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night terror

A night terror, also known as sleep terror or pavor nocturnus, is a parasomnia sleep disorder characterized by extreme terror and a temporary inability to regain full consciousness. The sufferer wakes abruptly from the fourth stage of sleep, with waking usually accompanied by gasping, moaning, or screaming. It is often impossible to fully awaken the person, and after the episode the victim normally settles back to sleep without waking.

Night terrors are distinct from nightmares in several key ways. First, the person is not fully awake when roused, and even when efforts are made to awaken the sleeper, they may continue to experience the night terror for over 10 or 20 minutes. Unlike nightmares, night terrors occur during the deepest levels of non-REM sleep. Furthermore even if awakened the victim can often not remember the episode except for a sense of panic, while nightmares are easily recalled.

Children from age four to six are most prone to night terrors, and they affect about three percent of all youngsters. Episodes may recur for a couple of weeks then suddenly disappear. They usually occur during the first couple of hours of sleep. Strong evidence has shown that a predisposition to night terrors can be passed genetically. Though there are a multitude of triggers, emotional stress during the previous day is thought to precipitate most episodes. Ensuring that the right amount of sleep is gained also seems to be important.

The consensus for treating night terror episodes is three-pronged: gentleness, disposal of anything nearby that might hurt the victim, and avoiding loud voices or movements that might frighten the victim further. Night terrors are so transitory that medical help is often unnecessary, but options may range from treatment of sleep apnea to prescription of benzodiazepines and psychotherapy.

External link

- Night Terror Resource Center
- eMedicine Health: Night Terrors

Category:Parasomnia

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "night terror".

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night
:This article describes the time of day. For the work by Elie Wiesel, see Night (book).

Night is the time when a location is facing away from the Sun, and thus dark. On Earth, it is night on just under half the planet at any time. (The atmosphere refracts sunlight in such a way that some of it reaches the ground even when the Sun is below the horizon.) When it is night on one side of the planet, it is day on the other side. Because of the rotation of Earth about its axis, it is alternately day and night, which together form a 24-hour day. The nights are shorter in summer and longer in winter. At the fall and spring equinoxes, the day and night are the same length (a 1:1 ratio of day to night). The summer and winter solstices mark the shortest night and the longest night, respectively.

The closer a location is to the North or South Pole, the larger the range of variation in the night's length. For example, in locations near the poles, equinoxes still occur with a day and night of equal length. However, after an equinox, the ratio of night to day changes more rapidly than in locations between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. In the Northern Hemisphere, Denmark has shorter nights in June than India has. In the Southern Hemisphere, Antarctica has longer nights in June than Chile has. The Northern and Southern Hemispheres of the world experience the same patterns of night length depending on their latitude, but the cycles are 6 months apart so that one hemisphere experiences long nights (winter) while the other experiences short nights (summer).

Near the poles there is every year a summer period in which it is day only, a winter period in which it is night only, and the rest of the year one day and night every 24 hours.

Throughout most of history, night was primarily a time of rest, because little work can be done in the dark. As artificial lighting has improved, night-time activity has increased and become a significant part of the economy in many places.

Even without artificial light, moonlight sometimes makes it possible to travel or work outdoors at night.

Night is often associated with danger, because bandits and dangerous animals can be concealed by darkness. The belief in magic often includes the idea that magic, or magicians, are more powerful at night. Similarly, vampires and werewolves are thought to be more active at night.

See also day, nocturnal, Olbers' paradox

Homonym knight

da:Nat (tidsrum)
de:Nacht
fi:Yö
fr:Nuit
it:Notte (astronomia)

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "night".