5 Kinds of Stress that Destroy Sleep

Whether by good or bad tension, we are all stressed, whether we are conscious of it or not. Even in the most difficult situations, people tend to lower their degree of stress by ignoring or reducing it. Stress is our default state.

, too powerful, or too unpredictable. Stress can have an even greater impact at this time.

Your sleep issue may stem from a stress issue.

If you're having difficulties sleeping and nothing seems to help, these lesser-known forms of stress could be disrupting your sleep. Morpheus Healthcare emphasizes some hard facts about sleep to help you understand why these types of stress are such a widespread issue:

1. Sleeping is a stationary activity.
2. Sleep means putting your daily worries aside.
3. Sleep is something that happens to you rather than something that you do.

That means we must...stop...let go...and allow it to happen if we want to sleep comfortably and consistently. And we're not able to do it because of these five different kinds of stress:

Going Stress

We are increasingly spending our days, from morning to night, pushing ourselves to the limit. Some people are also developing shift work sleep disorders because of their non-traditional work hours.

Get up, dash out the door, and go, go, go. If you have a spare moment, fill it with something productive like email, Facebook, chores, or phone calls > Go a little further > > Go. Go. Go. > Skip lunch or at the very least keep going while you eat > Go. Go. Go. Have dinner if you like, but don't stop now, or you won't be able to start again, so Go. Go. Go. Get into bed and get inadequate sleep, and build sleep debt.

You'll forget how to stop if you keep going like this day after day. You'll lose your ability to be still when awake. You won't be able to pause long enough for sleep to take you if you lose how to be still while awake.

Tangle Stress

Sleep is intended to be a getaway that allows you to wake up feeling refreshed and invigorated the next day. You must be able to let go of the tensions and worries of the day for a short period for this to happen.

This is challenging because you probably have a lot going on and a lot on your mind to keep track of. An open loop is created by everything you want to, have to, need to, would like to, forgot to, should, or must do.

Open loops cause mental and physical stress that lasts until you "close" them by accomplishing what you need to do. When it's time to go to bed, what happens to your open loops?

You might be able to juggle your loops deftly and set them aside so that you can sleep soundly at night. However, one is more likely to become caught in the tension of these loops and discover that they cannot extricate themselves when bedtime approaches.

Control Stress 

Sleep is one of those things that becomes increasingly difficult to obtain the more you try. It's something that happens to you rather than something you can control.

Unfortunately, most of us aren't very good at just letting things happen even when we want to. When was the last time you said to yourself, "Oh, I'm hungry; let me just relax for a little; I'm sure something tasty will appear?"

Sitting motionless and doing nothing when you want or need something (like sleep) goes against our instincts. We've all had the feeling of attempting to sleep and being unable to stop thinking about something that happened during the day, something that will happen tomorrow, or some stress in our lives. It's normal to lose sleep over whatever you're thinking about if it's essential to you. It's common for your mind to overpower your sleep mechanism temporarily. When the stressful event has passed, your mind should quiet down, and you should be able to sleep again; at least, that's how it should work. 

But what happens if you develop a worrying habit and your mind continues to address the problems that are causing you stress? You won't be able to move your thoughts away from anxiety when it's time to go to bed unless you take steps during the day to choose and guide your attention and content of mind.

Relationship Stress

Our connections with others are usually always the most significant component of our lives, whether good, bad, or ugly. These impacts happen whether we like it or not, for better or worse. Let's talk about two characteristics of our relationships that have an unavoidable effect on our sleep.

Mirror Neurons and Emotional Contagion

Emotions may spread like a virus. In our brains and bodies, we try to mirror what they're feeling. We take on the other person's emotional experience at the most fundamental physical and neurological level to properly comprehend the circumstance and the relationship. This has a significant impact on our ability to sleep.

Rehashing Relationships

When there isn't much else going on, the brain's default activity appears to be contemplating our relationships.

If our connections are good, this background rehashing of our relationships produces a sense of peace and stability that encourages sleep. Still, if they are bad, it may greatly impede the winding down and letting go that is required to commence rest.

What to do?

There are various strategies to deal with stress, but mindfulness training has become a personal favorite. Mindfulness-based meditation is quickly becoming one of the most effective methods for dealing with sleep and stress issues. Mindfulness meditation can help you get rid of whatever tension you're having by teaching you how to be still while awake, allowing you to stop and prepare for sleep; to be patient and at ease with relaxation techniques and letting things unfold in their own time and become more aware of tensions and stress in your most critical relationships.