic medicines without finding out the cause.
If physiological factors have become the cause of constant fatigue, the following recommendations will help:
- Establish a daily routine, go to bed no later than 23.00, equip a sleeping place, turn off all the lamps.
- In the morning, a light charge and a tasty, but not too plentiful breakfast will give you a boost of energy.
- In the middle of the working day, drowsiness will be relieved by airing the room, a short walk, switching to another activity.
- Exercise is good for chronic fatigue. Running, Nordic walking, swimming, fitness – these sports will quickly restore good mood and strength, help save you from stress and reduce the symptoms of VVD.
What else can you do when you constantly want to sleep and are tormented by fatigue? Pharmacologists offer to solve the problem with the help of medicines and draw the attention of patients to one of the latest developments in pharmaceuticals – the drug Modafinil. Having a stimulating effect on the brain, the drug quickly relieves drowsiness without causing insomnia and overexcitation, helps to cope with depression and overwork.
Suffering from constant drowsiness, we are paying for the modern way of existence. The frantic rhythm of life, exorbitant speeds, a huge amount of information that needs to be remembered and processed – all this not only causes chronic overwork, but also leads to sleep disturbance, the consequence of which is daytime sleepiness.
Useful video about the causes of drowsiness
List of sources:
- Pathology of the brain and the structure of nocturnal sleep. Symposium materials. “Mechanisms of sleep” / Wayne A.M. // L.: Nauka, 2001.
- Hypersomnia. Clinic, diagnosis, treatment. Tutorial / Zakharov A., Khivintseva E., Poverennova I // Forum, 2017.
- Fundamentals of somnology. Physiology and neurochemistry of the wakefulness-sleep cycle / Kovalzon V.M. // M.: “Binom. Knowledge Laboratory, 2011.
- Behavior and self-regulation of a person under stress / Marishchuk V. L., Evdokimov V. I. // St. Petersburg, 2001.
- Psychophysiology: A textbook for universities // Yu. I. Alexandrov // St. Petersburg, 2006.
- Textbook for doctors. Diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders in the practice of a therapist / R.V. Buzunov // Medicine, 2009.
Author: Elena Medvedeva, doctor,
Source :mama66.ru
