The impact of stress on sleep and how to manage it

The impact of stress on sleep and how to manage it

Sleep is a crucial and necessary human function that allows our brains to recharge and our bodies to recover. Thus, when we don’t get enough sleep or our sleep quality is not good we can start feeling the detrimental effects that even slight sleep deprivation or poor sleep can have on memory, focus, and mood, as well as physical performance, and if this becomes a long term issue we can have a very negative impact on our health and make us more susceptible to disease.

And stress is a factor that can have a huge impact on our stress. There is a delicate balance and interaction between sleeping and stress and today we want to cover this subject in depth and more importantly give you our best advice, based on the latest research, to help you improve your sleep, manage stress better and improve your health and life overall.

How stress affects your body

Let’s take a look first at how stress can negatively affect your body, your mind, and your health overall:

• Cardiovascular: Chronic stress causes constant elevation of heart rate and blood pressure increasing your risk for hypertension, heart attack, and stroke, and also causing inflammation of your circulatory system.

• Gastrointestinal: The neurological function of mood regulation of the GI system is affected by stress leading to pain, bloating, and other types of gastrointestinal discomfort. It can also lead to loss of appetite and a weakened intestinal barrier against harmful bacteria which may cause painful spasms in the esophagus and bowels.

• Musculoskeletal: elevated muscle tension during stressful moments or chronic stress causing persistent complications such as migraine headaches or pain in the neck, jaw, lower back, and upper extremities. This discomfort can also lead to further stress.

• Nervous:  the pituitary gland and adrenal glands produce adrenaline and cortisol eliciting an autonomic response characterized by flushing, tachycardia, palpitations, hypertension, and gastrointestinal symptoms.

• Respiratory: chronic stress can lead to shortness of breath or rapid and shallow breathing which lead to poor health, migraines, and others, as well as triggering asthma attacks and other problems for people with pre-existing respiratory conditions. Chronic stress can also lead to more serious respiratory conditions like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

How stress affects your sleep

Stress, whether chronic or acute can have a direct impact on your sleeping habits by altering your sleep-wake cycle or circadian rhythm, the internal clock that tells the body when it is time to sleep and when it is time to be awake and alert. This translates into trouble falling asleep, trouble staying asleep, and poor sleep quality by reducing deep sleep and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, both of which are important for mental and physical health.

This alteration is caused by the effects that stress has on your body and that we already mentioned: muscle tension, elevated heart rate and blood pressure, digestive system distress, and an overexcited neurological system.

The way stress affects your sleeping will depend on the type or time of the stressor leading to:

• Acute Insomnia: with symptoms lasting less than 3 months, triggered by acute short-term stressors like interpersonal relationship issues, work-related problems, financial losses, grief, diagnosis, a newborn, or symptoms of a medical condition. Even changes made to your sleeping environment can have an effect on your sleeping habits. However, this type of sleep deprivation subsides once the short-lived stressor ends or is taken care of.

• Chronic Insomnia: with the diagnosing criteria of more than 3 episodes per week for more than 3 months. Caused by ongoing stressors that don’t resolve or whose effects last longer like work dissatisfaction, lasting marital issues or divorce, death of a loved one, major illness or injury. If not taken care of or appropriately dealt with these stressors can lead to anxiety symptoms, constant feelings of fatigue, lack of focus, memory, and concentration; irritability, mood disturbances, negative social interactions and relationships, a higher propensity of accidents and all the negative health effects of lack of sleep.

• Sleep Apnea: as we have seen stress can lead to conditions like hypertension, obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and others that are predisposing factors for obstructive sleep apnea, which causes a collapse of the upper airway during sleep, snoring and choking episodes with a big negative impact on restful sleep. This further increases chronic stress creating negative feedback and worsening the issue.

How Sleeping helps with stress

On the bright side though. Improving your sleep habits can have a direct and beneficial effect on your stress levels, and reducing stress will on its own improve your night rest and create a positive feedback loop that can lead to improved health. 

So here are our top picks on how to sleep a bit better and a bit more while on a lot of stress:

• Save your bed for sleeping: avoid working, eating, and watching TV in your bedroom. Reserve your bed only for sleeping and sex and you will strengthen the mental associations of the bed with relaxation and sleeping

• Don't look at the watch: if you’re having trouble falling asleep or you wake up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep, don’t look at the watch or start mentally beating yourself. Get out of bed and of your room to limit attaching negativity and stress to your resting space and try reading or some relaxing activity until you feel asleep again.

• Keep a sleep schedule and a stressed schedule: Try to go to bed and wake up at roughly the same time, even on the weekends to allow regulation of your circadian rhythm and make it easier to get better sleep. On the same note, try to schedule a time for you to take on stressful jobs and tasks during your waking hours and stick to it as best as possible.

• Create an optimal bedroom atmosphere: to help you fall asleep faster and rest better try to make your room as dark as possible, or use a sleeping mask, and keep it cool at around 67 F, you can also try to make it as quiet as possible or use earplugs or a white noise generator.

• Manage light exposure: Reduce exposure to blue light screens close to bedtime from cellphones, tablets, laptops, and TV. At the same time get some sunlight exposure during the day, both these things will allow your brain to recognize and regulate sleeping and waking times.

• Reducing alcohol and caffeine consumption: These have a direct and negative effect on sleeping quality. Try to avoid or reduce them in the afternoon and evening.

• Stay active: Exercising and being physically more active has a tremendously positive effect not only on reducing stress but also on regulating your wake/sleep cycle and improving sleep.

And as you might have realized by now, the more permanent solution will be to reduce stressors in your life or improve your resilience and your ability to manage stress. So here are a few couple extra tips to achieve exactly that: 

• Mindfulness practices: research shows that techniques like meditation, breathing exercises, journaling and gratefulness have a positive impact on stress resilience, stress management and improved sleeping.

• Exercise: we already mentioned this but it is worth repeating: Exercise reduces stress and anxiety, and helps you sleep better. You can check our great article here to learn more.

• Improving your nutrition: There’s growing evidence indicating that a well balanced diet rich in nutrients is important for sleep since your eating habits can have a drect effect in your hormonal health and thus affect your sleeping. This is an area where our stellar meal prepping service can be really handy to provide you with all the nutrients you need to radically improve your health and wellbeing.

• Seeking social support: Sharing your feelings and concerns with people close to you like family, friends, and work colleagues can help you reduce stress, anxiety and reduce feelings of isolation as well as a better understanding of the stressor and coming up with better solutions.

• Getting professional help: If you try some of these tips and still struggle with your stress, insomnia, tiredness, and other symptoms consider seeking the help of a qualified professional that can assess you and give appropriate treatment to treat any underlying medical conditions.