Introduction: sleep is a physiological need, in turn the absence or decrease of the hours of daily sleep produces important behavioral and physiological alterations that play multiple roles in living things. Methodology: a literary review was carried out in databases such as SciELO, Redalyc, Elsevier, Proquest, and Dialnet, where the researched articles had to focus on sleep disorders, nursing interventions, pharmacological treatments and not pharmacological. Results: 606 articles were found, 560 were discarded, duplicates 13 and 33 they met the established inclusion criteria. It was evidenced that the factors triggers of sleep disorders are: obstructive sleep apnea, cognitive impairment, homeopathies, emotional factors such as depression and chronic migraine, in terms of the factors predominant is periodontal disease, diabetes mellitus II and depression. The interventions most effective for adolescents and older adults were: sleep hygiene education, use non-pharmacological strategies at bedtime such as weather, surroundings, light, temperature, your thoughts, and guided exercise indicated for each person. Conclusion: nursing interventions should be focused on reducing the impact of sleep disorders and / or prevent the disease, therefore, they should be directed towards non-pharmacological therapies and sleep hygiene, working on this basis, favorable results will be obtained in adolescents and older adults, in order to solve the medicalization of patients, the stay in healthcare centers, and in turn, allowing the development of the profession.