Sleep problems and lack of night rest: the role of stress, physical activity

Each per­son for a good rest should sleep at least 7–8 hours dai­ly, but there are sit­u­a­tions when it is not pos­si­ble to fall asleep. In many ways, night­time sleep is affect­ed by a lack of exer­cise and sol­id food at night, stress at work and at home, as well as one’s own habits of stay­ing up late. Many peo­ple try to solve the prob­lem by tak­ing sleep­ing pills, but this is not the best option. It is impor­tant to start by mak­ing lifestyle changes and reg­i­men changes.

Sleep disorders and lack of night rest

Dai­ly sleep is essen­tial for the full func­tion­ing of the ner­vous sys­tem and main­tain­ing health. But many peo­ple suf­fer from chron­ic sleep depri­va­tion asso­ci­at­ed with insom­nia. Often they lie in bed for hours with­out sleep, toss­ing and turn­ing from side to side and falling asleep in the morn­ing, and after a cou­ple of hours they already have to get up for work. Nat­u­ral­ly, such poor-qual­i­ty sleep does not give rest to the brain and body, pro­vokes lethar­gy, malaise, headache and even depres­sion. In many ways, sleep prob­lems are asso­ci­at­ed with lifestyle and the for­ma­tion of patho­log­i­cal habits: eat­ing at night, going to bed after mid­night, spend­ing many hours at the com­put­er mon­i­tor before going to bed.

So that the body and ner­vous sys­tem can get prop­er rest every night, it is impor­tant to fight insom­nia. But you need to do this not by tak­ing sleep­ing pills, but by mak­ing changes in your usu­al life, form­ing the right sleep habits.

What affects sleep: stress, physical inactivity

Many peo­ple note that prob­lems at work or tur­moil in fam­i­ly life, quar­rels and prob­lems deprive them of sleep. This is under­stand­able, since emo­tion­al stress sig­nif­i­cant­ly affects the body. Anger, irri­ta­tion or overex­ci­ta­tion form an increase in meta­bol­ic process­es, send mil­lions of sig­nals to the brain that need to be processed. In such a sit­u­a­tion, the brain can­not quick­ly adjust from activ­i­ty to rest, it works with ten­sion. If it is acute stress that is asso­ci­at­ed with any events (job change, mov­ing, death of loved ones), sleep prob­lems are tem­po­rary. But chron­ic stress, which affects the day to day, leads to pro­longed insom­nia.

Equal­ly impor­tant is the phys­i­cal activ­i­ty of a per­son dur­ing the day. If a per­son works main­ly in the office, he expe­ri­ences a lack of phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, his body does not prop­er­ly get tired to switch from vig­or to sleep. The reverse sit­u­a­tion is also pos­si­ble: heavy phys­i­cal exer­tion and over­work is phys­i­cal stress, which can also dis­turb sleep. What can you do to elim­i­nate insom­nia from your life?

Change of habits

Often the per­son him­self is to blame for sleep dis­or­ders. Non-com­pli­ance with the dai­ly rou­tine, the habit of drink­ing a lot of cof­fee or drink­ing alco­hol in the evening, using gad­gets in bed — all this neg­a­tive­ly affects the brain and switch­ing it from activ­i­ty to sleep. It is nec­es­sary to metic­u­lous­ly change habits, aban­don­ing the TV, smart­phone and oth­er gad­gets in the bed­room, wean­ing from eat­ing at night and tak­ing psy­chos­tim­u­lant drinks (cof­fee, ener­gy drinks, alco­hol in com­bi­na­tion with nico­tine). If sleep does not occur with­in 15–20 min­utes when you go to bed, you should not lie down wait­ing for sleep. It is worth get­ting up, tak­ing a warm bath, drink­ing a cup of tea or read­ing a book. This will help cre­ate a feel­ing of sleepi­ness. And only then you need to lie down again.

When a per­son lies in bed with­out sleep, he forms wrong sleep habits. Basi­cal­ly, he sets his body up not to sleep in bed, but just to lie there. And the brain can get used to this set­ting.

Change your exercise level

In order to fall asleep faster in the evening, dur­ing the day­time, the body needs to work active­ly so that phys­i­o­log­i­cal fatigue occurs. Those peo­ple who sit for hours in offices expe­ri­ence a lack of phys­i­cal activ­i­ty. Their brain is over­loaded, while the body is not yet tired and not ready to rest. There­fore, it is impor­tant to pay atten­tion to active activ­i­ties, walks and vis­its to the gym. Reg­u­lar phys­i­cal activ­i­ty helps to expend ener­gy, main­tain body tone, bal­ances the process­es of exci­ta­tion and inhi­bi­tion in the ner­vous sys­tem, which has a pos­i­tive effect on sleep.

On aver­age, a per­son needs at least 30 min­utes of phys­i­cal activ­i­ty per day and approx­i­mate­ly 150 min­utes per week. It can be swim­ming, jog­ging in the park or even evening walks with the dog in the fresh air, walk­ing at an intense pace. Doing this is one of the good habits.

Medication

If noth­ing helps to nor­mal­ize sleep, you should con­sult a ther­a­pist or neu­rol­o­gist to find out the true caus­es of insom­nia. It is dan­ger­ous to take any med­ica­tion that affects sleep process­es on your own. Anti­de­pres­sants and sleep­ing pills have espe­cial­ly seri­ous side effects, they can cause increased day­time sleepi­ness, with­draw­al symp­toms and oth­er trou­bles that can inter­fere with your usu­al activ­i­ties.

It is impor­tant not to take med­ica­tions that affect sleep late in the evening or at night, by morn­ing their effect has not yet end­ed. In addi­tion, if a per­son is tak­ing sleep med­ica­tions, they should be tak­en in cours­es with sig­nif­i­cant breaks to avoid addic­tion or with­draw­al symp­toms.

If sleep dis­tur­bances are pro­longed, accom­pa­nied by poor health and increased pres­sure, headache, you should not take med­ica­tion with­out a doc­tor. It is nec­es­sary to under­go an exam­i­na­tion and iden­ti­fy the cause of health prob­lems. Often, insom­nia is one of the symp­toms of seri­ous patholo­gies.

Relieve stress, anxiety

Often insom­nia is due to anx­i­ety. The brain is over­loaded, in the course of think­ing about all the dai­ly prob­lems, stress hor­mones are active­ly syn­the­sized, stim­u­lat­ing metab­o­lism. For peo­ple who con­stant­ly have prob­lems with over­think­ing at night, experts sug­gest sched­ul­ing a time each day, such as between work and din­ner, when to sit down and method­i­cal­ly write down one or two sen­tences about what is both­er­ing you and how you can solve this or that prob­lem. . By sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly doc­u­ment­ing these issues through­out the day, one will be less like­ly to dwell on them at night.

Anoth­er com­mon anx­i­ety that comes with insom­nia is the grow­ing real­iza­tion that sleep does­n’t come when it should. The stress and frus­tra­tion asso­ci­at­ed with insom­nia only makes things worse. There­fore, it is impor­tant to be dis­tract­ed, not to look at the clock and learn to switch your atten­tion.