If you are one of the people who have problems with “sleeping on tap”, you might want to know what circadian cycle disorders are.

The importance of a good night’s sleep to our health has long been known. However, the moment when we enter a state of sleep is not decided by us: it is a matter of the so-called circadian rhythms , which are the oscillations in the biological functions of our body that regulate the intervals in which we sleep and in which we are awake. Alterations in these oscillations can lead to circadian rhythm disorders, which have a very negative impact on our quality of life, so it is worth knowing what mechanisms are behind them.

But first, we have to understand well the concept of homeostasis .

What is homeostasis?

The rhythm of sleep obeys a property called homeostasis, which is the way in which organisms try to maintain the biochemical balance between all its parts so that the whole works well . One way to easily understand what homeostasis is is to think about what happens when we run: at first, the body extracts the energy needed to keep the muscles working by “burning” the sugar that is available in the blood, but after a few minutes this begins to be scarce, so, in order not to fall into an imbalance, our body begins to use the stored fat as fuel.

The same is true for the circadian rhythm, which also works based on a logic of balances of homeostasis. If we have slept a lot the night before, that day we won’t be sleepy until after 12 o’clock at night, but if we haven’t slept at all we will want to go to sleep shortly after dinner.

What are circadian rhythm disorders?

Of course, the schedules that people devote to sleep are not created spontaneously independently of the body’s environment; it is adapted so that wakefulness tends to coincide with the hours when there is more light, and sleep occurs during the night. Therefore, the simple fact of keeping our eyes close to a source of artificial light just before going to sleep delays the onset of sleep.

Since the time we spend sleeping is regulated in a homeostatic way, it is not a problem if our schedules are affected by anomalies: during the following hours, this “lag” is regulated and returns to normal . But if the jet lag in our sleeping hours is maintained for a long time, then we are talking about a circadian rhythm disorder.

Symptoms of circadian rhythm disorders

Circadian rhythm disorders appear when there is a gap between the times when we are sleepy (or not) and the periods of appearance of day and night, which also correspond to the socially agreed schedules.

Thus, a person with circadian rhythm disorders may sleep well, but will do so when they “don’t touch” . The consequences of this usually lead to a lack of sleep in the early hours of the morning and, at the same time, to the appearance of sleepiness during the day. The latter are the two basic symptoms of these disorders, and at the same time they shape the types of disorders of the circadian cycle.

On the one hand, there is the disorder in which the sleep schedule is advanced, arriving early at the time when the desire to sleep appears and in which one wakes up. Another type of circadian cycle disorder is one in which sleep is delayed, so that you are unable to sleep until the early hours of the morning and experience lack of sleep if work or study schedules force you to wake up in the morning. A third type would be a chaotic mix of the two previous types.

However, it should be noted that the diagnosis should be made by a specialist who offers personalized treatment .

Possible causes of these sleep disorders

Among the possible causes of circadian rhythm disorders are basically two:

1. Biological factors

These are structural or biochemical alterations in the parts of the brain that are involved in the regulation of sleep, such as the hypothalamus.

Factors linked to the interaction with the environment

These causes have to do with the environment and the people with whom the individual interacts . For example, starting to work in the night shifts of a warehouse can lead to problems in this respect, or getting used to using the mobile phone in bed and with the lights off.

Treatment of circadian rhythm disorders

The way to intervene in this spectrum of disorders is based on two actions: advancing or delaying the onset of sleep and advancing or delaying the time of awakening . This is usually achieved by the oral administration of melatonin, a substance that is also produced by the human body to regulate the circadian rhythm and whose presence at relatively high levels is linked to the appearance of sleep, and exposure to light, which serves to delay the appearance of sleep.

Both tools must be used in a sustained manner under professional supervision, and a single session is not enough, as the objective is to modify a habit that by definition is persistent .