Sleep is more important than most of us think. Sleep not only affects your energy, but has also been linked to heart disease, depression, obesity, migraine and many more. Getting a full night’s sleep is one of the best things you can do for your body.
Most of the sleep advice is based on problems with falling asleep or staying asleep. What happens when your problem is not one of those? What if you get a full eight hours a night and still do not wake up fully refreshed?
According to Dr. Steven Y. Park from West Side ENT in New York City, this is due to the structure of our jaw. Short version is that when we relax during sleep while laying down the tongue can fall back in our mouth and cause us to not breathe. This happens on a continuum that ranges from normal sleeping to the extreme end where you have sleep apnea.
Because you are being woken up at various stages of the night you do not stay long enough in each of the stages of sleep. Lack of the right types of sleep stages can cause tiredness and all the other issues associated with lack of sleep.
If you have not had a good night’s sleep in years (or even a few months), I would recommend having your physician recommend a knowledgeable sleep expert. You may be further down the continuum to sleep apnea and need more specialized treatment.
I would recommend that you also learn about Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome (UARS). Basically sleep apnea is a very well defined set of symptoms such as how long and how often you stop breathing. UARS comes before sleep apnea, so you may stop breathing for 2 seconds shorter and 1 less time during the evening, but they won’t say you have sleep apnea and you think you are fine. I would recommend Dr. Park’s book, Sleep, Interrupted
What I want to focus on for the remainder of this article is what if restless sleep is new. What happens if just in the past couple of weeks you have been sleeping poorly? What can trigger this temporary sleeping problem?
Our sleep can be affected by many factors and according to Dr. Park these can include: allergies, a change in weather, having a cold, consumption of alcohol, late night eating, stress and pregnancy and menopause. Dr. Steve Rosenberg also mentions that worries can be a big deterrent to restful sleep.
Allergies/Cold
We all know that our bodies change when we have a cold or allergies, doing lots of things are impacted. Our breathing passageways become inflamed and clogged making it harder to breathe. When it is hard to breath it is hard to get quality sleep.
Alcohol
According to Dr. Rosenberg alcohol turns to sugar which can cause sleep disruptions. I have read that you need anywhere from two to five hours to be beyond this phase and get some good sleep. I know from my own experience that I don’t sleep well the nights I have had cocktails latter into the evening. Allow for a couple hours between your drinks and your sleep – happy hour versus late nights!
Late Night Eating
Eating late into the night can cause acid and stomach contents to leak upwards when you are lying down. This causes not only bad sleep but can cause other issues brought on by acid being in your throat, such as sinus infections. Dr. Park recommends you not eat three hours before bedtime.
Pregnancy/Menopause
Both of these can cause a change in our passageways that impact our breathing. When you gain weight which is common in these conditions, your airway obstructs and makes it harder to breath at night. Increasing how much you are waking up and disturbing your sleep cycles.
Stress
Stress seems to impact almost every area of our lives and sleep is no different. When you are stressed it becomes very easy to toss and turn as thoughts and worries float around in your mind. Even when you are a sleep stress impacts what your brain is processing and dreaming about. Creating a situation of insomnia and disturbed sleep, that can result in even more stress. Dr. Rosenberg recommends using meditation to calm down and control stress before you go to bed.
So now what can you do to figure out why you are sleeping bad?
Begin tracking what has changed in your life. Are you under stress, are your allergies acting up, have you been eating late dinners? Writing down what you have been going through can help you find out what the problem may be, don’t forget things like workout changes and medication changes. I recently noticed I had been eating later into the evening and that coincided with my unrestful sleep. Just by changing my eating schedule my sleeping became better.
Finally, the more you practice a healthy lifestyle the more you will enable quality sleep. Proper diet, exercise and stress management will all help with your sleep. So for happy sleeping take a walk, do some mediation and eat an apple! Your energy levels and heart will thank you.