Our body follows an internal cycle of sleep and wakefulness. Some people can flow with these cycles fairly easily. However, many people are often struggling with balancing their cycle to find a rhythm that works for their daily life. What most people don’t realize is that there are internal and external factors that can dramatically influence the balance of our sleep-wake cycle, contributing to insomnia – difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep – and the amount of sleep you get.
Some of the most impactful factors include what you eat & drink, regular medications, your sleep environment. These can all influence how easily (or not) you fall asleep, how often you wake up in the middle of the night, and the stage of sleep you’re able to achieve.
Too Much Light Can Lead to Insomnia
Light exposure, especially blue light, can trick our mind and body into thinking it’s daytime. The light exposure to our eyes influences our internal clock and biological timing, which is our body’s way of knowing when it’s time to be awake, and when it’s time to sleep. This happens because there are light-sensitive cells in the retina of our eyes. They’re located in the same space as the rods and cones of our vision receptors. The light-sensitive cells receive the information that there’s light and tell the brain that it’s daytime, so time to wake up! This advancing or delaying our sleep and wake cycle can cause many people to become off-balance and incapable of falling asleep on their own at night.
From the time the lightbulb was invented to today, where we are surrounded by lighted screens, people are exposed to much more light at night. Evolution has not adjusted to these new forms of light, any light means “sunlight” to our internal clock and can affect our sleep patterns by delaying sleep and causing us to prefer later sleep times. Exposure to light in the middle of the night, such as waking up and looking at your phone, streetlights penetrating your room, or falling asleep with the television on can also have unpredictable effects on your sleep-wake cycle. It can reset your internal clock, making it difficult to go back to sleep. It can also interrupt your sleep stages and reduce your deep sleep, which is the most restful sleep.
Jet Lag and Shift Work Can Induce Insomnia
Changing time zones is likely going to put your sleep cycle out of sync for at least a day or two. The same is true for taking on a new shift at work ( moving from day shift to night shift, and vice versa). Normally, our internal clock has a strong influence on the ability to fall asleep as well as the sleep stages we experience when we do sleep.
For long-distance travelers having “jet lag,” their internal clock needs to adjust to the new day-night cycle, and may feel the effects in 2 major ways:
- They may experience insomnia when trying to sleep outside of their original internal sleep timing.
- They are likely to experience excessive daytime sleepiness if they’re awake outside of their internal clock’s wake cycle.
Many people who work on the night shift regularly have issues with nodding off and falling asleep on the clock. This potentially dangerous for both individuals and society. Some of the most important fields of safety have alternating day and night shifts including airline pilots, air traffic controllers, doctors and nurses, police officers, and other public safety workers.
Pain, Anxiety, Medical Conditions and Medications
Physical, mental, and emotional trauma can keep us up at night. Both medical and psychological conditions can affect your sleep structure and distribution. Pain and discomfort often limit our ability to achieve a deeper level of sleep, allowing only brief episodes of sleep between awakenings.
Stress, anxiety, and depression can affect people of all ages and often prevent people from falling asleep easily. Even if they can fall asleep, the sleep is often at a lighter level, with more REM sleep and less deep sleep.
This reaction is understandable, our bodies are programmed to respond to stress and higher cortisol levels by waking up the body. Even stress about everyday, casual concerns can create this spike in cortisol and make restful sleep extremely difficult to achieve.
Many people that experience medical or psychological conditions turn to medications and other substances such as nicotine and alcohol. However, these chemicals affect both the quantity and quality of sleep. It’s important to avoid certain substances too close to bedtime, such as caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, and antihistamines. Certain prescription medicines should also be avoided in the evening and nighttimes such as beta-blockers, alpha-blockers, and antidepressants. All of these can create chemical reactions in the body that prevent sleep or prevent deep sleep.
Get The Insomnia Treatment You Need With Gingras Sleep Medicine
We all need our sleep – it’s a crucial biological factor for our health and functionality. Whether you’re having difficulty sleeping, can’t seem to stay asleep, or are dealing with one of the environmental factors that we discussed here, the experts at Gingras Sleep Medicine in Charlotte, North Carolina can help you! Visit our website or contact a member of our staff today.