Part 1 - Short Term Sleep Disruption
Lately,
it seems that there isn't a day that goes by without seeing a post on
my personal Facebook page from one of my friends who has woken up at
"daftoclock.com" and "cantsleep.com". Being unable to sleep seems to be
quite an epidemic at the moment. The time that most people seem to be
waking with regularity is between 3 and 4 o'clock and they struggle to
get back to sleep, only to drift off 10 minutes before the alarm goes
off. However, when the alarm does go off, they find it really difficult
to wake up and seem to wander around the rest of the day in a trance
like state. Sound familiar? Let's look firstly at why it seems to be
consistently between 3/4 o'clock.
The Sleep Cycle
There are 3 phases to our sleep pattern:
- Light sleep - this is the sleep you fall into when you first drift off. Our brainwaves are quick and if you were to be hooked up to an EEG and someone mentioned your name, there would be a sharp spike in your wave pattern.
- Slow wave - the brainwaves are much slower and even. We usually enter this pattern about 20 minutes after falling asleep and stay in it for around 2 hours. In these two hours our bodies rejuvenate and take the opportunity to repair itself (including our immune systems). This part of sleep is vital for our health and wellbeing.
- REM or Rapid Eye Movement - this is when most of our dreaming occurs and our eyes can be seen to move beneath our eyelids (hence the title). This sleep pattern leads to improved performance of learned tasks and the subconscious uses this time to organise and file new tasks and patterns learned the previous day. This is the lightest sleep pattern and if you wake quickly from it, you'll usually be able to remember your dreams quite clearly.
During
the night, for the first few hours, we move between light and slow wave
and then move to alternating between light, slow and REM. When you
follow the pattern, it shows that about 3 hours into sleep, we move from
our essential 2 hours of slow wave to a short light sleep and then a
short REM - it's at that point that most people seem to wake up instead
of going into another light sleep followed by slow wave. So what causes
it? It can be anything; however, alcohol and stress/anxiety are the
usual culprits.
Now,
there are two distinct types of waking during sleep (actually there are
more if you count clinical diagnosis such as sleep apnoea, but I'm just
going to cover the two most common types in these posts):
Occasional waking
- on the odd occasion or for a short period of time you wake up, start
worrying/thinking and can't get back to sleep. This is usually when you
have something particular on your mind that you are worried or anxious
about.
Habitual waking
- this is when your waking turns into a habit ie you wake at the same
time every night for a week or more. This may have started with
occasional waking and subsequently (because you haven't dealt with it)
it's turned into a habit and your body/mind thinks that's what you're
supposed to do - in effect, you've trained it to be that way.
As
I described earlier, we usually wake when we are in REM sleep. What
causes us to wake is usually that while our subconscious mind is trying
to figure out what happened to us during the previous day and is filing
the information in different boxes in our mind (that's the easiest non
technical way of describing it so that everyone understands the way the
mind processes information), it will come across something that it can't
categorise (it's usually something that you've been worrying about and
haven't dealt with the previous day) and therefore, it doesn't know
where to file it. That 'shock' (for want of a better word) wakes you up
so that your conscious mind can deal with it, so that when you go back
to sleep again, your subconscious mind can file it.
It's quite a different concept if you haven't thought of it before, but it's absolutely true. The solution to it is twofold:
- Always keep a notepad and a pen by the side of the bed. When you wake up with a start in the middle of the night worrying about something, write that thing down immediately. Then settle back down and you will drift off to sleep again. By writing the issue(s) down, you are informing your subconscious mind that you have dealt with the problem therefore; it will allow you to fall asleep again.
- If you action point 1 but are still awake, then as I've said in numerous posts - STOP THINKING ABOUT THE THING YOUR WORRYING ABOUT! You can choose your thoughts; you don't have to think anything negative unless you want to. Choose to think about something that's positive/that you love eg your children, your house, your possessions, your parents, your next holiday/your last holiday, lying on a sun-drenched beach - whatever works for you. List as many good things/things that you love in your life/things that make you happy as you possibly can (a bit like counting sheep, but a lot more positive). By doing that, you shift your thinking away from the negative thoughts you were having, to positive ones. I know that it sometimes seems harder in the middle of the night (everything feels worse at that dead hour), but you can still do it. You have control over your thoughts - they don't have to be negative.
Part 2 - Sleep Well - Long Term Sleep Disruption/Insomnia
Further
to my previous post regarding solving ad hoc sleep issues, today I'd
like to discuss how to manage long term sleep issues (including
insomnia) and resetting your sleep cycle.
As
I discussed previously, long term sleeplessness begins with waking the
odd night and not dealing with it appropriately. Left unchecked, it's
amazing how quickly your body will adjust and create a new sleep
pattern/cycle, one that can actually be extremely detrimental to your
health and well being.
The
way to tackle long term sleep problems is to create a brand new sleep
pattern (well, it was easy to create the old unhelpful one, so by the
same token it's easy to create a new helpful one).
There
are three steps to this and each step must be done religiously if you
are to achieve a new sleep cycle - and that means at weekends too. I
know we are all used to sleeping in at weekends (or that's what most of
us aspire to) however, you have to do each of these 3 steps every single
day for a few weeks in order to achieve the sleep pattern you desire.
Step 1
Get up half an hour earlier than your normal waking time
If
you usually get up at 7.00 am, set your alarm and get up at 6.30 am
every day (including weekends) WITHOUT FAIL. I know this may seem hard
if you haven't been getting enough sleep, but in clinical trials it has
proved to be the single most effective thing that you can do to cure
insomnia.
One
of the reasons for this is that if your body gets used to making up for
lost sleep in the morning, then it doesn't prepare properly for sleep
in the evening. On the whole, you can't always choose when you go to
sleep, however, you absolutely can choose when you wake up. When you
shift your waking time, the rest of your sleeping pattern has to reset
too.
In
order to help you with this, write down the time that you want to wake
up and put it at the side of your bed (what gets written down gets done
is definitely true in this instance), set your alarm clock to that time,
say the time that you want to wake up to yourself before you settle
down to sleep. Doing this will help programme your subconscious and you
will notice that you start to wake up just before your alarm goes off.
It's a very reliable way to wake yourself up if you don't have an alarm
clock too - you don't need to just use this technique for when you're
resetting your sleep cycle.
Step 2
Only go to bed when you're tired
Most
of us go to bed when we think we should, not when we're tired then
spend a couple of hours wide awake. What you need to do is keep yourself
busy until you feel tired. Read a book, clean the house, whatever you
want to do, do it until you're actually tired. When your body needs to
sleep, it will tell you. You simply can't force it.
After
a few days of only going to bed when you're tired and getting up early,
your body clock will very quickly reset itself and you'll find that you
need to go to bed earlier and earlier.
Step 3
Don't nap during the day
Napping
during the day only reduces your need for sleep at night, so it's
really important that you stay awake during the day. No matter how hard
you find it to keep your eyes open, resist. Get up, go for a walk, do
something in the house - just do something that keeps you busy.
Other top tips for a better sleep:
Take regular exercise
Exercise
is wonderful for helping you sleep. Once you've done some exercise (and
I'm not talking about running a marathon here - just a walk around the
block is better than nothing) your body releases endorphins which are
often described as the happy hormone and give you a 'feel good factor'.
They help calm the nerves and reduce stress and therefore, help you
sleep better.
Avoid stimulants
Avoid
drinking tea, coffee and alcohol before you go to bed. These substances
stimulate the mind and body which can lead to broken sleep patterns.
Instead, have a hot, milky drink half an hour before you want to go to
bed. This will help to relax and calm you down rather than get your
heart racing as the stimulants would.
Have a bath in the evening
If
you have children, you'll know that bathing your child at night is an
important part of their bedtime routine. Again, it relaxes the body and
let's your subconscious know that it should be preparing your body for
sleep.
Avoid violent films and video games
Watching
violent films and playing video games before bedtime will again
stimulate the brain (often leading to nightmares). During the time you
are working on your new sleep pattern, avoid these activities. Instead
read books/magazines and avoid having your TV on in the bedroom, it will
distract you and upset your sleep pattern. During the couple of weeks
you are working on your sleep cycle, you should remove your TV from the
bedroom (if you have one); you will be less likely to turn it on if you
wake in the middle of the night which will stimulate your brain causing
you to be wide awake.
Are
you feeling 'stuck' in a particular area of your life ie career,
family, children? Do you frequently feel negative, stressed, out of
control? Do you want to supercharge your career, company profits, self
perception? If so, why not contact me for a free no obligation chat
about how I can help you achieve a better life.
Jo Banks
Tel: 07796 927 911
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