Recently, I’ve heard quite a few people describe how they keep waking up at night, often several times a night. Unfortunately, lots of people experience disturbed sleep and insomnia. Conventional wisdom says adults should get eight hours of sleep every night, but these days, not many of us do. No doubt, you’ve heard about how important a good night’s sleep is, but do you know why?
Sleep is obviously important because we feel tired after a day’s work and/or ferrying kids around to their various activities and/or looking after ageing parents. It’s a full on day and getting enough sleep is vital since it’s mostly how we rest, not only our body, but our mind as well. It’s when our body repairs itself from minor injuries. It also plays a very important part in how we feel. Not just whether we feel refreshed or groggy, but the amount of sleep we get affects our mood and our outlook on life as well.
The Four Stages of Sleep
There are four different stages of sleep which we cycle between during the course of the night. First, we go into a light sleep, Stage 1, from which we can be roused quite easily. Then, we move into Stage 2, a slightly deeper sleep when our breathing slows down, our muscles relax and our body temperature drops. We spend most of our sleep time in Stage 2. Next, we move into Stage 3, a deep, restorative sleep when the body is in repair mode and it’s more difficult to wake someone up.
REM
Stage 4, also known as REM, or Rapid Eye Movement, is when we dream. We can see someone’s eyeballs moving around under their eyelids, hence the term. The brain is very active during REM sleep and the muscles of the body are temporarily paralysed. This is so we don’t act out our dreams while we’re asleep. That’s probably a good thing if you consider how crazy some of our dreams are!
Sleep Paralysis
As a side note, there’s a curious thing called sleep paralysis. This is when your muscles are, indeed, paralysed but your brain is fully awake. Obviously, this can be quite scary if you don’t know what it is but fortunately, it’s not that common. About 30% of people experience it and it may only happen once in a lifetime, or it may occur more often. It happens when you move between REM and another stage of sleep.
I experienced this myself years ago and it felt like I was trapped in my body for a few minutes when I was having a nap one afternoon. I had to get up and go somewhere, but no one could wake me up. And even though I could hear them talking to me, I couldn’t reply or even open my eyes. It was pretty alarming at the time and I can remember it quite clearly years later!
Back to REM
This is when we process the events of the day. Essentially, the brain removes any negative emotion that may be attached to something that happened during the day. Unfortunately, REM only occupies about 20% of our sleep patterns and we get most of it towards the end of the night. This means that if we only get, say, five or six hours of sleep, we are depriving ourselves of much of that vital REM sleep and processing time.
Sleep Deprivation
If we don’t sleep for long enough, we end up feeling irritable. We’re less able to concentrate on or remember things. And of course, we feel tired and may not have a particularly good day. You can see how repeating this day after day would add up.
It also means that we may still have emotions attached to events which can lead to problems down the road. For example, this is where phobias come from. Suppose something scary happens during the day, but it doesn’t get processed properly in REM sleep. Because the fear isn’t dealt with, it might surface in the future if the same or similar situation occurs again. Often, the first event happens in childhood but the fear persists into adulthood. For example, a fear of dogs may develop because a dog once barked in a child’s face when they were very small.
It doesn’t have to be a phobia though.
Sometimes, those unprocessed events, together with a sleep deficit, make us feel more negative. We’re less able to respond appropriately to the daily stressors that come our way. We may react angrily for example, when normally we would respond in a more measured way. Road rage, anyone?
Chronic sleep deprivation often means our levels of anxiety go up too and this can become cyclical. A lack of sleep brings on more feelings of anxiety, which in turn leads to deteriorating sleep patterns. For example, difficulty falling asleep, broken sleep, waking up too early or simply not feeling refreshed in the morning.
The Good News!
The good news is, we can deal with the unprocessed events of life and sleep issues so that a good night’s sleep becomes possible again. Get in touch with me to find out how Solution Focused Hypnotherapy and I can help you sleep better!
For more information on sleep cycles, here’s a link: Stages of Sleep: What Happens in a Normal Sleep Cycle?
If you’d like a more detailed and scientific but readable look at sleep, here’s a link to neuroscientist Matthew Walker’s excellent book, Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker | Waterstones.