Think sleep has nothing to do with anxiety? Think again.
Without quality sleep which typically spans seven to eight hours per night, for the average adult: our body’s stability spins off center.1
Poor sleep leads to elevated levels of stress hormones such as cortisol, resulting in restlessness or irritability and exhaustion (not to mention simple sugar carb cravings!).2
The three main areas I tend to inventory in sleep hygiene (sleep hygiene, like any area of hygiene – includes the rituals for optimization in a certain area of life):
- In general, what is the setting and routine like at bedtime? Is there an awareness to cool temperatures and dark spaces for soothing the mind, producing naturally occurring levels of the soothing hormone of melatonin. Are you heading to bed around the same time each day, so your circadian rhythms optimally lull and keep you in quality sleep cycles? And what are the ritualized cues that propel you into sleep? Chamomile tea; low to no tech time thirty-ish minutes prior; reading; soothing tasks and sounds – to name a few stellar cues.
- If there is difficulty falling into sleep or if woken in the night – are you aware it takes about twenty minutes to fall into a slumber? Be patient, rather than elevating anxiety or critical thoughts which counters progress into slumber. Besides, are you also aware that rest is akin to benefits of a first stage in the sleep cycles?
- And if you have trouble sleeping: what is your calming strategy?
Most of my clients struggle to answers these inventory questions. Many state they have never been asked them. I credit the genius Dr. Elissa Ely, with whom I worked yet mostly trained under via the Department of Mental Health in Massachusetts. She stated (in clinical rounds with myself and one other young clinician – at the time – who provided the counseling to her psychiatric cases) something along the lines of: sleep hygiene is vital to understanding the whole health of clients, as sleep life mirrors awake life.
Trouble sleeping? Maybe you’re stressed and working something out unconsciously while you try to rest.
Waking with pain or visions of strobe-like-lights during REM cycles, probably time to speak with a physician regarding physical or psychological trauma.
Drowsy all day? Probably not sleeping well, perhaps it’s sleep apnea, and perhaps – it is time for a sleep study.
Forgot to turn off the television before the millisecond murder clip on Law & Order? Worse yet – sleeping with the suspense shows streaming? Better bet there will be stress or guns in your sleep. You’ll wake exhausted from a mind that fought crime. All. Night. Long.
However, beginning with my three inventory questions, journal how things are going for you at baseline. Check back – as the next article will provide anxiety answers for each category.
- Olsen, E. How Many Hours of Sleep Are Enough? https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/expert-answers/how-many-hours-of-sleep-are-enough/faq-20057898 retrieved on 10.16.2023
- Sleep Deprivation. https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/sleep-deprivation retrieved on 10.16.2023
ANXIETY ANSWERS 