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It is normal to wake up several times during the night, as the brain goes through different stages of deeper and lighter sleep. Seniors also often have to get up to go to the toilet once or twice during the night. Waking up at night is usually harmless. Most people have no difficulty falling back to sleep, and may not even remember waking up at night the next morning.
But if you wake up frequently in the middle of the night and have trouble falling back to sleep, there could be an underlying issue. If this happens at least three times a week over a period of at least three months, it could be chronic insomnia, said Dr. Kannan Ramar, a sleep medicine specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and former president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. .
Two of the main drivers of insomnia are stress and anxiety. If you wake up and watch the time and start worrying about having to rest for work the next day, paying your bills or other life stresses, it could activate your sympathetic nervous system, which controls what this is called the fight-or-response flight. Levels of adrenaline, the so-called stress hormone, will rise, raising your heart rate and leading to heightened wakefulness, making it particularly difficult to return to sleep.
“You might ask yourself: Is this the same time I woke up last night? Why does this always happen? ‘ “Said Dr Ramar. “These thoughts are not helpful in getting back to sleep.”
If you find that you’ve been awake for 25 minutes or more, experts advise you to get out of bed and do some calm activity that calms your mind – anything that can negate the stressful thoughts that have been keeping you awake. Gentle stretching or breathing exercises can help, as can meditation, which has been shown in studies to help fight chronic insomnia. You can sit on the sofa and knit, or read a book or magazine in the dim light. Experts recommend that you avoid reading on your smartphone, because the blue light emitted by these devices can suppress the production of melatonin, the hormone that helps make us drowsy. You can, however, pull out your phone to use a soothing app like Calm or Headspace, which are designed to help you sleep and meditate.
Eventually, when you start to feel tired, go back to bed and try to doze off. Then, the next day, implement the following sleep hygiene habits to increase your chances of getting a good night’s sleep.
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Limit your alcohol intake at night. In small amounts, alcohol can act as a sedative, making you fall asleep faster. But it can also cause you to wake up in the middle of the night as your body metabolizes it. Studies show that drinking alcohol before bed can lead to poor quality sleep.
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Avoid consuming caffeine after 2 p.m., as it can linger in your body until late in the evening. If you drink a cup of coffee at 3:30 p.m., about a quarter of the caffeine can still be in your body 12 hours later.
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Avoid taking a nap late in the day, as this can make it harder to fall asleep and sleep at night. Taking late naps will reduce what scientists call your homeostatic sleep drive, which is basically your body’s pressure to fall asleep at night. If you want to take a nap during the day, be sure to do it in the morning or early afternoon, and keep it short, no more than 30 minutes. “The closer you are to bedtime or the longer the nap, the more likely you are to get into trouble,” said Dr Sabra Abbott, assistant professor of neurology in sleep medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg. School of Medicine in Chicago.
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Keep a strict sleep schedule. Waking up and going to bed at irregular times can disrupt your body’s circadian rhythm, the innate 24-hour cycles that tell our bodies when to wake up and fall asleep, making it harder to sleep through the night. Try to get up at the same time each morning (try to get at least 15 minutes of sun in the morning, which helps stop melatonin production) and go to bed at the same time at night. Studies show that people who have irregular bedtime are more likely to develop symptoms of insomnia.
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If you get up to go to the bathroom frequently, try to limit the amount of water or other fluids you drink at night two to four hours before bed.
If these steps don’t help, a sleep specialist can assess whether you might have a bigger underlying problem, such as sleep apnea or restless leg syndrome, that needs medical treatment. A sleep clinic could also put you in touch with a cognitive behavioral therapist who can help you identify and treat any specific behavior that could be causing your chronic insomnia.
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