sleep Archives - Change Feels Good

Anxiety can inhibit sleep and sleep can inhibit anxiety. Your brain may keep you awake until you deal with this cycle.

What is Anxiety and Do I Have it?

The WHO lists the following symptoms of anxiety:

trouble concentrating or making decisions
feeling irritable, tense or restless
experiencing nausea or abdominal distress
having heart palpitations
sweating, trembling or shaking
trouble sleeping
having a sense of impending danger, panic or doom

What Happens in the Brain During and After Anxiety?

During anxiety the amygdala is significantly more active (the pea-sized area in the centre of the brain, indicated in the above image with a red dot). The Amygdala represents less than 0.3% of the brain’s mass.

Increased activity in the prefrontal cortex (12.5% of the brain’s mass, indicated in the above image by the blue area at the front of the brain) reduces activity in the amygdala.

Temporary vs. Persistent Anxiety

Everyone experiences anxiety to some extent. The frequency and intensity varies on a spectrum from person to person at various stages of life and healing. If your anxiety goes away relatively quickly and happens relatively infrequently you can consider it as “normal”. Even “normal” anxiety can be reduced and there is nothing wrong with doing so.

Anxiety disorders are, in contrast, persistent. Some clinicians say they “never” go away. This can be interpreted as a life-sentence. What they mean is that they haven’t gone away so far. Healing progress from anxiety disorders can vary enormously from person to person. For example, a person with a damaged prefrontal cortex might have a much more gradual journey of healing than a person a typically functioning one.

Types of Anxiety

There are a plethora of interconnected influences on anxiety, from neurological, to beliefs about oneself, others and the world, to genetic, to environmental circumstances.

Understanding the influences on your anxiety can help you come to terms with its unruly nature and help you begin to manage, or overcome it.

Formal categories include (NIMH):

Generalised anxiety
Panic
Social anxiety
Phobias
Separation anxiety

The Sleep and Anxiety Cycle

Typically during the day our focus is occupied, we are distracted from our thoughts and emotions. The contrasting mental space that opens up at bedtime can set the stage for overwhelming thoughts and fears to become unignorable.

This can make it difficult to fall asleep and the harder it is to sleep, the more worrying and stressful it can be, making it harder to fall asleep.

An accumulated sleep debt can make it harder to function well during the day in every way and it can increase the risk of developing chronic physical health problems.

This can result in perpetual sleep disturbance, called “insomnia” and insomnia can bring on more anxiety.

How Can I get Organised to Sleep Better?

As detailed in my recent blog post: “How to Sleep Well“, you can:

Go to bed in a dark, quiet, cool place
Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day
Estimate when you actually fall asleep and wake up
Eat at least 4 hours before going to bed
Stay hydrated throughout the day and stop drinking 2 hours before bed
Avoid alcohol, nicotine and other stimulants in your bloodstream near bed time
Associate sleep zone only with sleep (and sex). No screens, work, or exercise… or divide space functionality with rituals
If you wake up for longer than 20 minutes in the night, move to another, relaxing space and do something relaxing
10 mins of bright light in the morning can help regulate your sleep/wake cycle
While lying down, breathe fully in, breathe fully out and repeat at least 3 times
Progressive muscle relaxation
Gratitude
Reading, or listening to a story
White noise
Binaural beats
Listen to something boring
Organise time to worry and add one solution to each worry
Journalling

Anxiety Treatments (and Better Sleep)

Interventions include:

Hypnotherapy – helps to vividly clarify triggers for anxiety and “glimmers” for moving beyond anxious feelings. Helps to relax deeply
Exposure therapy – gradually builds resilience and a sense of security in relation to anxiety-inducing triggers
Acceptance (e.g. mindfulness) – you may not be able to control anxious thoughts and feelings directly, but by accepting their existence you can release the one thing you can control – your resistance!
Commitment (goal setting) – following up acceptance with commitment to build habits that further demonstrate your lack of anxiety and increase your locus of control
Medication – prescribed and managed only by clinicians
Meditation – releases identification with anxious thoughts and feelings, increases locus of control, helps to relax deeply

Sleep and Anxiety in Summary

I would recommend getting advice/support from a medical professional, and/or qualified therapist to help you understand what my be best for you. Feel free to contact me to find out more about the Hypnotherapy services I offer.

Anxiety can be a powerful underlying issue preventing you from getting a decent night’s sleep and lack of sleep can contribute to anxiety.

It is important to address underlying anxiety in addition to organising your life and environment to sleep well.

Meditations to Help You Sleep

A Gratitude Rhyme To Send You To Sleep (FREE MEDITATION)

Sleep Meditation: Progressive Relaxation (Insight Timer Plus users)

Rhyming Sleep Meditation – Mountain Trees To Tropical Beach (Insight Timer Plus users)

Sleep Meditation – Gratitude For Your Amazing Body And Mind (Insight Timer Plus users)

Do You Want to Take the Conversation Further – Ask Questions and Contribute Answers?

Join Believe – Relieve – Conceive, my Insight Timer group.

Why do we Sleep?

We spend a third of our lives doing something that leaves us defenseless to attack, unable to eat, drink, or reproduce! Sleep! We don’t know why, but it must be important and our lives can become seriously impacted when we’re not able to do it well.

Lack of Sleep

Lack of slumber is associated with diabetes, obesity, hypertension, pulmonary heart disease, memory loss, lack of concentration, poor mood regulation and can be an underlying factor in many psychological issues.

Furthermore being tired feels rubbish!

Managing Expectations

When we keep trying we usually succeed, right?

Not with sleep.

Lying awake at night and trying to sleep is actually an effective way to set yourself up for failure!

Your body knows how to sleep, so your energy would be better spent finding ways to step out of the way of your mind.

How Much do I Need?

We all need different amounts at different times in our lives. If you can function well during the day and you don’t find it too difficult to wake up at the right time you are probably getting enough.

Listen to your body and how you feel upon going to bed, waking and during the day. Estimate the time you spend asleep, when you feel well rested and when you don’t. You don’t need to feel guilty for getting as much as 9 hours, or deprived for getting only 6 hours.

Sleep Cycles

There are different levels wakefulness that we naturally cycle through, with very different levels of brain activity. It is normal to briefly wake up multiple times during the night and go back to sleep again.

The lighter levels are associated with dreams that we remember and are more vivid, the deeper levels are where the body grows and repairs itself and where new pathways in the brain are forged.

What Can I do to Get a Good Night’s Sleep?

While the biggest contributing factors to sleep disturbances come from within us, you can make things easier for yourself by also setting things up externally for a good night:

Don’t count bed time as the time you fall asleep. Give yourself enough time to wind down, go to bed in a dark room, with low lighting and no screen time, with relatively low ambient noise. It may be 30 to 45 minutes before you actually fall asleep.
Aim to make this bed time procedure a habit to stick to. Eye masks, earplugs and guided meditation can help to reduce ambient light and noise.
If possible sleep in a bedroom with a temperature of around 18°Celsius, or 65° fahrenheit.
Eat at least 4 hours before going to need
Stay hydrated, but drink fluids no later than 2 hours before bed time
Avoid having alcohol, nicotine and other stimulants in your bloodstream at bed time
Build an association between your bedroom and sleep. Try to avoid exercising, or working in the same space. If you can’t avoid this, change the lighting and create other rituals that characterise the change in function of the space.
If you do wake up in the night for roughly more than 20 minutes, move to another space and engage in a relaxing activity with low light.
Soon after you wake up, spend time in bright light, preferably sunlight, preferably outside, without wearing sunglasses and without staring directly at the sun. 10 minutes should be enough. Light lamps, or any artificial light can be an option in the winter or if working night shifts

The Elephant in the Bedroom

A major cause of disturbance includes, of course, mental health issues, such as anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder and seasonal affective disorder, for example.

Addressing these issues through therapy and meditation, for example, may be the most effective way to sleep well.

Do You Want Help to Work Through Something That May be Blocking Your Replenishing Sleep?

Do you believe you may be suffering from anxiety, depression, or another existential issue, and that it may be preventing you from getting a good night’s sleep? You can learn more about my approach to Hypnotherapy and how it could help you here.