F. Diane Barth L.C.S.W.
Off the Couch
Sleep
7 Ways to Get to Sleep, Stay Asleep, and Get Back to Sleep
Part 2: Experts offer suggestions for dealing with pandemic-induced insomnia.
Posted Apr 30, 2021
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THE BASICS
Why Is Sleep Important?
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There’s a special name for insomnia that’s worth keeping in mind: hypnogogic. This term refers to your body’s fight or flight response when you are threatened. When in stress, your body might fight or run to the opposite direction to protect you. Hypnogic means “flee,” and you’ve got a lot of anxiety as a result.
When in an emotionally charged moment, your body might try to calm you by sending stronger, more powerful signals. Energy is available to manage the energy expenditure, but it’s not available to all of us at the same time. We need to synchronize our bodies so they don’t freeze.
When you are in an emotionally charged moment, your body might kick up the dopamine receptors in your brain to temporarily increase your alertness. This is a great time to experiment with a new recipe for how you can use your body to reset your alertness. Try mixing up a few of your favorite recipes with some new ones. You might be surprised at how differently they seem.
Making a conscious effort to have a consistent wake-up and nightly video diary is the first step toward finding a routine and responding to insomnia differently. At the end of the day, consider these options:
1. Plan Out Your Day
This is probably the hardest part. You will have spent hours cooking for 2 oxotic activities, and you will have put 2, 3, or 4 hours in a day of working from home. Don’t multitask! Make this the first thing you do every night as you prepare for bed.
2. Go to bed
Even if you don’t fall asleep, your body will want to wake up. So go to bed early so it can go to sleep. You will be tired in the morning but want to get back to bed as soon as possible.
If you find yourself rising prematurely, set a boundary around bedtime where you check in from time to time to make sure it’s OK. Establishing this boundary ensures you will be available for your scheduled scheduled treatment.
For example, if you check-in between 7:25-7:40 am each night, make sure you set a time for your nightly treatment. This ensures you will be available for your scheduled treatment. If switching to a 5:00 am early wake-up call, make sure you set a time for your 5:00 am treatment. This is the immediate opportunity to work on falling back asleep or staying asleep.
3. Try HALT
The last option is the one with the most potential to be successful. If you cannot have a successful snooze, try the first option at the very beginning of the day, and if you cannot use this option, try the latter. Daily, consider what has worked for you for the past 2 weeks and the benefits of that.
Posted Apr 30, 2021
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Reviewed by Lybi Ma
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THE BASICS
Why Is Sleep Important?
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Source: Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Finding a way to get good sleep can be difficult, especially this year during the pandemic. While this is a frustrating situation to be in, it is also the reason why Isabelle and I were able to obtain the very latest data on the sleep habits of over 300 participants in the University of British Columbia's student health study.
This study, conducted with over 1,000 participants from 30 countries, involved the unique tracking of sleeping, eating, and active use for each of the 3 major zones (ie, between 9:25-9:40 am, 6:00-6:30 am, and 3:30-3:40 pm). Within this study, we tracked the sleep of participants on a daily basis for 8 weeks. This allowed us to explore both the short-term effects of these monitors and the long-term effects of these devices.