Sleep and stress relief...two things needed for a happy lifeAlright. So one thing's certain. Sleep and stress relief are definitely good things for your body. You probably wish you would get better sleep. Also, you probably want less stress in your life. But are stress and insomnia (lack of sleep) related? Basically, is your lack of sleep stress related insomnia? Well, that's the question you are going to have answered today. Sometimes, even I can't seem to fall asleep. Sometimes I think it's because of stress, and sometimes, I can't figure out why. But know I know the answer, and you will too. If you're in that same position, where you wonder whether insomnia and stress are related, I'll tell you this: Yes. In a short answer, yes, stress and insomnia are related. But how? That's automatically the next question in your mind. Well, I was amazed when I first found out about the connection. The relationship between the two seemed so obvious and trivial at first, but it actually turned out to be more interesting than I thought. Take Advantage of Sleep and Stress Relief Before we begin, remember: sleep and stress relief are key ingredients to living a relaxed and happy life. So use them to your advantage. How Are Stress and Insomnia Related? Before I get into the hard facts, let's start of with some common sense. If you're stressed, you're obviously not relaxed. Right? Ok. If you're not relaxed, how can you go to sleep? Sleep requires your brain, muscles, and your whole body to be calm and cool. When you're stressed out, your nerves are tense, your brain seems overwhelmed, and your muscles are definitely not relaxed. All of these contribute to a bad night's sleep. Or better yet, no sleep at all! Remember; sleep and stress relief compliment each other. It's hard to have one without the other. So, now on to the hard facts, facts that you may not already know. Let's start with insomnia: All About Insomnia Insomnia is not only the inability to fall asleep. It's also not being able to sleep throughout the night, even though you already fell asleep. Now, there are also two types of insomnia. Short-term and long-term insomnia. Long term insomnia is also known as chronic insomnia, by the way. So let's start with short term insomnia. Actually, short term insomnia applies to the subject of stress more than long-term insomnia, so we'll focus on this more. Most people suffer from temporary lack of sleep. You know, because of stress, sorrow, a sudden change or halt in sleep patterns, etc. These are just factors that we face occasionally, not on a day-to-day basis. And stress-related insomnia is very common, mind you. In fact, most people will go through insomnia (short-term) some time in their lives. Now, let's take a look at long-term (chronic) insomnia. When your sleep patterns have been altered or broken for a long time (at least a month), it's considered to be "chronic", or "long-term". As you may have already noticed, stress isn't really a factor in this type of insomnia. But it could be. How? If you're stress is long-term itself! Then, short term factor will be a cause for long-term insomnia as well. But most people don't suffer from this king of stress, or this kind of sleep disorder. That's why your focus should be on stress and short-term insomnia. Ready for some more helpful facts? Let's begin! So let's take a deeper look into the relationship stress with not being able to sleep. A Deeper Look At Stress When you're stressed, your body goes through something called a stress response. When you go through a stress response, your body starts acting differently; it starts increasing in core temperature. Many other things happen: your muscles tense, your heart rate quickens, and there is an increase in metabolism. All these symptoms and more, happening at the same time, tell you that you are undergoing "stress". You know that uneasy feeling of being stressed? That's just the result of all the things that are happening inside your body when stress is triggered. A Deeper Look At Sleep When you sleep, do you know what happens in your body? You guessed it; the opposite of what happens when you're stressed! When you go to sleep, your pulse lowers, your muscles relax, your core temperature goes down, and your metabolism also decreases. Along with many other more complicated functions, these are the main things that happen when you fall asleep. Now, since these bodily functions are almost completely opposite from the stress response, you can guess why sleep and stress don't get along! You can rarely have both at the time. It's simple logic, here. If your body is going through two opposite responses, it won't side either. It won't adjust to make you sleep because stress is preventing it from doing that. To be calm and relaxed, your body needs sleep and stress relief. If there is stress, you'll have insomnia. It's Like a Paradox! That's right; the connection between stress and the lack of sleep is like a paradox. Stress leads to lack of sleep, and lack of sleep leads to stress! They both are the cause and effect of each other! You know what that means, right? Try to avoid both! If you fall pray to even one of these problems, sooner or later you will also end up victim to the other. Wait... We know that stress causes insomnia, but how does insomnia cause stress? I won't even bother with the hard facts for this one. You'll get why through this simple example. Insomnia = Stress? When you wake up in the morning, after a terrible night's sleep, you feel miserable, don't you? Say you drank to much water the night before, and you had to get up several times to go to the bathroom. So you don't get much sleep. You see, in this example, it's not because of stress that you couldn't sleep throughout the night. It's because of your silly mistake of drinking too much water the previous night. And now it hits you. You're up in the morning, tired, miserable, and your brain's not functioning. You start stressing out. "How am I going to keep up with the company on getting those papers done?" you ask yourself. "Oh no! My boss is going to kill me for being inefficient!", you stressfully think. As you can see, lack of sleep also causes stress. And who knows, maybe you stress makes you perform less well, and that stress stays with you through the day. Now, stress is causing insomnia! It's a vicious cycle. As ths cycle increases in power, the need for sleep and stress relief become more important. Remember; to avoid this cycle, you need to make use of the sleep and stress relief opportunities throughout your life. Take-Home Lesson? Stress is definitely related to insomnia. They affect each other. They are both harmful to your body, and you should try to avoid them by all means. However, sleep and stress relief compliment each other! These are two essential "things" to having a relaxed and calm body and mind. You can't have one with the other! You Need More Sleep and Stress Relief Than You Think So take advantage of the two "S"s: Sleep and Stress Relief. When ever you have an opportunity to sleep longer than usual, do it. When ever you're given a chance to relieve your stress, do it. And one last thing; Feel free to use this website learn about all kinds of information related to stress!
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