Help [not] Wanted: Insomnia
How I Started to Sleep Through the Night Again
I recently read Markham Heid’s post in Medium called “This is Why You Wake Up at the Same Time Every Night” and it has changed my life. At least it has changed my sleep life. In this article, Markham talks about those of us who magically seem to wake up at, let’s just say, 2am, every night and find ourselves WIDE awake. Not the kind of awake in the middle of the night where you know you can go back to sleep if you just take a few deep breaths or count some sheep. I’m talking absolutely wide awake. I can do my taxes kind of awake. I had been like this since graduate school. And now I knew why.
According to Behavioral Sleep Medicine Program director, Michael Perlis, we all wake up during the night but usually these are “amnestic,” meaning we do not remember them. These amnestic arousals are short, lasting a few seconds to a few minutes. They are an important part of a good night’s sleep. However, some of us wake up during the night and are fully awake, ready for anything. So, what causes this?
There are medical reasons why this can be happening, so I encourage you to read Markham’s article or follow Michael Perlis’s sleep research to learn more. For me, there did not seem to be a medical reason driving my 2am wake up call. What I learned was my wakefulness was due to two things: I had become anxious about sleeping through the night, and I had been giving insomnia a job.
The Anxious Sleeper
When we are worried about something, like sleeping through the night, or not missing an early alarm to get to the airport on time for a flight, our brains may go on high alert. When one of our small awakenings happen, the normal kind during sleep, our brain may have an emotional reaction and cause us to wake up more fully and for longer than usual. Since we all have sleep stages that happen on regular intervals, our anxiety-induced arousal could be happening at the same time every night. I can recall many times right before I drifted off to sleep, thinking, “oh, please let me sleep through the night.” I was causing the exact opposite of what I was hoping to get which was a full night of sleep. It was like being on a diet and telling myself over and over that I will not eat chocolate cake. Of course, all I can think about is chocolate cake. I was setting myself up for a 2am wake up call every night without realizing it.
Don’t Give Insomnia a Job
The second thing I was doing that caused my 2am wakefulness was getting up and engaging in something productive. This is closely linked to my first issue: sleep anxiety. I am driven towards efficiency. I thought that if I was already awake, why not get some stuff done. I am VERY productive in the early morning hours. Because of my uber-productivity, I was encouraging my brain to wake me up during one of my sleep-cycle changes. I had been giving insomnia a job and that is exactly what I should NOT have been doing. And my insomnia was a great worker. Getting so much done in the wee hours of the morning was only encouraging my brain to continue to wake me up.
Unemployment Notice
I engaged in an experiment to see if what I read in Markham’s article would work for me. Before I went to sleep, I told myself that I was not going to give insomnia a job that night. I talked to insomnia like it was a person and gave it a notice of unemployment. I said, “if I wake up tonight, I will not get up and do anything productive. I will not give you a job. I will lie here and rest.” And just like magic, I slept through the night and did not wake up. Ok, that was nice, but could I do it again? The next night, same outcome. And the next night as well. I have now created some confidence that I can sleep through the night which has lessened my anxiety. Having less sleep anxiety has also, magically, led to better sleep. I am grateful to Markham for posting his article and showing me how to get back those precious hours of sleep I have needed for years. Insomnia, you’re fired!
