7 sleep disorders that mess with your rest (and how to cope)
Clinically reviewed by Dr. Chris Mosunic, PhD, RD, MBA
From insomnia to sleep apnea, explore the most common sleep disorders and their symptoms. Plus, learn supportive strategies to help you get better sleep... starting tonight.
It’s 2am. The room is dark, but you’re wide awake. Even though you’re exhausted, your mind is spiraling, and you keep checking the clock… which makes everything worse. Maybe you even start counting the hours until morning and realize that even if you fall asleep immediately, you still won’t get enough sleep to be fully functional the next day. Sound familiar? If so, you’re in good (and also tired) company.
Even though this experience can feel incredibly isolating, it’s actually very common. In fact, sleep disorders affect millions of people of all ages, backgrounds, and lifestyles. However, many of these people don’t even realize they have one.
If you find yourself slogging through every morning feeling unrested and frustrated, you might be dealing with an undiagnosed sleep disorder. Thankfully, there are ways to cope. Let’s explore.
What is a sleep disorder?
A sleep disorder isn’t just a string of bad nights. It’s a chronic condition that disrupts your body’s natural ability to rest, recover, and function. There are many types of sleep disorders, and they can affect you in different ways. A sleep disorder can make it hard to fall asleep, cause you to wake up in the middle of the night, or or make it impossible for you to feel well-rested no matter how many hours of sleep you get. But one thing all sleep disorders have in common is that they never let your body and brain fully recharge.
Still, many sleep disorders are misdiagnosed or not diagnosed at all, leaving many people wondering why they can’t get a decent night's sleep. You could be trying all sorts of tricks—drinking chamomile tea or spraying your pillow with lavender, for example—but if you’re struggling with a sleep disorder, you’ll likely find yourself still staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night no matter what.
Making matters worse, if sleep disorders are misdiagnosed or left untreated for too long, they can not only affect your daily functioning, but also increase your risk of long-term health conditions.
Read more: How to not be tired all the time: 10 ways to fix fatigue, fast
How sleep disorders can impact your health
Without enough deep, restorative sleep, you might find your mood dipping, or have difficulty concentrating. But that’s just the beginning. Over time, untreated sleep disorders can raise your risk of other serious health issues. Here are some of them:
Heart disease and high blood pressure: The constant disruption in sleep could affect the way your heart functions.
Type 2 diabetes: Not getting enough sleep can affect how your body regulates blood sugar.
Depression and anxiety: Poor sleep can make you cranky, and even lead to depression and anxiety.
Weakened immune function: Sleep is crucial for a healthy immune system, and a lack of it can make you more prone to getting sick.
Memory problems and concentration issues: Regular sleep disturbances don’t allow your brain to fully reboot, leading to poor concentration and memory.
Weight gain: A lack of sleep can cause hormonal shifts that boost appetite and cravings.
What causes sleep disorders?
There’s rarely a single cause behind a sleep disorder. For some, mental health factors like stress and anxiety, low mood, and depression are contributing factors, and for others, physical issues like chronic pain play a role.
In addition, sleep disorders can also occur in people who are dealing with medical conditions like asthma, acid reflux, arthritis, or menopause. Genetics and aging can also come into play.
Certain medications and recreational substances like alcohol and tobacco can also cause sleep disorders, as can lifestyle choices like an irregular sleep schedule, or a less than ideal sleep environment.
The 7 most common sleep disorders and their symptoms
While sleep disorders can show up in the body in a number of ways, there are seven that are the most common. Symptoms can vary, but they usually fall under specific categories, such as difficulty falling or staying asleep.
1. Insomnia
What it is: Persistent trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or waking up too early and not being able to fall back asleep
Symptoms: Difficulty sleeping at least three nights a week, fatigue, low mood, brain fog, irritability, and a growing anxiety around sleep itself
Read more: Insomnia: what causes it, symptoms & how to prevent insomnia
2. Sleep apnea
What it is: A condition where breathing repeatedly stops and starts during sleep due to airway blockage (obstructive) or brain signaling issues (central)
Symptoms: Loud snoring, choking or gasping during sleep, waking up with a dry mouth or headache, and extreme tiredness during the day, even after sleeping the night
Read more: How self-care can help you manage sleep apnea
3. Restless legs syndrome (RLS)
What it is: A neurological condition that creates uncomfortable sensations in the legs (and sometimes arms), especially in the evening or at night
Symptoms: Tingling, itching, or throbbing sensations, an urge to move the legs to find relief, disrupted sleep and exhaustion during the day
4. Narcolepsy
What it is: A chronic neurological disorder that affects your brain’s ability to regulate sleep-wake cycles
Symptoms: Sudden, uncontrollable sleep episodes during the day, muscle weakness triggered by emotion (cataplexy), hallucinations, sleep paralysis, and disrupted nighttime sleep
5. Circadian rhythm disorders
What it is: A group of disorders where your sleep-wake cycle is misaligned with social or environmental cues, due to things like shift work, delayed sleep phase, or a non-24-hour sleep-wake disorder
Symptoms: Insomnia, daytime sleepiness, difficulty waking up, and mood or cognitive changes
6. REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD)
What it is: A disorder where the normal paralysis that occurs during REM sleep is absent, allowing you to physically act out vivid, often intense dreams
Symptoms: Sudden movements during sleep, vocal sounds (yelling, laughing, crying), injuring yourself or your bed partner, and frequent awakenings
7. Parasomnias (like night terrors and sleepwalking)
What it is: A group of disorders involving abnormal behaviors during sleep transitions, including sleepwalking, night terrors, or confusional arousals
Symptoms: Involuntary movements, screaming or panic, disorientation upon waking, and little to no memory of the events
How to get better sleep: 10 practical ways to target a sleep disorder
While each of these tips may not work for everyone, there are real, practical ways to support your sleep, even when you think all hope is lost. And don’t feel like you need to do all of them all the time, either. Instead of perfection, focus on creating little pockets of consistency, safety, and support to help your body remember how to rest again.
1. Stop chasing the perfect night’s sleep
You don’t need eight hours of unbroken sleep, so instead of trying to do something that’s impossible for you, aim for better: better consistency, better rituals, and better support. Small steps go a long way, and even just trying can help you fall asleep faster.
2. Create a bedroom sanctuary
Your brain picks up on signals, so you should make sure your bed isn’t used for tasks other than sleep, such as doomscrolling or working. A few other tips for good sleep hygiene include dimming the lights 30-60 minutes before bed, keeping your bedroom cool (around 65°F or 18°C), and making sure it’s dark enough for sleep. Blackout curtains, white noise machines, and eye masks all can help too. (Here are six tips you need to create the best sleep environment.)
3. Create a simple wind-down routine
Have a ritual that tells your body you’re ready to drift off. While there are several options you can try, the most common ones include taking a warm bath or shower, stretching lightly, using breathwork techniques like the 4-7-8 breathing, or listening to a guided meditation.
💙 Practice Drifting Off with Gratitude with Tamara Levitt.
4. Regulate your wake time as opposed to your bed time
It doesn’t matter if you’re going to bed at the same time every night if you’re just lying there, awake. Instead, try to anchor your circadian rhythm—your body’s internal clock—by waking up at the same time every day (including weekends). This can help your body learn when to feel sleepy too.
To do this, pick a 90-minute window for waking up and try to stick with it. If your body isn’t ready for 6:30am, 7-8am can still be a win.
5. Get sunlight early in the day
Morning light (especially within 1-2 hours of waking) helps reset your sleep-wake cycle and boosts daytime energy, making it easier to fall asleep at night. Aim for 10-30 minutes of sunlight each morning.
6. Rethink naps
If you’re dealing with a sleep disorder, napping might feel great, but it can also increase exhaustion and sabotage your nighttime sleep. If you absolutely need a nap, aim for one before 3pm or so, and make sure it isn’t more than 30 minutes long. If you have insomnia, skipping naps might help you build enough sleep pressure to fall asleep at night (even if you’re exhausted). Curious to try a coffee nap? Explore the science, benefits, and how to do it.
7. Watch your alcohol and caffeine consumption
Some common sleep disruptors could be affecting your rest without you even realizing it. Caffeine has a half-life of 5-6 hours, which means that coffee you had at 3pm might still be in your system at night. Did you have wine with dinner? Alcohol may disrupt REM sleep, causing you to wake up more often in the middle of the night, and heavy meals and spices can cause acid reflux, leading to restless sleep. Avoid them when you can.
8. Get out of bed if you can’t sleep
Tossing and turning only reinforces anxiety around sleep, so if you’ve been awake for more than 30 minutes, it’s okay to get up. Try doing something quiet and non-stimulating, like reading a familiar book, listening to a Sleep Story, or folding laundry.
Keep the lights low, avoid screens, and return to bed only when you think you feel tired again. This might seem counterintuitive, but it helps rewire your brain to associate your bed with rest instead of frustration.
💙Listen to Dream With Me with Harry Styles the next time you need to fall back to sleep.
9. Use mindfulness to lower your sleep anxiety
Mindfulness can help interrupt the spiral that comes when it’s time to go to bed, especially if you worry a lot.
Try:
Labeling your thoughts without judgment
Using body scans to bring attention back to the body
Breathing exercises to calm your body down
Sleep often follows when you stop pressuring yourself to do so.
💙Discover how to Unwind Into Sleep with Chibs Okereke.
10. Talk to a professional
Sleep disorders are medical conditions and they deserve medical attention. A sleep specialist, neurologist, or psychologist trained in CBT-I (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia) can help you figure out which sleep disorder you might have, and find effective ways to start curing it.
Sleep disorders FAQs
What are the health risks of sleep disorders?
Sleep disorders aren’t just annoying or inconvenient. They can impact your physical and mental health over time. Chronically poor sleep has been linked to heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, and type 2 diabetes. It can also weaken your immune system, making you more prone to getting sick.
On a cognitive and emotional level, sleep disorders are strongly associated with anxiety, depression, mood swings, memory problems, and reduced ability to cope with stress. Your body and brain both need quality sleep to function well, so when it’s missing, it can cause a ripple effect that touches nearly every area of your life.
How are sleep disorders diagnosed?
In order to diagnose a sleep disorder, a healthcare provider or sleep specialist will ask about your sleep patterns, daily habits, physical and mental health history, and symptoms. You might be asked to keep a sleep diary for a couple of weeks.
Depending on your symptoms, they may recommend a sleep study (also called a polysomnography), which tracks brain activity, breathing, heart rate, and movement during sleep. In some cases, blood tests or additional assessments may help rule out other conditions.
Can sleep disorders go away on their own?
Some mild sleep disturbances can improve on their own with lifestyle changes, especially if they’re triggered by temporary stress, travel, or life transitions. However, persistent or severe sleep disorders typically don’t resolve without some level of support.
Conditions like sleep apnea, narcolepsy, or REM sleep behavior disorder often require ongoing management, and insomnia often needs certain tools like cognitive behavioral therapy or sleep hygiene shifts to resolve itself. If you’ve been struggling with your sleep for more than a few weeks, it’s worth getting help. After all, sleep isn’t a luxury. It’s essential.
What are the five major sleep disorders?
The five most widely recognized major sleep disorders are insomnia, sleep apnea, narcolepsy, restless legs syndrome (or RLS), and REM sleep behavior disorder.
These conditions all have different symptoms, but they all disrupt your ability to get the sleep you need to feel your best.
What’s the difference between being tired and having a sleep disorder?
Everyone feels tired sometimes, but sleep disorders go deeper than that. If you’re always exhausted, even after what should be a full night’s sleep, or if you struggle to sleep despite being exhausted, that could signal a disorder.
The key difference is consistency and impact. A bad night here or there is normal, but if poor sleep is affecting your work, relationships, memory, mood, or ability to function, it’s a sign your body isn’t getting the rest it needs.
How can mindfulness or meditation help with sleep?
Mindfulness can help you shift your nervous system from fight or flight to rest and digest — the physiological state where sleep becomes possible. In addition, regular mindfulness or meditation practices have been linked to lower cortisol, slower heart rate, and fewer spirals, all of which can make it easier to fall and stay asleep.
Over time, mindfulness also builds awareness of your thoughts, so you’re cognizant of your anxiety spirals and can snap out of them much faster.
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