According to a recent analysis of patients seen at Cleveland Clinic’s ReCOver Clinic, 40% of individuals with extended COVID-19 report moderate to severe sleep problems.
The study examined the sleeping habits of 962 individuals with a lengthy COVID-19 between February 2021 and April 2022. It was released on Tuesday in the Journal of Internal Medicine.
COVID-19 Patients Encounter Sleep Disturbances
Approximately 41.3% of the patients reported moderate to severe sleep abnormalities, while 58% of the patients reported normal to mild disturbances. Compared to other races, black patients were up to three times as likely to experience these problems.
Moreover, 21.8% of patients reported severe exhaustion, while 67.2% of patients reported moderate to severe fatigue. According to the report’s senior author, Dr. Reena Mehra, M.D., director of Sleep Disorders Research at Cleveland Clinic and senior author, “There is an unmet need to understand the neurobiological mechanisms or pathways behind the association of sleep disturbances with long COVID-19 and, per our findings, investigate the reasons for the increased vulnerability of PASC-related sleep disturbance in the Black population in order to develop racial-specific interventions to reduce disparities.”
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Stick To Your Best Sleep Hygiene
The authors also emphasized that those with more severe anxiety were more likely to experience sleep problems. Physicians have seen a pattern: people with lengthy COVID-19 struggle to sleep, and sleeplessness is frequently linked to pain and is difficult to treat.
The ability of our body to govern heart rate and blood pressure is called autonomic function, and it can be affected by pain, autonomic imbalance, and disability, according to neurologist Dr. Emmanuel While. It may result in palpitations and night sweats.
The pandemic has taken Americans of their beauty rest, even those who have long COVID-19. A third of respondents to a study conducted in 2022 claimed to have had sleep difficulties ever since COVID-19 started. This is a decrease from the “COVID-somnia” phenomenon, which occurred at 56% the year prior.
It’s imperative, according to doctors, to maintain good sleep hygiene. We should all set regular bedtimes and refrain from using screens after midnight in the hopes that we will all receive the rest we need to stay healthy when the pandemic fades. Many health conditions, including depression, obesity, and cognitive impairment, have been related to chronic insomnia.
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