Sleep Deprivation and ADHD

       The ability to sleep is a crucial part in all of our lives. This naturally recurring state is essential in our life since it affects our health both physically and mentally. An unhealthy sleeping pattern or just having not enough sleep for one day can affect the brain drastically. For istance, most people have experienced a day in which they did not have enough sleep and they have felt fatigued, clumsy, or unable to pay attention. This condition is also known as sleep deprivation and has been linked to mental illnesses such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, most commonly known as ADHD. ADHD is one of the most common mental illnesses that can develop during childhood and it can be associated with sleep. From this relationship,children diagnosed with ADHD may have been misdiagnosed and that in fact the real problem the child may have is a sleep disorder.

       

In the article Attention Problems May be Sleep Related by Kate Murphy, she explains that when diagnosing ADHD one should first rule out sleep issues and disorders first. This should be done during the diagnoses of ADHD because symptoms of both sleep deprivation and ADHD are very similar. In adults, sleep deprivation causes symptoms of drowsiness and sluggishness. However, children with sleep deprivation show different symptoms such as becomings wired, moody, unable to sit still and focusing. These symptoms resemble symptoms of ADHD and this can cause frequent confusion in diagnosing a child since one might not think sleep deprivation can cause these almost identical symptoms. This may account for a large number of children misdiagnosed with ADHD, and the drugs that are used to treat them may only make their problems worse.
In Daniel Bor's book, The Ravenous Brain, he states that "we spend about a third of each day and everyday semi-comatose in our beds, deliberately reducing consciousness"(Bor, 243). In Bor's book he explains to us that sleeping occupies a huge portion of our life and a lack of it can cause negative effects to happen in our human body. He states that sleep deprivation can be very fatal and this was proven in an experiment on rats in which they underwent sleep deprivation for up to a month. In humans, sleep deprivation can cause us to begin to show transitory signs of a mental disorder, psychosis. In relation to ADHD, his book explains that there are obvious links between ADHD and sleep. For instance, Bor stated that this condition of ADHD is indeterminate and has a vague list of symptoms. This can cause an over diagnosis and overdose of a potentially dangerous addictive drug. He also says that these children with ADHD seem to have a shriveled working memory and this can be sourced back sleep, as a lack of sleep can indicate that the child's working memory is diminished. Both Murphy and Bor seem to have similar thoughts on the ADHD and its relations to sleep.

As said earlier, whenever diagnosing a child with ADHD, one should first look at their sleep history and to see if they have any sleeping disorders. Both Bor and Murphy talked about the importance of a child with who had sleep disordered breathing, also known as sleep apnea. Murphy stated that in a 'study that followed 11,000 British children for six years, the children whose sleep was affected by breathing problems such as snoring, mouth breathing, or apnea were 40 percent to 100 percent more likely than normal breathers to develop behavioral problems reassembling ADHD" (Murphy). This shows us that children with sleep apnea may have been misdiagnosed with ADHD and the treatment they are going through is for the wrong mental illness. In Bor's book he had similar findings in which children were more likely to possess the symptoms of ADHD if they had sleep apnea. This becomes tricky when trying to diagnose children with ADHD, because if the person who diagnosis the child looks past their sleep history and pattern they may cause more problems to arise in the future.
Having knowledge on the importance of sleep is vital in both your own health and others. A lack of sleep in both a child's and adult's body and mind can have a huge impact on them whether they know it or not. Aside from having negative impacts both physically mentally, factoring sleep into a diagnosis of ADHD should be included as it may be the real problem for the child. Sleep abnormalities should now be looked at as an important cause of mental illness rather than just another symptom. Parents should be educated about healthy sleep habits for both their child and themselves as it can only provide benefits. Sleeping is a huge part of our life and it allows our body and mind to reset and rest from all the outside stimulus that we go through everyday. We should start appreciating the importance and analyze on our own habits in hope to improve the bad ones.

 






Bor, Daniel. The Ravenous Brain: How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning. New York: Basic, 2012. Print.

Murphy, Kate. "In Blur of A.D.H.D., Sleep Troubles May Be a Culprit." The New York Times. N.p., 17 Apr. 2012. Web. 17 Oct. 2014. <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D01E5DA1430F934A25757C0A9649D8B63>.