Trouble staying asleep or waking up frequently? Do you feel like the waking dead? You might have sleep maintenance insomnia.
Insomnia is often thought of as trouble falling asleep. One form of it is this thing called sleep maintenance insomnia. Sleep maintenance insomnia is a common, irritating sleep pattern that affects millions of people, characterized by difficulty staying asleep, or waking too early and struggling to get back to sleep. To put it simply, it happens when a person wakes up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep. Difficulty staying asleep often gives rise to worry over not getting enough sleep leading to a further constrain with sleep.
Sleep maintenance insomnia usually affects people as they age, most likely when they hit around 40 and beyond.
What causes sleep maintenance insomnia?
- Stress and anxiety play a big role for this insomnia cause. People will often jolt awake, thinking about their problems. They stew over worries and can often experience anxiety attacks in the middle of the night.
- Money issues can cause major stress.
- Worrying that not sleeping will make them sleepy the next day. In effect, worrying about not being able to sleep makes people not able to sleep (that’s the logic)!
- Depression. Depression seems to disrupt one’s ability to reach a deeper level of sleep.
- Menopause. Menopausal stages in woman and insomnia go hand in hand for thousands of women, as does perimenopause and insomnia. Many women are able to sleep better when they get a better control on their hot flashes.
- Watch what you drink!
- Avoid caffeinated beverages after 1 or 2 p.m.—or altogether, if you’re especially sensitive to caffeine.
- Limit alcohol, and don’t drink any within two hours of bedtime. Alcohol interferes with deep sleep and can interfere with breathing.
- Sleep restriction — only sleeping in the bed and only staying in bed when sleeping (falling asleep within 25 minutes of lying down).
- Relaxation techniques.
Image Credits: thesavvyinsomniac, lovetoknow, curejoy, jaxsleepcenter
