If you’re living with chronic insomnia it’s quite likely that you are concerned about
sleep deprivation — you might be worried that you just aren’t getting enough sleep,
that you are somehow harming yourself by not getting enough sleep, or that you just can’t
survive for much longer with the amount of sleep you’re getting.
Here’s the thing, though — chronic insomnia is not the same as sleep deprivation.
This is important and it can be really helpful to understand the difference — so that’s
what I’m going to be talking about in today’s video.
Hi, I'm Martin Reed.
If you have insomnia, I offer sleep coaching programs that will give you all the skills
and support you need to enjoy better sleep for the rest of your life.
You can learn more at insomniacoach.com
It can be so helpful and important to understand the difference between chronic insomnia and
sleep deprivation because a lot of our sleep-related anxiety stems from the articles we might read
that proclaim the dangers and risks associated with sleep deprivation rather than chronic
insomnia.
As someone with chronic insomnia, it’s almost certain that you think of yourself as someone
who is sleep deprived — however, that’s not entirely true.
And that’s because although you probably aren’t happy with the amount of sleep you
are getting or the quality of the sleep you are getting, you are almost certainly giving
yourself the opportunity to sleep.
Sleep deprivation is the term we use to describe depriving ourselves of sleep — deliberately
robbing ourselves of sleep; not giving ourselves the opportunity to get enough sleep.
Someone who regularly burns the candle at both ends and goes to bed really late only
to start their days really early might be an example of someone who deprives themselves
of sleep.
Someone who has a baby that wakes them up throughout the night might also be sleep deprived.
In other words, sleep deprivation is about not giving yourself the opportunity to obtain
sufficient sleep or when some external factor is preventing you from sleeping when your
body wants to sleep.
I have yet to come across anyone with chronic insomnia who deprives themselves of sleep
— in fact, usually the opposite is true; people with chronic insomnia typically place
a lot of importance on sleep and give themselves a huge opportunity to sleep at night by allotting
a large amount of time for sleep while also eliminating anything and everything they can
think of that might interrupt or limit sleep!
The fact of the matter is that as long as we give ourselves the opportunity to get enough
sleep in an environment that offers good conditions for sleep to occur, we are not depriving ourselves
of sleep, we are not going to be sleep deprived, and we are not going to be doing ourselves
harm.
In this situation, if our body absolutely needs and requires more sleep, it will generate
more sleep.
In other words, as long as we give ourselves the opportunity to sleep, the body will generate
— at the very least — the minimum amount of sleep we need.
This might not happen every single night — as you may have experienced, it is possible to
experience entire nights of no sleep whatsoever — however, this never lasts forever.
Some amount of sleep will always happen in the end.
So if I am suggesting that you aren’t experiencing sleep deprivation as long as you are giving
yourself the opportunity to sleep, why do you feel so sleepy and tired during the day
and why aren’t you getting more sleep?
First of all, daytime sleepiness is not a symptom associated with chronic insomnia,
but daytime fatigue certainly is — and it can be very easy to mistake fatigue for sleepiness.
Put simply, sleepiness is more to do with finding it hard to stay awake (and can certainly
be a symptom of sleep deprivation) whereas fatigue is more to do with feeling exhausted
and lethargic (probably one of the most common symptoms associated with chronic insomnia).
A common way of describing people with chronic insomnia is “tired but wired” — “tired”
due to fatigue and “wired” because of heightened arousal, and it’s often that
arousal that is a big contributor to fatigue and insomnia.
Importantly, fatigue is intensified by many issues that are associated with chronic insomnia
beyond sleep itself.
For example, long periods of worrying about sleep, heightened anxiety, ongoing self-monitoring,
being less active and trying to conserve energy during the day, spending a long time in bed
awake rather than asleep.
Even doing routine, monotonous tasks, and thirst or dehydration can contribute to fatigue.
Now, I want to make it clear that I am not suggesting that chronic insomnia has no effect
on quality of life — it definitely does!
I am also not suggesting that days following very little (or no) sleep aren’t more difficult
— they definitely are!
My intention is simply this — to provide you with some reassurance and perhaps even
a little comfort that as long as you are giving your body the opportunity to sleep, it will
always generate — at the very least — the bare minimum amount of sleep you need.
This is why we see people living with untreated chronic insomnia for decades — they are
able to “survive” insomnia because, ultimately, they are getting “just enough” sleep.
Of course, your goal is probably to get more sleep or to get a better quality of sleep.
Although we cannot directly control sleep, we can create better conditions for sleep
by ensuring that our thoughts and behaviors aren’t perpetuating sleep disruption by
weakening sleep drive, disrupting the body clock, and generating and sustaining arousal.
When we do this we will often start to feel better during the day and sleep better at
night.
So I hope you found this short video helpful.
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My email address is hello@insomniacoach.com.
Thanks for watching, and — as always — I'd like to leave you with this important reminder.
You can sleep!