What is Nocturnal Sleep Related Eating Disorder?

This sleep disorder can lead to issues such as increased weight gain and other associated medical conditions.

The similarity to Sleepwalking Disorder

As this disorder is really a subset of Sleepwalking Disorder as described by the International Classification of Sleep Disorders, I will include those criteria here.

My personal story

Sleepwalking is quite interesting and can be distressing, but mostly to the people around the sleepwalker. My son is a sleepwalker. He will wake up, have arguments with me, go to the bathroom (or just into it and not be sure what to do) or he'll come into my room and rarely try to go downstairs. The distressing part is really for me being a mom. It's hard to watch your child who is clearly distressed about something and yet there's nothing you can do for him. He doesn't listen to reason. He is belligerent. And sometimes, depending on what he was dreaming about, he becomes quite upset.

He will typically not settle down until he has fully woken up. It is quite difficult to wake him up when he's like this. But once he does, he settles down pretty quickly.

This is great actually. Since I'm looking at the diagnostic criteria for sleepwalkers, it actually looks like he should outgrow this by about 15. Maybe mom will get some sleep after only 15 years ... since we started with night terrors at 12mo. There isn't much sleeping that goes on in this house!! And hasn't been for the last 14 years!

Diagnostic Criteria

While the following criteria are not specifically for Nocturnal Sleep Related Eating Disorder, you can basically add in that the person who is sleepwalking is going to the kitchen for a "snack," rather than simply wandering around aimlessly.

1. Repeated episodes of rising from bed during sleep and walking about, usually occurring during the first third of the major sleep episode.
2. While sleepwalking, the person has a blank, staring face, is relatively unresponsive to the efforts of others to communicate with him or her, can can be awakened only with great difficulty.
3. On awakening (either from the sleepwalking episode or the next morning), the person has amnesia for the episode.
4. Within several minutes after awakening from the sleepwalking episode, there is no impairment of mental activity or behavior (although there may initially be a short period of confusion or disorientation).
5. The sleepwalking causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
6. The disturbance is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, a medication) or a general medical condition.

Remember, sleepwalking is different than Nocturnal Sleep Related Eating Disorder in that it doesn't include the component of eating during the night. But sleepwalking is a piece of Nocturnal Sleep Related Eating Disorder.

Go from Nocturnal Sleep Related Eating Disorder back to Types of Eating Disorders

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