Sleep has an incredible impact on mood, as anyone can attest. When you're well-rested, you tend to be more cheerful and productive than when you lack sleep, and anyone who goes too long without sleep soon becomes restless, irritable, and potentially depressed.
The main symptoms of lack of sleep are …
· Anxiety
· Stress
· Depression
· Bad moods
· Mental impairment
· Memory Loss
· Vision problems
· Immune system dysfunction
· Increased risk of a car accident
When you sleep at night, your body and brain go through several stages of sleep. Some of these are shallow sleep stages, when your brain and body activity slow and stabilize. However, the most important phases of sleep are the deepest (Level 4), and the shallowest (also known as Level 5 or REM sleep). Level 4 sleep is the most serene and is when brain activity is the quietest.
During the REM stage of sleep, the body breaks out of its placid sleep state and starts to experience changes in heart rate, brain activity, and breathing rate. In addition, the eyelids flutter, giving this state the name of REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. Scientists are unsure what exactly happens during REM sleep, but it is most surely associated with dreaming--and the most vividly recalled dreams occur during REM sleep.
The exact nature of Level 4 deep sleep also remains a bit of a mystery, but its effects are well documented. People who spend enough time in deep sleep each night are good at forming memories and fighting disease and infection--they even tend to look younger. That's why the lack of sleep is so disorienting and detrimental to insomniacs--their bodies are going without this vital sleep phase.
For people with sleep disorders, the hardest part of sleep is falling into the deep sleep that comes before REM. This can compound on itself and turn a few sleepless nights into a much more serious condition called insomnia. When this short term sleeplessness happened, instead of not worrying about it and just allowing your mind to “re-load" with your “natural sleep response," instead you focused on a deep feeling of anxiety and panic.
You probably wondered “Why can’t I fall asleep? What’s wrong with me? I have an important meeting tomorrow, I
have to fall asleep," and other such questions and statements which just compounded your worries and produced even more anxiety and panic. The more you can’t sleep - the more you worry about it - the more you worry about it - the more you can’t sleep. It becomes a vicious circle that wears you down.
It is vital that if you do not want to experience any of the symptoms of lack of sleep listed above, that you clearly understand what insomnia is and what the
real cause of it is. You also need to know how it came into your life, and what you can start doing
today to begin to change it forever.
Do not despair, though, there is hope for this situation. You just need to “re-train" your mind to re-enter a deep and restful sleep. You need to regain control of your “inner sleep clock." When you can do this, you then have the ability to eliminate your insomnia once and for all.
www.SleepDomain.com provides sleep disorder advice and explains how to “re-load" your “natural sleep response."
