Less sleep is more sleep

No one really knows how much sleep the normal person "needs." Most people figure it out after a while, what with alarm clocks, coffee, dozing in meetings. For most people their body clock just does what it needs to do—get sleepy say at 10 pm and wake ups say at 530 am. But for people with insomnia, this is just not the case. They might get sleepy at 10 am but then wake up at 2 am and not be able to get back to sleep. This pattern of "early morning awakening" or sleep-offset insomnia is very common. It can be an indication of depression, but more commonly it is a pattern that occurs with any type of stress.

One of our major treatments for insomnia is to spend less time in bed. This can seem counter-intuitive, because many people mistakenly believe that if they are sleeping poorly they need to spend more time in bed. Unfortunately, spending long periods of time in bed if someone is awake just makes the insomnia worse in the long run. The brain "learns" to be awake in bed, and once a habit, it is difficult to change.

Our deepest sleep comes in the first 2 to 4 hours of the night, beginning about 16 or 17 hours after our morning wake up time. As soon as we fall asleep, our brain wave get slower and slower, and it is very hard to be awakened. This deep "slow wave" sleep continues for about an hour or so, then repeats itself in the first two cycles of the sleep stages. It is during this stage of sleep that growth hormone is released in children and most of the "bodily" restoration occurs. Later, in the last half of the night, sleep is lighter and most of our dreaming (REM) sleep occurs. The importance and function of this sleep is less clear. Some people have called the first half of sleep "core" sleep and the last portion "optional" sleep.

For these and many other reasons, it is necessary for someone with insomnia to take the perspective that they must get by with less sleep, even if they are tired the next day. For many, being in bed only 5 or 6 hours will get them just as much sleep as if they were in bed for 9 hours, and they will be training their brain to sleep better. Eventually, more sleep will come.

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