Don’t Lose Sleep Over Losing Sleep

Written By Trilety Wade

Approximately a 10-minute read - (Image Credit: David Clode, via Unsplash)

Sleep. It’s a vulnerable state. Relaxed (hopefully). Defenseless. With your body in reality and your mind in the Elsewhere. I’ve always been, what you might call, “a good sleeper.” I am easy to fall asleep and easy to wake, and my “sweet spot” of sleep is 8-1/2 hours. 

However, an estimated one-third of Americans receive less than 7 hours of sleep a night on average. Both for reasons under and/or beyond their control. 

What’s up with Sleep, or Sleeplessness, and What Can We Do About It?

If you’ve read an article on health or nutrition lately, you’ve likely also been bombarded by posts espousing the dangers of sleeplessness, and the sleep-hygiene solutions to get you more Zzz’s. For this post, I won’t delve deep into either of those topics, but instead will provide a quick compilation of some of the most interesting tidbits about sleep I’ve learned lately, as well as a few resources so you can learn even more about our temporary nighttime dying.

Sleep Tracking

Do any of you use sleep trackers? Keep these points in mind when considering a sleep tracker. 

  • Accuracy: Sleep trackers often measure your sleep by monitoring body movements and/or changes in heart-rate. Whereas actual sleep studies measure your sleep by monitoring brain waves; the most accurate measurement of sleep.

    “Sleep trackers are only accurate 78% of the time when identifying sleep versus wakefulness. This accuracy drops to around 38% when estimating how long it took participants to fall asleep.” (1)

  • Anxiety: Sleep trackers can lead to sleep-anxiety in some individuals. When I searched “do sleep trackers make you lose sleep” I was greeted with top results from NPR, John’s Hopkins, the New York Times and this great article at The Conversation.

    • Just like dieting can cause a preoccupation with food, sleep trackers can lead to a preoccupation with sleep. This preoccupation with sleep can become so weighty that it distracts you from your goal of sleep.

Consider ditching the sleep tracker and instead measure your sleep based on how you feel, not the data on your wrist.

Are you tired?

Are you irritable?

Do you struggle to focus?

Try and notice if these feelings are linked to the amount or type of sleep you are getting.

One certain benefit of sleep trackers is that they can help you identify patterns in your sleep!

Personalized Sleep Guidance

Have you noticed the trend in “personalized nutrition” (PN) lately? PN is an approach to nutrition guidance that is based on the individual’s personalized data. This same approach could be applied to sleep. Are you basing your sleep routine on generalized guidance or are you basing it on your own feedback and understanding? 

For example, when I consistently get less than 8 or 9 hours of sleep, my mood turns to toddler. Whereas my partner, Jim, feels he functions best on 6-1/2 to 7 hours of sleep. Sleep, it’s personal. While government guidance on sleep is designed to be generalizable to as many people as possible, it is still not one size fits all.

Before adhering to any of the general sleep guidance or tips, check in with yourself first. Like the tip in the previous section, start by monitoring your mood and energy, and go from there. Of course, if you find yourself falling asleep during the day, then it is most likely that you need more sleep. 

Personalize your approach to sleep and find what works for you.

Image Credit: Maria Freyenbacher, via Unsplash

Melatonin for Sleeplessness?

Have you heard about folks turning to melatonin supplements to cure their sleeplessness? We seem to be supplement crazy these days. But does melatonin really help us get to sleep?

  • Melatonin is a natural hormone released in our bodies at night to help regulate our sleep. We are our own best pharmacies at times. When you buy melatonin in supplement form tho, you may not always know what you are getting. Since supplements are not regulated by the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA), you can’t be assured that what is on the label is actually in the bottle. So, when purchasing supplements, always look for the “USP Verified” mark which verifies that the product:

  • Contains the ingredients and quantities listed on the label

  • Does not contain harmful amounts of specified contaminants

  • Will break down and release in your body in a specified amount of time

  • Has been produced according to FDA Good Manufacturing Practices

Not Recommended for Insomnia:

“According to practice guidelines from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (2017) and the American College of Physicians (2016), there’s not enough strong evidence on the effectiveness or safety of melatonin supplementation for chronic insomnia to recommend its use.” (2)

Sometimes Recommended for. . .

“Evidence-based recommendations published by the AASM indicate that strategically timed melatonin can be a treatment option for some problems related to sleep timing, such as jet lag disorder and shift work disorder.”

CBT for Insomnia

Have you tried all the tips in the “sleep hygiene” lists and you still can’t get to sleep? Have you been sleepless for months, not just weeks? Maybe Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is your next best option.

”Chronic insomnia disorder, which affects about 10 percent of the adult population, is distinguished by a sleep disturbance with associated daytime symptoms occurring at least three times per week for at least three months,” whereas acute insomnia lasts from one night to a few weeks. (3)

CBT is recommended by the specialists:

“Sleep hygiene alone has not been shown to help address chronic insomnia. Instead The American College of Physicians guidelines strongly recommend the use of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) as an initial treatment for insomnia.” (ibid)

“The AASM also recommends that clinicians use cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) for the treatment of chronic insomnia disorder in adults.

So if you’re struggling with insomnia, head to a therapist or tele-health appointment before reaching for a supplement or other sleep-aid.

The Connection Between Sleep & Weight

Yep, studies have pointed to many reasons for a possible link between poor sleep and weight gain - as if we didn’t have enough things in our lives that already are making us fat! (4)

If sleeping less is making us fat, could sleeping more help us maintain a healthy body weight?

A recent study proposes a link between better sleep and reduced calorie intake - freaking interesting! This randomized controlled trial (RCT) was specifically a sleep intervention, not a nutritional intervention, and was conducted in a real-world setting vs a lab. As sleep increased, calorie intake decreased, on average to the total of about 270 calories; 500 calories for some participants. 

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the study was the intervention’s simplicity. “We saw that after just a single sleep counseling session, participants could change their bedtime habits enough to lead to an increase in sleep duration,” said Tasali. “We simply coached each individual on good sleep hygiene, and discussed their own personal sleep environments, providing tailored advice on changes they could make to improve their sleep duration (emphasis added). Importantly, to blind participants to sleep intervention, recruitment materials did not mention sleep intervention, allowing us to capture true habitual sleep patterns at baseline.” (5)

One of the other key take-aways from this specific study was that eliminating use of electronic devices before bed was shown to be important to increased sleep.

Keep in mind, I get a healthy amount of sleep and have still gained weight over the past year, so sleep is definitely not the cure-all, but it IS a good tool in your healthy-weight-toolbox.

Focus on the Benefits of Sleep Instead of the Negatives of Sleeplessness

Many articles about sleep focus on the detriments of not getting enough sleep, such as increased risk of weight gain, cardiovascular disease, metabolic disorders, etc. By the end of a supposedly helpful article, you feel like you’ve attended the sleep edition of Scared Straight - Scared Sleepy perchance?! How can anyone get to sleep after being told if they don’t sleep they’ll essentially die early anyway; that’s about the worst lullaby ever. . . .

Rock-A-Bye baby, when the day stops,

When you can’t sleep, your body will rot,

When the day breaks, the sickness will call,

and down falls your body, poor health and all.

……………….

Let’s instead focus on the Benefits of Sleep.

Getting enough sleep can help:

  • Your immune system

  • Maintain a healthy weight or possibly even reduce calorie intake

  • Lower your risk for diabetes and heart disease

  • Improve your mood and reduce your reactions to stress

  • Improve concentration

  • Improve relationships - I can testify that on too little sleep, I’m pretty bratty and combative 

  • Avoid injuries, ie in driving or any task that can become dangerous once your concentration is compromised. 

    Image Credit: Einar Storsul, via Unsplash

Beyond This Post. . .

Would you like to learn more about sleep or learn some tips to help you fall asleep faster? Check out these Resources & Tips below:

Sleep Tips:

For short term or acute insomnia, you can find a bunch of tips on sleep hygiene with just a few cursory searches, but here are a few of my favorites:

  • If you can, set a consistent sleep schedule so you are waking at the same time even on weekends. Tho forcing yourself to sleep when you aren’t sleepy will likely only cause you to lay awake in bed, so. . . . 

  • Only go to bed when sleepy

  • If you don’t fall asleep after 20 minutes, get out of bed. . .read a book, do some dishes. . . do anything but TRY and sleep. But maybe don’t do anything too stimulating or exciting!

  • Don’t eat too close to bedtime, or if you do, take a 10 -15 minute walk afterwards to get your digestion going.

  • Make your room dark - I never used to do this, but I find it creates a restful environment. If you’re slow-to-wake, or need sunshine to do so, make sure to leave enough of a crack in the curtains to let the sun shine in when you need it.

  • When I get night-anxiety, I sing the melody of the Kenny Loggins song “Danger Zone” but with the lyrics Bed Zone. . .Right Into The Beeeed zone! It’s a reminder to myself that this is my Bed Zone, and I can’t actually do anything tangible about my stress and anxiety except rest. 

  • On the Somnology podcast above, they give a couple of really interesting tips to help you fall asleep by distracting your brain from the task at hand, namely “falling asleep.” One tip from the host, Allie Ward, comes from her mother and involves alphabetically listing categorized items, ie names of boyfriends, types of animals, titles of books, etc. Aardvark. Beaver. Cat. Dinosaur. I tried this last night and it worked like a charm, tho again, I am a good sleeper to begin with. Another similar tip was to visually practice doing something in your head; specifically the example used was pitching a baseball. Apparently, not only will this practice help you fall asleep, but it may just improve whatever task you were visualizing. These seem to be the evolved versions of counting sheep, which let’s face it was just. . .counting.

Are you all good-sleepers? When you can’t sleep, what tips or methods do you use to help you drift into dreamland? Comment below! And until next time, sleep like a cat cuz they can fall asleep ANYWHERE.

~~~~~~~
~ Thanks so much for reading - Trilety! And if you found this post helped you, made you think, or made you laugh, please consider supporting my research and writing with a tip!

Image Credit: Elena Gordienko, via Unsplash


Notes & Resources

(1) https://theconversation.com/are-sleep-trackers-accurate-heres-what-researchers-currently-know-152500

(2) https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/melatonin-what-you-need-to-know

(3) https://aasm.org/missing-the-mark-melatonin-finding-best-treatment-insomnia/

https://www.sleepfoundation.org/physical-health/weight-loss-and-sleep

(5) https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/research-and-discoveries-articles/getting-more-sleep-reduces-caloric-intake

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8822469/

https://www.sleepfoundation.org/insomnia/treatment/cognitive-behavioral-therapy-insomnia

Trilety Wade
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