Conditions & Treatments

Most adults need seven to eight hours of sleep each night. Yet according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly 30 percent of adults sleep less than six hours a night. Over time, inadequate sleep creates a “sleep debt,” which grows until your body demands sleep.

Sleep debt can cause you to feel sleepy, have difficulty concentrating or even cause you to fall asleep unintentionally during the day. And, people who don’t get enough sleep are more likely to have a serious medical condition such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity or depression.

You can develop sleep debt by simply going to bed too late or getting up too early, or when sleep routines are interrupted by shift work or jet lag. But, sometimes the culprit is a sleep disorder that keeps you up or interrupts your sleep repeatedly during the night.

The sleep experts at El Camino Health's Sleep Health Program can diagnose and treat a full range of sleep disorders, including:

• Insomnia – Temporary or long-term problems with falling asleep, staying asleep or both.
• Narcolepsy – A disorder that can cause difficulty staying asleep, excessive daytime sleepiness, sleep paralysis or cataplexy (a brief episode of muscle weakness).
• Parasomnias – Abnormal movements, behaviors, emotions, perceptions or dreams during sleep.
• Restless legs syndrome – A condition that causes unpleasant sensations in your legs and an irresistible urge to move them for relief, which disrupts sleep.
• Sleep apnea – A disorder in which breathing repeatedly stops during sleep, for a few seconds to a minute or longer.