After a trauma, people may have more arm and leg movements during sleep. This can make someone feel restless. Talking during sleep. After a trauma, people may talk more in their sleep.
Sleep talking is predominantly seen in individuals with mental health issues or conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety. Sleep talking can also be associated with nightmares, especially in children.
Alertness and hyperarousal related to the effects of the body's trauma response often contribute to the symptoms of insomnia. After a traumatic event, many people have difficulty falling asleep, wake up more often during the night, and have trouble falling back asleep.
Sleep talking, or somniloquy, is the act of speaking during sleep. It's a type of parasomnia -- an abnormal behavior that takes place during sleep. It's a very common occurrence and is not usually considered a medical problem.
Trauma survivors with and without posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) frequently report a variety of sleep disturbances, consisting of trauma-related nightmares, autonomic hyper-arousal, and excessive movements.
Intrusive memories
Recurrent, unwanted distressing memories of the traumatic event. Reliving the traumatic event as if it were happening again (flashbacks) Upsetting dreams or nightmares about the traumatic event. Severe emotional distress or physical reactions to something that reminds you of the traumatic event.
It is not dangerous to wake up a patient form sleepwalking, but experts who discourage it quote it is unsuccessful and leads to patient disorientation,” he says. “Try to ease them back to bed without making forceful attempts.
What Causes Sleep Talking? Sleep talking can be caused by depression, sleep deprivation, stress, fever, alcohol, and drugs. It is often a symptom of other sleep disorders such as sleep apnea, nightmares, and REM sleep behavior disorder. It can also be associated with both physical and mental illness.
Sexsomnia, also known as sleep sex, is a type of sleep disorder known as a parasomnia. Parasomnias refer to unusual sensations and behaviors, such as sleepwalking, that people may experience or exhibit while asleep, falling asleep, or waking up. In the case of sexsomnia, people engage in sexual behaviors.
When a person experiences a traumatic event, adrenaline rushes through the body and the memory is imprinted into the amygdala, which is part of the limbic system. The amygdala holds the emotional significance of the event, including the intensity and impulse of emotion.
This usually occurs in the lighter stages of Non-REM sleep (Stages 1 and 2) and usually sleepers have no memory of these vocalizations. The actual words or phrases have little to no truth, and usually occur when they are stressed, during times of fever, as a medication side effect or during disrupted sleep. '
For veterans, an example of a PTSD nightmare usually involves the replaying of traumatic events they witnessed or took part in. Similar to civilians who suffer from PTSD, their nightmares could be a replay of the traumatic event, such as physical abuse or violence.
The exact cause of nighttime groaning is unclear. Some experts hypothesize that the disorder is related to the neurons in the respiratory center of your brain. If these neurons are dysfunctional, they can trigger prolonged exhaling.
Is Sleep Talking Dangerous? In the majority of cases, sleep talking is harmless. It doesn't usually have a major effect on the person's sleep, and it normally doesn't occur frequently enough to cause any serious problems.
If people constantly talk in their sleep it could mean they're going through a hard time in life and this may be a subconscious way to reveal their struggles. Although sleepwalking is more prevalent in children, it happens to adults more than previously thought, according to Stanford University professors.
Depression and insomnia
We recognize insomnia as a risk factor for both depression and major depressive disorder. In fact, people with insomnia are twice as likely to develop depression as people who don't have sleep disorders.
Sleep issues commonly associated with depression include insomnia, hypersomnia, and obstructive sleep apnea. It is believed that about 20% of people with depression have obstructive sleep apnea and about 15% have hypersomnia.
What is Kleine-Levin syndrome? Kleine-Levin syndrome is a rare disorder that primarily affects teenage males. Approximately 70 percent of people living with Kleine-Levin syndrome are male. Symptoms include repeated but reversible periods of excessive sleep (up to 20 hours per day).
“According to the American Psychological Association, trauma is an emotional response to a terrible event. Trauma can occur once, or on multiple occasions and an individual can experience more than one type of trauma.” PTSD is the mental health disorder that is associated when someone experiences or witnesses a trauma.