“If I can’t get to sleep I won’t be able to concentrate at work tomorrow!”
“My immunity won’t be top-notch if I miss another night of sleep, and I will get sick and be away from work”
“I have read that insomnia leads to weight gain. I need to get to sleep right now!”
“Not getting sleep is just going to make me feel depressed”
“People who don’t sleep well have a shorter life span”
Do any of these thoughts sound familiar if you are experiencing insomnia?
Anxiety and insomnia are strongly intertwined. Anxiety may create sleeping problems, especially if we ruminate over worrying thoughts at night. Conversely, chronic sleep deprivation may cause anxiety or an anxiety disorder. Another aspect to consider is that many people develop sleep anxiety, which occurs when an individual experiences anticipatory anxiety about poor sleep, which in turn may help to create further nights of poor sleep quality.
I should probably mention at this point that I have experienced quite a bit of insomnia in my life. I remember being about 7 years old and I was feeling panicked about how I would perform at school the next day as I was having trouble sleeping at night. I asked my dad, a GP, about this and he said that if I really couldn’t get to sleep and felt tired, I could have the day off school the next day. I am not sure if it was his intention, but on some level, this was just what I needed to hear, as it took the pressure off, allowed me to relax, and go to sleep!
My sleep as an adult has been further impacted by having four children. And just to clarify, while some of the sleep deprivation was due to my children not settling well as babies, I also experienced sleep anxiety surrounding falling asleep after my children had settled based around two issues:
1. I couldn’t relax enough to drift off to sleep after my children had gone to sleep (perhaps subconsciously not allowing myself time to relax because I believed I would be up again soon anyway, so why bother?) and therefore I would be meticulously counting how many wakeups I had had that night and how many hours I had been awake for,
2. Trying really hard to force myself to go to sleep
Neither of which were overly conducive to falling asleep and relaxing and I actually began to fear going to sleep at night, as I was sure it would be another dreadful night ahead.
It wasn’t until I read “The Discontented Little Baby Book” by Dr. Pamela Douglas (2014) that I was able to reframe my sleep. In this book, Dr. Douglas (2014) explains that there are large gaps between how much sleep we think we have had versus how much sleep we have actually had, with most people underestimating how much sleep they had had at night. Additionally, Dr. Douglas (2014) suggests that we typically overestimate the effects of sleep deprivation on our capacity to function, as well as questioning our beliefs that we may not need as much sleep as we think we do. Overall, Dr. Douglas (2014) asks us to question how we think about sleep in general and puts forward the idea that a parent who feels anxious each and every time their baby wakes is unlikely to fall easily back to sleep, as worrying about how often we are waking and trying hard to fall to sleep is counterproductive to the act of falling asleep, as worrying kicks our sympathetic nervous system (our fight or flight response) into overdrive. This book suggests affirmations such as “The more I strive for better sleep, the worse sleep will be, so I am letting it go. Enough sleep is not about the number of hours I have had.” (Douglas, 2021). The suggestions that were put forward in this book were so different from anything I had read about sleep up until then, which had been that we need at least eight hours of sleep at night to function and be healthy, and much like my dad’s reassurance, was exactly what I needed to hear to truly relax. It also allowed me to consider that adults (and babies for that matter) have highly variable sleep needs (Douglas, 2014).
Therefore, if you are currently experiencing anxiety and it is resulting in insomnia, or vice versa, I would suggest the often-repeated tips surrounding sleep hygiene such as:
- Limit or excluded caffeine during the day
- Trying to maintain similar sleeping and waking times
- Prior to bed, try relaxing activities such as an Epsom salt bath and enjoying a warm milky drink
- Taking a magnesium supplement containing magnesium glycinate, citrate, or chelated magnesium – the most bioavailable types of magnesium
- Breathing in the scent of lavender essential oil prior to sleep
- Keeping your sleeping space dark, quiet and peaceful
- and avoiding blue light from electronic devices prior to bed and during the night upon waking.*
However, I would also like you to keep in mind that the more we try to actively chase sleep, the more it appears to allude us. Our beliefs surrounding sleep are important, and a change in perspective about insomnia can help enormously. If we consider that it is normal to have some challenging nights of sleep and perhaps recognise that resting, instead of sleeping per se, is fundamental to health. If we are resting quietly, our parasympathetic nervous system, which is the system overseeing resting and digesting, is in charge and we are able to obtain the majority of the benefits that are attributed to sleeping, such as allowing our immune system to work to its full potential.
If persistent unhelpful thoughts remain a challenge, some ideas to reduce them include:
- Structuring some worry time in the day to acknowledge feelings, think through issues, evaluate thoughts and take some time to create some solutions to these issues
- Pausing overthinking – have a notepad and pen near your bed to write down thoughts that are keeping you awake – to not disturb your circadian rhythms, these thoughts can be written down in the dark. This gives your brain permission to let these thoughts go for the moment and deal with them the next day.
- End your day with gratitude – As you are unwinding for the day, consider five things that you are grateful for and five things that you have achieved throughout the day.
- Focus on your breathing – breathing that is longer on the exhalation is essential for turning on our parasympathetic nervous system, for example breathing in for the count of four and out to the count of seven.
- Consider using hypnotherapy audio specifically targeted for sleep and deep relaxation
- Progressively relaxing muscles by tensing and then relaxing all muscle groups in the body
- Evaluating your thoughts – consider evaluating your beliefs surrounding sleep and ask yourself what are the real implications of a lack of sleep for you? What is the evidence that supports these implications? What is the evidence that doesn’t support these implications?
- Finally, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is used successfully to reduce persistent unhelpful thoughts. New Leaf Hypnotherapy & Counselling offers CBT in conjunction with Hypnotherapy to produce powerful shifts in unhelpful thought patterns associated with anxiety and insomnia – please get in touch to find out more if unhelpful thoughts are an issue for you.
References
Douglas, P. (2021). The discontented little baby book. University of Queensland Press.
*These suggestions surrounding sleep hygiene do not replace standard medical advice from your health care professional.