Why can’t I stay asleep
Waking up once or twice per night is completely normal if you fall back asleep right after. But if you are falling asleep only to wake up more than once per night unable to conceal sleep after 45 minutes or more, you might have a sleep maintenance disorder.
Why can’t I stay asleep through the whole night?
Different factors come into play when you have difficulty staying asleep: physical pain, anxiety, job concerns, various issues or a busy schedule. All kinds of problems going on in your head can cause a sleep maintenance disorder. When you are unable to “turn off” your thoughts, you fall asleep thinking about them and wake up because of them, only to keep thinking about it all. When you give importance to your different issues in the middle of the night, your brain takes this as a sign the day has started. Sometimes these types of problems manifest themselves in your body as well. You might find yourself waking up with chest palpitations as a reflection of the anxiety you suffer from the constant stream of undesired thoughts. If this continues for several days, it could last for months, even if the root cause of your problems has already disappeared.
Sleep disorders can also stem from good things, such as family life. Small children are a well-known source of sleeping issues. As you get accustomed to constant sleepless nights and multiple interruptions during your sleep cycles, your body gets used to this pattern, and your brain will make you turn yourself vigilant during the night, no matter what. A small noise is sometimes enough to wake you up. Once you are up, you automatically check on your children -the pattern starts again-. After that, your brain starts working at full speed again, making it extremely difficult to go back to sleep.
Women also face different biological issues that make it difficult to sleep. On one side of things, pregnancy can turn an easy task such as sleeping through the night into a seemingly impossible task. On the other side of things, menopause can become the number one source of sleeping maintenance disorder.
"Do you want to sleep like a baby? Then don’t look at the clock at night!"
How can you improve your sleep maintenance disorder by yourself?
There are multiple things you can do at home, right now, to improve your sleepless situation. The very first thing you want to do is take an honest, hard look into your night’s routine and nocturnal behavior. When you are about to go to sleep, what thoughts, feelings, and actions go through your head? Is bedtime the time to think about your job or the issues you might face the morning after? More often than not -probably more than 90% of the cases- whatever is going on through your head can wait until the next day. Unless you are in an emergency scenario and you have to take immediate action, it’s best to forget about it for the night.
The best way to do this is to learn from your previous evenings. Organize your thoughts before the night, plan what you are going to do tomorrow, and check if you have done everything you had to. Once night falls, stop thinking about it, nothing you can do then will help. However, if it’s not important at all, the best way to help yourself is to understand that it does not matter.
Do this correctly, and your thoughts won’t haunt you down, waking you up in the middle of the night! After a good night's sleep, tomorrow is an entirely new day, an opportunity to seize your goals. And not a chore to go through because you couldn’t sleep at all.
By doing this, you are reeducating your brain to understand when you have to think and act, and when it’s time to sleep. You are giving it the order to stop worrying because it’s time to sleep.
If you can’t escape your worries, pain, or restlessness, it might be a good thing to leave your bed for a moment. Take this time to do something unimportant that doesn’t take much effort like making tea, heating milk, or reading an easy book. Try to avoid TV and other sources of light, as strong light will wake you up.
If you want to stay in bed, try to focus on your body, your mattress, the darkness around you, or your natural breathing pattern. If you are unable to focus yourself on such trivial things, keep yourself focused on something nice like a future holiday or one of your hobbies.
A sleep therapist can teach you all these skills to concentrate and relax, bringing your body and mind processes to an unwinding stage. It will alleviate your pain and tension at the same time. Using this approach, you will be able to break the vicious circle of disbalance you are suffering. The goal is to teach you these things and not make you dependent on therapy. You will be able to do it by yourself as well.
Result
Thanks to this method, you will have a healthy night’s sleep in a few weeks. You will reduce the times you wake up at night significantly. Eventually, you will achieve your goal of an uninterrupted night’s sleep. This will give you inner peace and independence from medication.