If you Can’t Get to Sleep night after night, this will have a detrimental effect on your Mental and Physical Health. In this blog I will explain the health implications of when you Can’t Sleep and give some Tips to aid a Good night Sleep.
Why Do We Sleep?
So, Why Do We Sleep? Sleep plays a fundamental part in our overall general health. Life throws many stresses at us which disrupt our sleep patterns, causing us to get poor mental and physical health.
What happens to our Health when we Can’t Get to Sleep?
After 16 hours of being awake the brain begins to fail. It decreases your performance as much as if your blood alcohol level was at 0.05% (the UK drink-drive limit is 0.08%). Think of someone who consumes half a bottle of wine a night, they’re still coping, still functioning. However, would you be happy to entrust your life to a surgeon who had just been drinking alcohol?
Lack of Sleep is a factor in many health issues, here are a few:
- Not getting enough sleep is linked to higher levels of inflammation. This is a known risk factor for heart disease and stroke. Causes an intolerance to pain, resulting in a heightened sensitivity to pain.
- Cortisol levels increase, reducing our ability to burn fat. Primitive areas of the brain take over leading to less control, so we give in to craving for snacks. Sleep loss leads to the increase of Ghrelin, the hunger hormone. Endocannabinoids increase, so the brain craves carbohydrates / sugars (like cannabis-style ‘munchies’). Insufficient sleep also causes a fall in the levels of Leptin. This is our feeling full hormone, which means appetite increases as we don’t receive the message that we’re full.
- A lack of sleep increases your body’s resistance to insulin.
- Accelerated skin ageing. The high level of cortisol affects skin elasticity, causing people to look older.
- Alzheimer Disease. Throughout the day we create neural connections, memories. As we sleep the brain keeps the connections that are useful and dissolves the ones that are not. We need to clear out the debris from cell metabolism, neurotoxins, via the glymphatic system. One of the harmful products that is flushed out is beta-amyloid, a protein associated with Alzheimer’s disease. If we Can’t Get to Sleep on a regular basis the beta-amyloid builds up creating plaques and permanent memory loss.
- Vicious Circle of Drugs. When you Can’t Get to Sleep and you’re tired, you reach for stimulants to get you through the day, such as caffeine, nicotine, stimulant drugs. You’re wired by the time you go to bed! Many people think by drinking alcohol or smoking marijuana it “helps” you sleep. Wrong. They sedate you; this is not the same as sleep, it makes you unconscious, but not asleep and it suppresses REM sleep. This harms the neural processing for memory consolidation, and you don’t wake up refreshed. Matthew Walker explains more about the effects of Alcohol and Marijuana on your sleep in his video.
Tips to aid a Good night Sleep
- Give yourself a good two to three hours of down time before bed.
- Relax in a hot bath.
- Keep your room dark.
- Make sure your room isn’t too hot or too cold, keep it slightly cool around 16-18°C.
- Decorate it in calm, restful colours.
- Don’t treat your bedroom as an extension of your living room or a study. Use it for sleeping and intimate activities only!
- Try putting a few drops of lavender essential oil near your pillow to help you become more relaxed and calmer.
- Try to leave at least two hours between eating and sleeping to avoid indigestion.
- Limit caffeine to before 14.00 and opt for herbal or decaf alternatives after this time.
- Avoid too much Alcohol as it reduces our important REM sleep.
- Physical activity reduces stress and tires you, although ideally not within two hours of going to bed.
- Keep to a routine, go to bed at the same time and get up at the same time each day and aim for 7-8 hours’ sleep a night.
- If you are struggling to get to sleep, keep calm, the physical rest is doing you good.
- Distract a busy mind by finding positives of your day.
- Do some slow deep breathing techniques or other techniques to calm your mind and body.
- Take in the silence and do some meditation.
- Listen to the relaxation hypnotherapy recording.
How can Hypnotherapy help?
Hypnotherapy can help with sleep disorders in a variety of ways. By reducing anxiety and moving away from depression, controlling your weight, and working through addictions. Listening to the relaxation hypnotherapy recording which helps with neural processing, therefore helping clients to get a good night’s sleep. I am fully qualified through AfSFH and sessions are either in person or online over zoom.
Sleep is crucial, it’s not optional.
If we sleep well, we enhance our ability to come up with novel solutions to problems, enhance creativity, improve concentration, better decision making and better social skills.
Solution focused hypnotherapy helps you focus on a future with better sleep patterns, so that physically and mentally, you can emerge as the person you wish to be…
If you would like help because you Can’t Get to Sleep, please contact me for more information.