It’s the end of a long day and you’re finally getting in bed. You turn off the lights, close your eyes, get ready to sleep, and that’s when the noise comes rushing in. Your mind starts to review every single thing that happened that day, every conversation, every time you got annoyed or mad, and every single interaction you had. Your mind goes through ALL of it. This is a familiar experience for people who regularly experience insomnia.
Understanding how stress can negatively affect your sleep
If you had been used to falling asleep the second your head hits the pillow, the experience of insomnia can be startling. Fortunately, for most people, the onset of sleep issues should not be cause for alarm. It’s likely that your insomnia is a reaction to experiencing stress in your life. Stress comes and goes throughout our lives and impacts our bodies in many ways – sleep is one of them.
Our bodies are designed to react to survival threats for short periods of time. When we experience stress, our nervous system releases adrenaline and cortisol to increase blood flow to vital organs and muscles. The release of hormones in reaction to stress, the “fight or flight” reaction, is meant to prepare us for an intense physical reaction. Your heart rate accelerates and your body is optimized for rapid action. “Fight or flight” is great if a tiger about to lunge or if a car is hurtling towards you, but it tends to malfunction when the threat is long term (such as when you fear losing your job or have long-term health problems).
Insomnia and prolonged stress
Many of us are under constant stress, causing the body to stay in fight or flight mode for longer periods of time, which then creates enormous physical stress on our bodies. We simply are not designed for prolonged periods of increased adrenaline or cortisol.
Unfortunately, stress doesn’t turn off at night. If anything, it can increase because we finally have a quiet moment to think. When you’re stressed, your thinking speeds up and can feel like a bullet train with no brakes. Sometimes it’s hard to stop thinking about our problems because the rumination feels productive; it seems as if we think about our problems enough we will find a solution. However, stressful and anxious thoughts don’t help us find solutions, they just cause our body to stay in heightened states of hyperarousal (because it thinks it’s under attack). All this can prevent us from falling asleep or make it difficult to fall back asleep if we wake up in the middle of the night.
Breaking the cycle of stress and insomnia
Lack of sleep has been shown to increase your irritability, which can further increase your stress, creating a vicious cycle. The most important thing to do when you are stressed is to find ways of regulating yourself so your body doesn’t stay in fight or flight mode for long stretches of time.
If meditation or warm baths are not calming you down, it may be a good time to find someone to help you work through the stress and anxiety you’re experiencing. Therapists are trained to help people understand and regulate their emotional experiences so they can live with more calm and stay resilient, even through stress.
Reach out for help!
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