Watch Out For Lifestyle Diseases

It began subtly. Anil Kumar, a 42-year-old chartered accountant from Kochi, found himself waking up at 2 a.m. most nights, unable to fall back asleep.

- UNNIKRISHNAN S @T'Puram

At first, he thought it was due to work stress. He tried herbal teas, switched off his gadgets early, and even started using over-the-counter sleep aids. But what began as an occasional annoyance turned into a nightly battle. He would wake up groggy, mentally foggy, and his productivity would plummet. His wife noticed that he snored loudly and, alarmingly, sometimes seemed to stop breathing during sleep.

The final jolt came when Anil briefly nodded off behind the wheel and was jolted awake only when his car grazed the highway divider. It was this scare that finally pushed him to seek medical help.

Anil's story is not rare. His case mirrors what many experts now recognize as an escalating epidemic of sleep disorders across India. Specialists believe these disorders are vastly underdiagnosed, often dismissed as lifestyle quirks or treated superficially. "Sleep is an essential component of health, just like food and exercise. We spend one-third of our lives asleep," says Dr. Sapna Erat Sreedharan, professor of neurology at Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST), Thiruvananthapuram.

"What many people don't realize is that sleep isn't a passive state—your brain is incredibly active during this time. It's when it clears out toxins, consolidates memories, and fine-tunes physiological processes."

Understanding sleep disorders

Sleep disorders are typically classified into seven broad categories. These include insomnia, sleep-related breathing disorders like obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), central disorders of hypersomnolence such as narcolepsy, circadian rhythm disorders, parasomnias like night terrors and sleepwalking, sleep-related movement disorders such as restless legs syndrome, and sleep disturbances that occur as a consequence of neurological or psychiatric illnesses. Among these, insomnia and sleep apnea top the list in terms of frequency and impact.