A new generation of sleep scientists are overturning the conventional wisdom
about parasomnia. (Counting sheep? Out.) They say: You can do it. With a
few simple changes in your routine, a little visualization, a couple of
surprisingly counter-intuitive moves and perhaps an attitude
adjustment, a peaceful night of slumber can be yours. Here's their best
advice.
Throw out your definition of a good night's sleep
Just as three square meals a day has given way to all-day grazing and
smaller portions, "what's good for you" has changed here, too.
"Thinking
it's necessary to stay asleep for 8 hours straight may be unrealistic,"
says David Neubauer, M.D., associate director of the Johns Hopkins
Sleep Disorders Center and author of Understanding Sleeplessness:
Perspectives on Insomnia. "Just as we experience a dip in alertness
mid-afternoon, the inverse is a dip in sleepiness in the middle of the
night. There's strong evidence that there's a kind of awakening that's
totally normal."
History supports this take, Dr. Naiman says.
"Before the industrial revolution, people had their first sleep for 3 to
4 hours, awoke for an hour or two, then slept for another 3 or 4
hours."
Even waking every 60 to 90 minutes can be part of a
healthy sleep pattern. The deeper stages of sleep, or REM (rapid eye
movement) sleep, occur about every 90 minutes and get longer as the
night goes on, so your brain might become more alert between those
cycles.
Since we're conditioned to think that waking during the
night is a problem, when it happens, we panic. That reaction causes our
brains to awaken even further, Dr. Neubauer explains.
If you find
yourself awake in pre-dawn hours, Dr. Naiman advises first assessing
your physical state. Do you have an ache, a cramp, or need to go to the
bathroom? If so, take care of it.
If you don't have a physical
complaint, then chances are you are experiencing a normal stage of the
sleep cycle. Knowing this "helps replace worries that you'll be useless
without 8 solid hours of sleep with more neutral thoughts," suggests Sat
Bir Khalsa, Ph.D., instructor in medicine at Brigham and Women's
Hospital at Harvard Medical School. "The useful thought is: ‘I can
handle the disruption and still feel rested.'"
Get bed-ready
After an action-packed day (or one equally packed with worry), our
brains need some time to catch up, to make order of things, and to slow
their frenetic firing before we're ready to sleep. Pure bodily
exhaustion can probably get you at least that first hour of dozing, but
then worries will rise to the surface and cause you to stir. How can you
get your mind to chill?
"We need to learn to apply the brakes
before the car is in the garage," Dr. Naiman says. "Clearing your head
is key to a good night of sleep." Simply taking 15 minutes to sit
quietly, meditate, pray, or do rhythmic breathing can allow your mind to
slow down enough to sleep through the night.
Establishing any
ritual that you do before bed—anything but checking your e-mail!—will do
more than relax you right then and there. The repetition also
conditions your brain and body for sleep, Thompson explains.
While
you're transitioning to Z-mode the same way night after night, you're
also creating a Pavlovian response to your ritual. So simply sitting in
the spot where you do your breathing or turning on the shower water
signals your mind that it will be sleeping soon, Thompson says.
Another
way to condition yourself sleepward is by playing off the body's
internal clock. Dr. Naiman suggests simulating dusk about an hour before
you plan to go to bed and dimming the lights significantly. This
triggers natural circadian rhythms that help us prepare for sleep.
