Do you wake up several times a night and sometimes take hours to fall back to sleep? Nighttime awakenings can be a real daily pain, preventing you from getting restful sleep and can even generate anxiety.
So what is night waking and how can it be explained? What are the solutions to combat night waking? We give you some tips to limit night waking and finally sleep through the night.
What causes nighttime awakenings?
Night awakenings are waking up at night, so far, nothing too complicated. This is one of the symptoms that can cause insomnia , especially if they occur often and last over time.
Basically, it is not a sleep disorder strictly speaking if you emerge for a few seconds between 2 sleep cycles and you fall back asleep quickly. These micro-awakenings are even quite common. It becomes a problem when the duration of nighttime awakenings increases and/or they become more frequent.
These awakenings can be due to several factors:
- 🩺 Physiological causes : First, there are disorders, pains and illnesses that can impact your sleep and make it more difficult to fall asleep if your nights are interrupted. If you suffer from gastric reflux (acid reflux), chronic pain, restless leg syndrome, respiratory disorders, sleep apnea, hot flashes, prostate or bladder problems that force you to go to the bathroom at night, you are definitely more likely to wake up in the middle of the night.
- 🧠 Psychological causes : tensions accumulated during the day, worries and stress that prevent you from closing your eyes, all of this can lead to early awakenings, a bad sequence of sleep cycles . As we said above, it happens that you wake up between two cycles, whether you are aware of it or not. However, during these "micro awakenings", if you are in a state of hypervigilance, you may have more difficulty falling back to sleep. Negative thoughts, anxieties and ruminations then start to loop in your head and bam! You can no longer fall asleep. And it's a vicious circle: cases of night awakenings that turn into insomnia because your worries keep you awake and you are afraid of not falling back to sleep are common.
- 👌 Lifestyle : if you wake up during the night, it can also mean that your sleep is hampered by bad habits. Alcohol, coffee consumption, diet, hydration, physical activity, all of this also affects the quality of your nights (but we'll talk about that later).
What are the consequences of sleep disorders and insomnia?
Because yes, waking up several times a night is not without consequences. We obviously think of fatigue, lack of concentration, irritability or even physical and mental stress caused by these broken nights.
A study published in Sleep Medecine also suggested that frequent nighttime awakenings had the same effects as a night that was too short. Out of 31 volunteers, they formed 2 groups: one had slept only 4 hours and the other had spent 8 hours in bed, but had been woken up 4 times during the night. The results in terms of performance, alertness and mood were the same!
According to Inserm , lack of sleep linked to insomnia can cause many damages to your health:
- Deterioration of quality of life : drowsiness, fatigue, loss of concentration and attention, mood disorders
- Worsening of conditions such as chronic pain, depression, high blood pressure
- But also an increase in the risk of accidents linked to fatigue: risk multiplied by 8 on the road and 4.5 at work!
💡 Note: when we talk about the link between nighttime awakenings and mental health, it is both a cause and a consequence . Mental load, overwork, anxiety, stress, depression, as we saw above, can cause sleep disorders. But lack of sleep can also seriously harm your mental health: we enter a vicious circle where we are afraid to go to bed for fear of not sleeping, which reinforces the causes of insomnia.
🐍 Do you see the snake biting its tail?
If you feel concerned and/or the subject interests you, we invite you to read our complete guide: how to sleep when you are stressed ?
How to fall back asleep after waking up at night: our solutions
Okay, now that you're clear on why we wake up at night, what do we do?
If you suffer from pathologies that prevent you from sleeping well at night, the best thing is obviously to treat the problem at the root : we advise you to consult a health professional to determine the cause of these untimely awakenings.
Then, we know that night awakenings are often linked to mental health : just like physical disorders, it is important to take care of it to avoid night awakenings. Do not neglect this aspect and do not hesitate to consult if you feel the need.
On a daily basis, there are a few tips that can help you quickly return to the arms of Morpheus:
- 🛌 Start by trying to lie down for 10 to 15 minutes in the dark , without external stimulation, without moving and without focusing on the urgency to fall back asleep.
- ⏰ Avoid looking at your alarm clock (and even less at your phone, banished from your nightstand), because you risk entering a vicious circle. We repeat, the fear of not falling back to sleep is an aggravating cause of nighttime awakenings!
- 🙏 If that doesn't work, several relaxation techniques can help you: meditation is an excellent way to clear your mind and chase away intrusive thoughts that prevent you from falling asleep.
- ❤️ You can also test cardiac coherence to fall back asleep. This method is based on controlling your breathing, to reach a rhythm of 6 breaths per minute, for at least 5 minutes . Indeed, respiratory rate, heart rate and blood pressure and even body temperature are linked: this is why this method can promote falling asleep.
- 🛋️ Some people get up to do a quiet activity and watch for the next signs of falling asleep: if this is a clue that can help you, why not!
If nighttime awakenings become too frequent and these options do not work for you, we obviously advise you to consult a health professional.
Melatonin Medications and Supplements: The Solution to Nighttime Awakenings?
(Spoiler: no, at least not in the long term)
The INSV (National Institute of Sleep and Vigilance) recommends in a comprehensive file on insomnia not to resort to medication systematically . They should only be used for short periods, in addition to other methods. Professionals recommend looking into Cognitive Behavioral Therapies (CBT) for sleep. Also according to the INSV:
"Treatment based on cognitive behavioral techniques (CBT) is often the most effective in cases of chronic insomnia . These techniques allow the patient to learn to better control their difficulties, to escape the vicious circle in which they have trapped themselves and thus to better manage their sleep."
🤔 What about food supplements? You've probably heard a lot about the effects of melatonin on sleep. But we warn you about food supplements based on melatonin, which can conflict with your body's natural production of this hormone. Indeed, we still have too little perspective on the effects of a synthetic hormone on our body . In addition, we also don't know to what extent melatonin intervenes in other functions (cardiovascular, immune, reproductive to name a few).
It is therefore better to be cautious and look for alternatives to melatonin , starting by promoting its natural regulation through very simple precautions.
To avoid nighttime awakenings: prevention is better than cure!
As you will have understood, the best tip we can give you is to put yourself in good conditions to sleep better , before resorting to remedies against nighttime awakenings.
Here are some of our tips for better sleep:
- 🖥️ Avoid screens and blue light in the evening : you know us, of course we weren't going to ignore the famous subject of blue light ! If you want to preserve your circadian rhythm, turn off screens at least 2 to 3 hours before bedtime and equip yourself with effective anti-blue light glasses .
- 🌡️ Find out about the best temperature for sleeping : neither too hot nor too cold, the ideal is a bedroom between 16 and 20 degrees.
- 👌 Give your body good habits : set regular bedtimes, avoid consuming too much alcohol or coffee, adopt a healthier diet and don't forget to hydrate yourself well.
👉 If you want to know more, we advise you to read our file with all the essential steps for a restful sleep without any hassle.
The final word: how to remedy night awakenings?
- If you wake up several times a night, several nights a week, you are suffering from a form of insomnia that is very painful on a daily basis. And if you clicked on this article, it is because you are looking for a solution to relieve it!
- Waking up can be caused by chronic illnesses, physical or mental disorders, or bad daily habits that prevent you from following your sleep cycles correctly.
- There are several solutions to try to finally reconcile yourself with Morpheus : cardiac coherence , relaxation for example, to clear your mind and not focus too much on the urgency to get back to sleep.
- But on a daily basis, the most important thing is prevention to improve the quality of your sleep. Don't hesitate to consult if your physical or mental health is in decline, to avoid the consequences on your sleep. Also, don't forget to adopt a healthier lifestyle and not expose yourself too much to artificial blue light!