The Deep Sleep of a Bedwetter
Bedwetting Is a Sleep Disorder Symptom
Chronic bedwetting is classified as a parasomnia, which Johns Hopkins refers to as a deep-sleep disorder causing abnormal behavior in the night. This same sleep disorder causes sleep talking, sleepwalking, sleep paralysis, night terrors, and bruxism.
Because our center relies on clinical data and anecdotal experience, which proves that the only effective and permanent treatment for bedwetting is to correct the disordered pattern of sleep, we’ve been able to provide help and healing to families worldwide for 50 years.
Not only do we end bedwetting by establishing a productive sleep pattern, we’re also contributing to our patients’ overall daily functioning and well-being. Productive normal sleep every night and a dry bed every morning will do that. Read on for the extensive science behind what we do. If you’re not into science, then scroll on down.
Dr. Broughton’s Study Paved the Way for Bedwetting Treatment
We’ve centered our program on Dr. Roger Broughton’s groundbreaking sleep study. His research has been focused on the dissociations between wakefulness and sleep. Imagine talking to someone who is fast asleep but responds as if awake, and after being awakened, has no recollection of the conversation. This is what it’s like for bedwetters.
As a result of his study, Dr. Broughton shows the difference between the normal sleep pattern and that of a bedwetter. In normal sleep, people fall slowly from Stage 1 (lightest sleep) into deeper stages, and then back to lighter stages where it’s easy to awaken. There’s continuous cycling throughout the night. Bedwetters, however, fall very quickly into deep sleep and stays there for long periods.
Dr. Broughton study is titled, “Sleep Disorders: Disorders of Arousal? Sleep Enuresis, Somnambulism, and Nightmares Occur in Confusional States of Arousal, Not in Dreaming Sleep.” You can view his abstract here.
Comparing Sleep Patterns: Normal vs Bedwetter
- Sleep is a natural state of rest for the mind and body. A third of your life is spent sleeping. In fact, sleep is not a passive state. A lot goes on in your body during sleep, and your brain organizes and solidifies learning and memory which improves your concentration and promotes innovative and flexible thinking. Sleep strengthens your immune system and enables repair of your nervous system. A good night’s sleep relieves stress by quieting your nervous system and establishing a sense of well being. With bedwetting (or nocturnal enuresis), a person may sleep for 10 hours, yet only have the experience of seven or eight hours. That equates to a sleep deficit. which means bedwetters are not always receiving the necessities of sleep expressed above.
- Sleep begins in stages 1 and 2, (theta sleep) and then progresses to 3 and 4, (delta). After stage 4 sleep is complete, stage 3 and then stage 2 are repeated before entering REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, which is where we dream. Once REM sleep is over, the body usually returns to stage 2. We then cycle through these stages approximately four or five times throughout the night. During the last one or two cycles, there is no delta sleep at all.
- On average, we enter the REM stage approximately 90 minutes after falling asleep. The first cycle of REM sleep might last only a short amount of time, but each cycle becomes longer. REM sleep can last up to an hour as sleep progresses. Good quality sleep requires both non-REM and REM sleep in uninterrupted cycles.
- In most studies, sleep electroencephalograms have demonstrated no differences or only nonspecific changes in children with and without nocturnal enuresis. When surveyed, however, parents consistently maintain that their child with bedwetting is a “heavy and deep sleeper.” Other surveys have found that children with bedwetting are more subject to “confused awakenings,” such as night terrors or sleepwalking than children who do not wet the bed. Source: American Family Physicians – 2003.
Bedwetters remain primarily in the Stage 4 sleep, and they’re not continuously cycling, and, therefore, limiting or bypassing REM (dream sleep.) This compromises restorative and restful sleep, and why we often see bedwetters with mood irregularities, ADHD symptoms, difficulty awakening in the morning, and struggles with focus. This excessively long and deep Stage 4 sleep also severs the connection between the brain and the bladder, and THIS results in bedwetting.
Practice Makes Permanent: How We Achieve Lasting Results
Brain plasticity, also known as neuroplasticity, is a term that refers to the brain’s ability to change and adapt as a result of repeated experiences. Modern research has demonstrated that the brain continues to create new neural pathways and alter existing ones in order to adapt to new experiences, learn new information, and create new memories.
Practicing a behavior enables it to become automatic over time, and if you practice enough, the behavior becomes a habit. That means a new neural pathway was created. We all have a bunch of them! What we provide the bedwetter is a new neural pathway in the brain through the repeated protocols that we provide to you, the parents, to implement. This will allow your child’s brain to accept the new pattern of sleep, and once that’s in place—bedwetting is gone for good!
Our approach does not include drugs or invasive procedures. In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics says that less than 1% of all bedwetting cases is caused by a medical problem. There has never been a medical, psychological, or pharmacological remedy for the problem of bedwetting. Never. Waiting to outgrow bedwetting is not an option. Our adults patients have waited their entire lives.
Click here to learn about our “coach approach.” You get a personal Bedwetting Treatment Therapist to direct you to a dry bed–and in the least amount of time.
Our Invitation to You
We invite you to trust what we’re saying because we have 50 years experience and over 50,000 happy graduates which speak to our confidence and competency. We know you’ve expended A LOT of effort to end your child’s bedwetting, but you’ve yet to experience the reward for your efforts. We’re here to change that!
Call us today @ 800-379-2331.