What can cause sleep disturbance?

Perhaps your sleep disturbance is actually caused by another member of your household. Are you losing sleep over your husband's snoring? Do you wake up with bruised shins because your spouse kicks while asleep? Do your sleep patterns differ from those of your bedmate, turning the joy of sharing a bed into a headache?

Or perhaps you are the concerned parent of a child who wakes for any number of reasons during the night, or you are responsible for the care of an aging parent with sleep problems. There are sections of this book of special interest to you.

Without knowing it, you may be at risk from one of the more serious consequences of sleep disorders. Snoring, for example, may seem harmless, if annoying. But in severe cases it is a form of disrupted breathing that can cause high blood pressure, heart failure, even death. And the inability to sleep may be a symptom of other serious problems, including depression or other mental disorders. Such problems demand medical attention.

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