Night Eating Syndrome

Night Eating Syndrome is a sleep disorder which is more common in women than males. It is among two eating disorders that are associated with sleep. The other is called sleep-related food disorder. Nocturnal eating syndrome and sleep-related food disorder are both parasomnias

Symptoms of Night Eating Syndrome include

• Little or no appetite for breakfast.
• Eating more food after dinner than during the meal.
• Eating more than half of daily food intake after dinner hour.
• Recurrent awakenings from sleep that requires eating to fall back asleep.

Those with nocturnal eating syndrome are completely awake and remember eating the food the following day. This syndrome is a combination of a sleeping disorder and an eating disorder. Insomnia is also a large factor in nocturnal eating syndrome. Treatment for this disorder is usually received from a mental health professional that specializes in people with eating disorders. Improving sleep hygiene may also help with this disorder.

Sleep-related eating disorder affects more women than males and is a variation of sleepwalking. During an episode of this sleeping disorder, a person will eat during partial arousal from a deep sleep. Frequently they will eat very unhealthy or weird foods that they more often than not wouldn't eat when awake.

For the duration of an episode of sleep-related eating disorder, individuals might eat frozen pizza, raw cookie dough, peanut butter on fish, and even dog and cat food sandwiches. Often they may be very careless and sloppy and may get burns or cuts while preparing the food.

It's exceptionally not easy to wake somebody during an episode and they have no memory of it in the morning. There does not appear to be a correlation to hunger during a sleep-related eating condition episode, regardless of whether the individual has eaten just previous to bed, an episode can still occur.

Although the reason for food related sleeping disorder is just not identified, several triggers have been discovered. Medications such as lithium, a mood stabilizer, and the benzodiazepine receptor zolpidem are two of these triggers. Individuals with mood and personality disorders or psychological problems for instance bulimia are at higher risk of developing one of these food related sleep problems. People experiencing other sleep disorders including insomnia, sleep apnea, periodic limb movement disorder or narcolepsy are also at higher risk

People with sleep-related eating disorder more often than not have a history of sleepwalking. For this reason, people suffering from this parasomnina are considered having more of a sleeping disorder then an eating disorder. Treatment with prescription medication can often be very effective. Antidepressants, dopimine agents, anticonvulsants and opiates are sometimes prescribed. Once sleepwalking is stopped so are the trips to the refrigerator.

Sleep eaters often are overweight because of the high caloric intake at night. The excess weight often leads to other sleep disorders such as obstructive sleep apnea. Seeking treatment, either from your medical or mental health professional is important for good health in the treatment of sleep eating disorders.

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