It’s been 10 years since I experienced persistent sleep onset insomnia, but I was reminded of what my nights used to feel like when recently I took a red-eye flight on Spirit Airlines.
Conditions on that plane were not conducive to sleep: seats locked in the upright position; flight attendants whose nattering could be heard over the noise of the engines; dim lighting rather than darkness; kicks to my seat as the 6-footer behind me shifted around in his coach class cubicle; turbulence. I didn’t sleep a wink.
Conditions like these can interfere with anyone’s sleep. But sleep onset insomniacs may find them particularly challenging, accustomed as we are to not falling asleep very quickly and being bothered by things that other sleepers readily tune out.
Why is it so hard for some insomniacs to fall asleep and what can help? Following are six ways to hold sleep onset insomnia at bay.
What Brain Waves Reveal About Insomnia
Research has shown that people with insomnia have a different pattern of cortical activity as we’re drifting off to sleep. Compared with good sleepers, insomniacs are more prone to high-frequency brain waves in the sleep onset period. Once sleep onset has occurred, delta, or slow, waves take longer to appear. This is often taken as evidence of hyperarousal. At night, and possibly during the daytime as well, people with insomnia have higher levels of cortical arousal.
Results of recent study argue otherwise. Here, in the sleep onset period, sleep onset insomniacs were found to experience less high-frequency brain activity than sleep maintenance insomniacs (those who tend to wake up in the middle of the night). But the high-frequency activity in the sleep onset insomniacs took longer to decline. Authors of this study suggest that sleep onset insomnia may be the result of “some form of fast wakefulness inhibition” rather than an expression of cortical hyperarousal.
Relief for Sleep Onset Insomnia
Whatever may be the case, habits I’ve developed over the past 10 years enable me to fall asleep quickly now (barring nights when I’m trying to sleep on a plane). They may help you, too:
- Adopt a regular sleep schedule. Be especially regular about getting up at the same time every day—even on weekends. This can be a challenge if you have an erratic daytime schedule or an active social life. If you find you’re really sleepy, catch up on sleep by allowing yourself to go to bed somewhat earlier than normal rather than sleeping in late. The problem with sleeping much later than usual to catch up on sleep is that it sets you up for trouble falling asleep the next night.
- Break the association between your bed and wakefulness by reserving your bed (and the bedroom) for sleep and sex. Reading, TV and movie watching, surfing the net, playing video games—all this should happen outside the bedroom. Only go to bed when you’re sleepy enough to fall asleep.
- Exercise late in the afternoon or early in the evening. Exercise warms your body up. This triggers an internal cooling mechanism, and when your body is cooling down it’s easier to fall asleep. Aerobic exercise is best but rigorous strength training may work as well.
- Observe a wind-down routine in the hour leading up to bedtime. Have the same routine—shower, put on pajamas, brush teeth, read or look at picture books—every night. Your brain will learn to expect that this sequence of activities ends in sleep.
- If clock watching at night makes you anxious, turn your clocks to the wall starting at about 9 or 10 p.m. Use a backlit alarm clock on your bedside table—the kind that stays dark at night except when you press the button on top.
- If you have to fly at night, arm yourself beforehand with all the accoutrements I forgot to pack in my carry-on: neck pillow, eye mask, earplugs. As for Spirit Airlines, they may say they’re the company with the newest fleet of planes, but seats that keep you locked in an upright position do not lend themselves to a good night’s sleep!
If you often fly at night, what measures do you take to get a decent night’s sleep?
I was diagnosed with insomnia when I was in my 20s. It’s not like I couldn’t sleep at all, but I could only sleep for about 4 hours a night. As someone who had to stay up late for work, the lack of sleep caused me to oversleep during the day. This blog will help you figure out how to deal with your insomnia- emphasizing practical solutions!