In this post:
- When you’re tired but can’t fall asleep
- What is insomnia?
- How a lack of sleep affects your daily life and health
- Potential causes for loss of sleep
- What you should do if you can’t fall asleep at night
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When you’re tired but can’t fall asleep
You find yourself tossing and turning until you’ve gotten tangled up in your sheets. You’ve tried every sleeping position you can think of, but nothing is comfortable. You’ve stared up at the ceiling for hours thinking about every topic imaginable, wondering intermittently, “Why can’t I sleep even though I’m tired?”
The anxiety begins to creep in as you think about how awful tomorrow is going to be now that you haven’t gotten any sleep.
What is insomnia?
Insomnia is defined as habitual sleeplessness, or the inability to sleep, and it affects nearly everyone at some point. According to the National Sleep Foundation, medical conditions, certain substances, unhealthy sleeping habits, and even potential biological factors can cause insomnia. The brain has both a sleep cycle and a wake cycle, so when the brain is unable to go to sleep, insomnia occurs.
Insomnia strikes all of us at some point, and its effects go far beyond your bed. Sleeplessness can affect every aspect of our daily activities: our work, our productivity, our time spent with loved ones, how we feel and our health, and even our self-esteem.
How a lack of sleep affects your daily life and health
Insomnia affects every aspect of our lives, especially if we suffer from it on a nightly basis. Here are 10 ways a lack of sleep affects you and your health.
As you can see, sleep is an essential life function that supports nearly every facet of our mental and physical health. So what causes the brain’s inability to go to sleep, and causes people not to sleep during the night?
Potential causes for loss of sleep
There are a number of reasons for why you can’t sleep at night. Below are the most common causes for insomnia.
- Your room is too warm. The ideal temperature for your bedroom at night is between 55 and 74 degrees Fahrenheit (personally, I prefer mid to upper 60s). While it’s nice to have a room that is warm and cozy, especially in the wintertime, a room that is too warm can lead to restlessness and disruptive sleep patterns.
- You showered just before bed. People that sleep well consistently experience a dip in their body temperature just before they fall asleep. Those that don’t sleep as well typically don’t experience that temperature drop. While taking a hot shower or bath before bed may seem like a good idea to help you sleep, it actually warms up your body to a less than ideal sleeping temperature. Instead, take your hot bath or shower at least an hour before you go to bed. This will ensure your body has ample time to cool off and will help to establish that ideal sleeping temperature.
- You drank coffee too late in the day. While caffeine affects everyone differently, it can take up to 12 hours to completely exit your system. This can include caffeine found in coffee, tea, and soda drinks. Rather than resorting to your afternoon cup of coffee to keep you energized, take a short walk outside over your lunch break, or sit outside for a few minutes. Exercise and being outside can be just as stimulating as your coffee or tea.
- Or you drank too much. Drinking alcohol close to bedtime interferes with your sleep by not allowing you to sleep as deeply. While alcohol can initially make you feel tired, it still reduces the quality of your sleep. Instead, try to cut yourself off at least 3 hours before you go to sleep.
- You ate a heavy dinner. Eating a heavy dinner in the hours leading up to bedtime can actually stimulate your body. Try to eat larger meals at least 3 hours before you go to bed.
- You slept in. Sleeping in can be a luxury for a lot of us, and why not take advantage of it if you have a free morning? Unfortunately, late nights followed by later sleep-ins throws off your biological clock and confuses your brain, making it harder to fall asleep at a normal time at night, and also making it harder to get up in the morning.
- You’re stressed out. Anxiety is the most common cause for sleeping difficulties. However, worrying about your problems throughout the night rarely yields a solution to your problems, making your anxiety and worrying unproductive and unhelpful.
- You’re over–stimulated. Being wound up at bedtime can make it exceptionally difficult to get to sleep.
- There’s too much ambient light. If you wound down with your laptop, or if you have a glowing alarm clock next to your bed, chances are that your brain is confused and still thinking that it’s daytime. Consequently, our melatonin levels (a hormone that we produce naturally when it’s dark to help us sleep), doesn’t work as well and we don’t become as sleepy.
If any of these reasons resonate with your sleeping issues, and you still find yourself thinking, “I can’t sleep” every night, there are several things you can do when you can’t sleep.
What you should do if you can’t fall asleep at night
1. Go to another room for a while. Sometimes the best thing to do when you’re a prisoner of insomnia is to just leave your bedroom for a while. Changing your scenery and removing yourself from your restless environment will refresh your perspective, especially if you’re anxious or wound up.
2. Remove all ambient light in your bedroom. Does your alarm clock or computer screen glow in your room? Turn your clock away to the wall and turn off your computer. When you have any source of light at nighttime, it confuses your brain and tells it that it’s still daytime, making it difficult to sleep.
3. Perform a mundane/boring task. One thing I like to do that is both a little dull and comforting is go through my Iphoto library when I can’t sleep. I’ll sit in my living area, turn down the screen brightness as low as possible, and delete any photos that aren’t worth keeping or are of poor quality. Alternatively, I’ll do another menial task, like cleaning out the fridge for a few minutes. Sometimes just removing your body and your mind from your bedroom is all you need to wind down.
4. Resist the urge to sleep in. No matter how tired you are, resist the urge to sleep in too late. You’ll only face the same problems that night again when you can’t sleep.
5. Crack the window in your room or set up a fan. Bring your body temperature down to the ideal temp for sleep by cracking the window open to let in some fresh air, and circulating the air with a fan.
6. Meditate and practice relaxation exercises. If you’re stressed out or wound up, practice meditating and do some deep breathing exercises. There are plenty of self-guided meditation videos on YouTube that you can listen to/watch.
7. Eat a banana. Bananas contain both potassium and magnesium, which are both natural muscle relaxants. They also have L-tryptophan in them, which converts to serotonin in the brain, and helps you to fall asleep. Toast and cherries are also good sleep-inducing foods.
8. Drink a glass of warm milk. Like bananas, milk also has L-tryptophan, which releases serotonin in the brain. Pair it with a carbohydrate rich-food, like toast, and you’ll be asleep in no time.
9. Use a room diffuser. One of the most effective ways to get to sleep I’ve found yet is to diffuse an essential oil or essential oil blend. Research has shown that while essential oils can’t cure your insomnia, it does increase your chances of drifting off to sleep. Place the diffuser on your dresser and let it start diffusing for about an hour before you go to sleep. My favorite oils to diffuse for nighttime include lavender essential oil and Good Sleep essential oil.
Some of these methods may work better than others for you, so it’s worth it to experiment a little to see which is most effective for you. Training your brain to shut off when you need it to for bedtime may take a little time and practice, but it’s well worth it for your physical and mental health.
