Getting enough sleep is essential for your health. But more than 40 million people in the United States suffer from insomnia and other sleep disorders that prevent them from getting the healthy sleep their brains and bodies need. One of these disorders is sleep anxiety, which can prevent people from falling asleep and staying asleep.
Sleep deprivation and anxiety disorders often go hand in hand, as one frequently contributes to the other: Not getting enough sleep can bring on feelings of worry or anxiousness, while suffering from anxiety can keep you from falling asleep, staying asleep and getting the proper amount of sleep. For some people, the thought of sleep itself can trigger fear, a condition that is known as sleep anxiety.
How Does Poor Sleep Affect Your Health?
Chronic lack of sleep can impact everything from your physical health to your mental and emotional well-being. It can also create risks to your personal safety. When you sleep, your body has the chance to recharge and prepare for the next day. Your brain creates new pathways for learning and storing information. At the same time, other parts of your body, such as your heart and blood vessels, have time to heal.
Everyone has a poor night of sleep from time to time, but when it happens repeatedly over a long period of time, it can lead to bad outcomes:
- Dangerous driving: Driving while feeling sleepy leads to approximately 100,000 car accidents every year and 1,500 deaths.
- High blood pressure: Your blood pressure goes down when you are asleep, so when you have chronic sleep deprivation, your blood pressure can rise.
- Increased anxiousness and irritability: Your brain needs sleep to function as it should. Lack of sleep affects your emotions, ability to concentrate and make decisions, and overall sense of well-being.
- Type 2 diabetes: Blood sugar levels improve with proper sleep, making your risk for developing diabetes higher if you are not sleeping properly.
- Obesity: Sleep helps to regulate the hormones that make you feel hungry and full. When you are tired, you often feel hungrier.
- Weaker immune system: Your immune system needs sleep to fight off infections and illness.
What Causes Sleep Anxiety and Insomnia?
When the anxiety that is keeping you awake is stemming from fears about sleep, it is called sleep anxiety. You might be worried about having nightmares. You may be concerned about developing sleep apnea, a condition that causes a person to stop breathing periodically while asleep. Perhaps, you are fearful that you aren’t going to get enough sleep and won’t be able to function the next day. Feelings of dread about going to bed at night can lead to lying awake for hours and reduce the quality of the sleep you get.
Many other forms of anxiety also cause insomnia and sleep disturbances. People with generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress syndrome often suffer from poor sleep patterns. When worries and fears take over your thoughts when it’s time to rest, it can be extremely difficult to fall asleep. In addition, many people wake up frequently as a result of anxiety and are unable to fall back to sleep.
Diagnosing Sleep Disorders
To pinpoint the source of your sleeplessness, your doctor may first recommend undergoing an overnight sleep study. This is usually done at a sleep center but can sometimes be completed at home with a portable sleep study kit. For this study, you sleep with sensors attached to your body that track brain activity, heart rate, breathing patterns and other functions in your brain and body. A sleep study can help your doctor diagnose medical conditions such as sleep apnea.
Another option is an actigraphy test, which is completed at home. For this, a small, watch-like sensor is worn on the wrist or ankle for up to two weeks. During this time, your body’s patterns of sleep and wakefulness are monitored. Your doctor might also decide to order blood tests to check for other medical causes of sleep disturbances, such as a thyroid disorder.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
If anxiety is a main cause of your insomnia or poor sleep, there are things you can do to start getting better rest. Experts in behavioral sleep medicine recommend cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBTI). This approach involves figuring out the cause of your sleeplessness so you can change the way you think and behave, and get a better night’s rest.
The first step of CBTI is often to keep a sleep diary in which you track what time you went to bed, what time you woke up, and your sleep quality, as well as other behaviors that may be contributing to your sleeplessness. You might also choose to talk to a therapist to discuss your anxiety and worries if these are part of your sleep story.
After identifying possible causes of sleeplessness, people undergoing CBTI learn techniques to overcome sleep disturbances, including improving sleep hygiene. This means making your sleep area a positive environment that promotes good sleep and maintaining healthy habits:
- Avoid eating greasy or spicy food, smoking and vigorous exercise for three to four hours before going to bed.
- Do not drink caffeine after noon.
- Eliminate sources of light and noise.
- Lie in bed only when you feel ready to sleep.
- Make sure you have a comfortable mattress and pillows.
It’s also important to reduce stress and anxiety as much as possible in the hours leading up to bedtime. You might try reading, listening to music that relaxes you, taking a bubble bath or writing in a journal. But watching TV or using a device such as a laptop or smartphone should be eliminated from your late evening routine. This is because the artificial light given off by electronics can interfere with the hormones that help you sleep. This interference can disrupt your body’s sleep-wake cycle, or circadian rhythm.
Medications for Sleep
Depending on your unique situation, your doctor might prescribe medication in conjunction with CBTI. But all medications have possible side effects, and the goal is usually to only use medication for a short period. Supplements such as melatonin may also be helpful for some people and usually have fewer negative side effects.
Listen to a Podcast
Do you have trouble falling asleep or wake up feeling just as tired as when you went to bed? You are not alone! But don’t fear, Dr. Emerson Wickwire, a sleep specialist at UMMC Midtown Campus, is here with tips on how to get better sleep, and when to know if you should see a specialist to get some rest.
More to Read
- The Connection Between Not Getting Enough Sleep and Mental Health
- Understanding Sleep Paralysis
- Expert Tips on How to Sleep Better
- Always Tired? You Could Have Sleep Apnea.
Medically reviewed by Emerson M. Wickwire, PhD, ABPP, CBSM, DBSM.
