Perhaps every person in his life has experienced periods of drowsiness. A person can sleep for 10, 12 or more hours without feeling satisfaction, remaining lethargic, feeling extremely low vitality. The situation is often accompanied by reduced working capacity, inability to concentrate.
Why does this happen, and what is the body trying to report about, constantly demanding rest? To answer these questions, you need to turn to medicine and consider the physiology of a person.
Causes of drowsiness
Quite often, the answers to questions lie at the very surface. So, a constant desire to sleep can be caused by lack of sleep, a violation of the usual sleep and wakefulness regime. If you slept poorly or little in recent days, the body will sooner or later begin to demand compensation in the form of a longer period of rest.
So, after working a five-day work week in the emergency mode, you can sleep through the weekend, and this will be completely normal. The body will need this period of time to recover, and then you can return to your usual way of life.
Interesting fact: during sleep, many recovery processes are activated in the body. Articular lubrication is renewed, the psyche is relieved, muscles are restored. These processes are extremely important, the body regularly requires a certain period of time for their implementation.
The situation can be aggravated by stress, apathy, and depression — a longer sleep is often required against their background. Stress can affect the body in two ways. In some cases, they cause insomnia, anxiety.And in others, on the contrary, they stimulate a prolonged sleep. When it comes to the second case, a person needs a certain self-motivation, a positive outlook on the world around him, in order to again want to live actively and stop his constant desire to sleep.
In case of illness, a person can also sleep for a long time. After all, the body needs additional energy to recover, and a few more hours to regenerate will definitely not be superfluous. Weather-sensitive people can also experience drowsiness. In the period of prolonged rains, on cloudy days, many want to sleep.
Interesting fact: It is likely that sleep in the rain is a habit inherited from distant ancestors. Indeed, in rainy times, large predators rarely hunt. It is difficult to deal with gathering, as well as hunting. It remains only to sleep, restore the body and save strength.
And it is also worth noting the sedative effect of certain drugs. Taking sedatives and some other drugs, a person may experience a constant desire to sleep. In this case, drowsiness will stop after taking a course of drugs.
Drowsiness as a dangerous symptom
However, do not assume that a constant desire to sleep is a minor symptom that can be ignored in any case. After all, sometimes it can indicate serious health problems. Feeling an attack of weakness, a desire to sleep and a headache, it is worth measuring the pressure. If it turns out to be low, we can talk about hypotension.
In addition, an obsessive desire to sleep causes oxygen deficiency.This is natural when a person is in a stuffy room - you need to ventilate a room or office. But in other cases, the symptom may indicate developing anemia. In the latter case, the human memory also suffers, it becomes literally inhibited - the brain lacks oxygen.
Lack of oxygen supply to the brain and, as a result, drowsiness also causes atherosclerosis. If the vessels accumulate plaques, blood supply is disturbed, causing headaches, drowsiness, memory problems, and more serious symptoms. A visit to a doctor is mandatory, because a stroke may also result.
Drowsiness is also caused by problems of the endocrine system. So, with hypothyroidism, the level of hormones in the blood drops, and fluid begins to accumulate in the area of the brain. A constant desire to sleep is one of the symptoms of this disease. Other hormonal disorders can also form both an obsessive desire to sleep, and insomnia.
I want to sleep with people with diabetes. The fact is that with the jumps of insulin, the small vessels of the brain, and even its cortex, are destroyed. The combination of these factors leads to sleep disturbances, drowsiness. And patients with oncology still sleep a lot because cancer litter the body with harmful substances, literally causing intoxication, and the body also needs a lot of energy to fight the disease. Exhaustion from illness also plays a role.
Speaking of intoxications, it is worth pointing out their role in the formation of an obsessive desire to relax. Harmful substances, including alcohol, cause problems in the blood supply to the brain, deprive it of oxygen, causing vasospasm. Acute infections also cause poisoning of the body by products produced by bacteria.From this, too, I want to sleep.
In addition, it is worth noting the numerous mental disorders that cause drowsiness. Even depression increases a person’s need for rest. There are diseases such as hypersomnia, for example. They are associated with a disturbance in the phases of sleep, and a person simply does not get enough sleep. And he needs more rest.
How to avoid drowsiness?
In some cases, the person himself understands perfectly well that he wants to sleep due to violations of the regime, lack of rest. If the reason is clear, it is necessary to exclude it and return to the normal routine.
So, for example, when changing time zones, you need to give the body some time to adapt. Feeling overwork, you need to allocate at least one extra hour to sleep. Someone will say that time is in short supply. However, many of us spend a lot of time pointlessly - watching TV shows, communicating with random people in social networks.
Sometimes it is necessary to take certain measures to normalize sleep. It happens that a person snores, interfering with his own sleep, or suffers from apnea - respiratory arrest in a dream. These ailments are removable, you just need to see a doctor. And it’s definitely worth a visit to the hospital if you cannot find the cause of the drowsiness, or if you find other suspicious symptoms.
Thus, there are many reasons that can stimulate drowsiness. Sometimes we are talking about a banal violation of the usual regime or processing. However, in other situations, the symptom may indicate serious health problems, requiring medical attention.
