Twenty-four-year-old Sheena Tripathi (name changed on request) had long outgrown her childhood habit of sleepwalking. However, when she shifted to a new city after a job change and began sharing an apartment with co-workers, she developed a new kind of parasomnia – eating in her sleep.
Her flatmates often heard her moving around the kitchen late at night, but it wasn’t till one of them walked in on her rummaging through the trash to eat discarded food while still seemingly unconscious, that they suggested she get professional help.
Dr Neerja Agarwal, the CEO and co-founder of mental health platform, Emoneeds, explains, “Her lack of memory of these episodes left her feeling helpless and frustrated.”
Fortunately, once the problem was diagnosed, the platform’s sleep specialist recommended cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and provided resources to improve Tripathi’s sleep hygiene, who was diagnosed with sleep-related eating disorder (SRED), a type of parasomnia or abnormal behaviour occurring during sleep. In it, the affected person involuntarily and repeatedly prepares and eats large quantities of food or consumes dangerous, even inedible items like coffee beans or cigarettes.
Often, there is no memory of the behaviour having occurred when they wake up the next morning.
“The reason behind this phenomenon is not fully understood but all types of parasomnias are caused by some disruption in regular sleep,” says Dr Divya Nallur, Clinical Director and Senior Consultant Psychiatrist at Amaha Health. “These abnormal behaviours usually occur when the person transitions between different stages of sleep. It can be explained as an event that takes place when the conscious brain is still asleep, but the part of the brain responsible for activity and body movements is awake.”
