Complete insomnia due to stress. What is insomnia like? Types and consequences of insomnia. Preparing the body for the night mode

A person with a daily rhythm of life often has stressful situations. As a result, sleep disorders occur, which are often difficult to overcome. As a rule, after a while, insomnia itself becomes stress, which aggravates the situation. Stress and sleep are interconnected, which is why you need to protect mental health because it affects many physiological aspects. It is known that on average you should sleep about 8 hours. For such an amount of time, the information accumulated during the day is qualitatively processed, and the work of the body systems (nervous, immune and endocrine) is also normalized.

When stressed, people sleep little. It is very rare to hear from a person who is constantly under stress: "I sleep a lot at night."

Sleep and stress are intertwined

Initially, insomnia on the background of stress manifests itself as ordinary fatigue, but over time it becomes a system, which becomes more and more difficult to normalize.

Why can't sleep

Sleep problems are quite common these days. Lack of sleep at night negatively affects all aspects of life. A person goes to bed, tries to abstract himself from thoughts, closes his eyes, and thousands of problems and ideas are spinning randomly in his head. It's already night on the clock, and you can't fall asleep. In many cases, you have to lie down in the hope of falling asleep at least before the sound of the alarm clock. Naturally, under such circumstances, one has to forget about normal health. Through force, you have to get out of bed, go to work or study and perform daily tasks.

Often stress is key reason bad sleep.

With the modern rhythm of life, everyone is exposed to various shocks. Problems at work or in the family, traffic jams, flea market taxis - all this affects the condition nervous system, which, with the accumulation of many troubles, can fail.

Fatigue with insomnia

It is important to note that stress is not only psychological problem. It is also a biochemical reaction of the body. In stressful situations, hormones and other substances that have an effect on the nervous system enter the bloodstream. Possible disease peripheral nerves, and this has a significant impact on the process of falling asleep. Constantly accompanied by tension and a state of anxiety, there may be bad dreams, as a reaction to stress, which does not allow you to calm down and stop being nervous before going to bed.

What is insomnia

Insomnia is a sleep disorder that negatively affects emotional condition, reduces energy level, worsens the state of health. As for the last point, the acquisition plays a significant role here. chronic insomnia, it is she who can make the body sensitive to all kinds of infections.

How it manifests itself:

• difficulty falling asleep;
• early awakening;
• fatigue, lethargy in the daytime;
• difficulty in concentrating on any business;
• the need for sleeping pills or alcohol to make it easier to fall asleep;
• regular periods of wakefulness at night.

Insomnia is explained as a condition in which the desire to sleep disappears. The most common insomnia is stress insomnia and its duration is unlimited. It can drag on for months, depriving a person of his last strength. If insomnia is short-term, then the reasons are negative factors: stress or anxiety about some event.

Statistics for insomnia

If insomnia lasts more than two days, then you need to start getting rid of this phenomenon.

First you need to figure out what caused it. side effect some medical preparations there may be sleep disturbances. The reason may be psychological factors: psychological trauma, bipolar disorder, depression, systematic stress. Can cause insomnia certain diseases. kidney problems, thyroid gland, allergies, cancer, Parkinson's syndrome - all this causes problems with falling asleep.

Stressful situations are satellites modern man. Sometimes they can lead to serious consequences such as depression and sleep disturbance. With insomnia against the background of stress, you need to start fighting right away, first you should try to do without the intervention of medications. To do this, you need to know how to calm the nerves before going to bed.

People often ask themselves: “What should I do if I have overcome insomnia and I can’t sleep?”. First of all, you need to develop the habit of disconnecting from all problems two hours before bedtime.

Pharmacy remedy

• It is impossible to remember and ponder the events of the past day, to look for a solution to the problems that have arisen. It is recommended to postpone all this for the next day.
• It is useful to go for a walk in the evening to breathe fresh air.
• Relaxation has a good effect on sleep, you can take a warm bath with oils. For the atmosphere, you can use decorative candles. These baths will relax not only the body, but also the nervous system, which will help prepare for sleep.
• It's good to drink soothing tea from valerian or a special collection of herbs. Such tea can be purchased at a pharmacy, but you should consider whether there is an individual intolerance to the components.
• Helps you calm down before bed interesting book, as well as breathing exercise in which it is important to try to relax as much as possible.
• You need to fall asleep in a pre-ventilated room.

All these tips will help restore sleep after stress.

If, being in bed for 20 minutes, it was not possible to fall asleep, then you should not torture yourself. It is recommended to get up and do business. But it is strictly forbidden to use any gadgets. If you feel that you want to sleep, then you need to go to bed again. Usually a few such circles are enough, after which it turns out to fall asleep quickly. Few people know, but the less time you spend in bed before going to bed, the better your sleep will be. It can be concluded that reducing the time spent in bed will greatly improve the quality of sleep. You also need to try to surround yourself with positive emotions, they help to cope with depression, which causes poor sleep.

In most cases, sleep disorders are caused by increased emotional excitability, and this does not oblige the use of insomnia medication. But it happens that a person systematically wakes up in early time and he can't sleep anymore. This symptom may be the first symptom of depression. In this case, you need to consult a doctor, namely a neurologist. He will appoint additional examinations, proper treatment and help with depression.

Herbal remedy for insomnia

Pills for bad sleep

Insomnia after stress is an extremely unpleasant thing and it is worth fighting it properly. It is common for people to go to the pharmacy and buy medicine without additional consultation doctor, but this is fundamentally wrong. The only exceptions are drugs that have vegetable origin, that is, those that include herbs that calm the nervous system.

Take off severe stress motherwort will help, which in its action is similar to valerian. And also it has a positive effect on some body systems, but it is contraindicated for pregnant women.

Not all herbal medicines safe, for example, valerian, harms people with liver damage. Other components of sedatives are not successfully tolerated by everyone, because the tolerance of the drug, which is strictly individual, matters here.

If there is a need to buy a remedy for stress and insomnia, then you need to purchase the medicine for insomnia that the doctor advised during the consultation.

In addition, experts recommend taking such medications in courses. If you ignore this recommendation, then there will be addiction to them and dependence on these drugs will form. The recovery period of an adult body after stress takes a considerable amount of time, so you should be patient and try to limit yourself from negative emotions.

Article content

Every person at least once in his life was tormented by insomnia, when sleep does not come at night, and in the morning instead of cheerfulness there is a feeling of fatigue, weakness. Insomnia can also manifest itself in a different way: a superficial, shallow sleep, a person can even hear what is happening next to him. The sleeper can often wake up for no reason, see nightmares. All of these conditions are symptoms of a sleep disorder. There are many reasons for the appearance of this pathology (the scientific name is insomnia), very often insomnia occurs with neurosis. Deal with the problem on initial stage you can do it yourself, but if you start it, then a sleep disorder can become a serious danger to human health and life.

When to suspect sleep disorders

The main signs that give reason to suspect a sleep disorder in a person are:

• difficulty falling asleep. A healthy person imperceptibly falls asleep within 10-15 minutes, with insomnia, the process of going to sleep can drag on for several hours, until dawn;
• surface restless sleep when the sleeper often wakes up from the slightest irritant or for no reason at all;
• nightmares.

As a result, in the morning a person gets out of bed broken and lethargic, his working capacity decreases, and there are difficulties with learning. Irritability, Bad mood, fast fatiguability, causeless fear- all these are constant companions of the one who is tormented by insomnia.

Interestingly, the duration of sleep itself is not a criterion for determining pathological condition. It's connected with individual characteristics body: one needs 9-10 hours to sleep, while the other needs 6-7 hours. It is known that Lenin slept only 5 hours a day and at the same time felt fine.

Reasons for the development of pathology

What can cause insomnia? Many factors: poor living conditions (noise, light, new place to fall asleep), illness, alcohol, smoking, excess caffeine, overeating or hunger, side effects drugs, strong impressions (joy or, conversely, watching a scary movie before going to bed). Also, sleep is disturbed when flying with a change in time zone, when working at night or a mode failure. But most often insomnia develops on nervous ground, when prolonged experiences or stress provoke a sleep disorder. Why is this happening? With a strong surge of emotions (positive or negative), the brain receives SOS signal, a solid portion of adrenaline is released into the blood. This "emotional hormone" tones the entire body, sets it up for activity and recovery. The heartbeat becomes more frequent, sweating, shortness of breath appear. What kind of dream can we talk about? It takes at least two hours for the body to return to the resting phase.

Article content

Depression is a mental disorder that can manifest as a decrease in mood, impaired intellectual activity and inhibition of actions. Often, many people have problems with sleep, namely insomnia. Insomnia in depression is characterized by difficulty falling asleep, shallow sleep, and frequent awakenings during the night. All this can lead to the emergence of other, more serious complications with health, which may concern not only the nervous system, but also other important internal processes and systems. But first, it’s worth finding out why these conditions manifest themselves and what factors provoke them.

How depression manifests itself

In medicine, depression is a condition in which there is mental disorder. In this case, the following signs are noted:

• a decrease in mood, in which many simply do not experience joy and cannot fully experience joyful events;
• pessimistic attitude in thinking;
• decrease in motor activity.

People who have long-term depression simply cannot feel the joys of the world around them as well as everyone else. The main direction of thinking in a depressive state is to aggravate negative manifestations reality, while any small troubles are perceived very painfully. Under the influence of manifestation depression people who have a weak psyche and will can easily be subjected to alcoholism, drug addiction, suicide.

Insomnia and depression

According to statistics, almost 80% of people who have depression experience insomnia. Often, when they go to bed during a night's sleep, they simply cannot fall asleep normally: they constantly turn around, remember all the unpleasant events, failures, problems, experiences. If, nevertheless, it turns out to fall asleep, then the dream is usually intermittent and short. During sleep, nightmares, disturb various problems that exist in reality.

Nervous insomnia develops as a result of disruption of the central nervous system of a person and negatively affects the work of the whole organism as a whole. Not getting good rest, a person is not able to restore his strength and emotional balance, which, in turn, becomes a new cause for stress and exacerbates the problem even more. Arises vicious circle, which is not always possible to break on its own; in some cases, medical attention may be required.

Sleep problems can occur for a number of reasons: disease state, violation of the usual daily routine, abuse of alcohol or energy drinks and coffee. However, the most common is insomnia in neurosis.
In a state of nervous excitement, a person becomes hypersensitive to annoying factors from the outside. The slightest trouble happening in Everyday life and not causing healthy person special worries, are perceived in a completely different way in a state of stress.

Nervous tension does not allow to relax, irritability and anxiety increase. A person’s thoughts are occupied with constant experiences, the brain cannot “turn off” from problems and give a command to all body systems to fully relax.

As a result, attempts to fall asleep are stretched for long time, and the dream itself becomes superficial, intermittent and, instead of the expected charge of energy, exhausts the person even more.
This condition can be temporary, against the background of an acute emotional shock, or it can drag on for a long time and lead to grave consequences.

Therefore, it is important to listen to yourself in order to recognize signs of possible stress in time, such as:

All these symptoms require attention and may indicate an imbalance in the functioning of the nervous system and the development of neurosis.

Depending on the duration and degree of influence on a person, disorders of the nervous system and psyche can take various forms:

• acute stress arising against the background of a strong emotional shock;
• chronic stress when a person is depressed for a long time and is not able to change it;
• anxiety neurosis- a serious nervous and mental disorder requiring treatment.

Each of the listed conditions in itself negatively affects a person and, in addition, is accompanied different kind insomnia (insomnia).

There are several types of insomnia:

In addition, there is a sleep disorder called postsomnic. It is characterized by persistently waking up very early and not being able to go back to sleep. Postsomnia is most common among the elderly.
It must be remembered that the absence good sleep severely negatively affects human health. People suffering from insomnia from stress are depressed, get tired quickly, they have a deterioration in attention and memory, performance decreases, and the risk of developing serious illnesses.

Also, lack of sleep leaves its mark on appearance person. In people with insomnia, the skin becomes dry, may have a grayish tint, appear dark circles and bags under the eyes, the face looks tired.

If sleep problems manifested themselves against the background of a certain stressful event and did not take heavy character, you can independently help the body cope with insomnia and restore peace of mind, without resorting to the help of doctors.
Compliance with the daily routine and sleep hygiene will be the first helpers in the fight against insomnia.

There are several simple rules, adhering to which you can achieve a significant improvement in the quality of sleep:

In order to get the most out of good vacation, it is useful to do light gymnastics before going to bed. Exercises aimed at stretching the muscles, such as stretching and twisting, are suitable. Movement should be smooth and enjoyable.
It is also recommended to take a walk shortly before going to bed, breathe fresh air, take a relaxing bath. Calm light music and special meditations will have a beneficial effect. Do not forget about massage, while it is not necessary to resort to the help of a specialist. Having mastered the technique acupressure, you can independently remove muscle clamps and get rid of excess tension.

In general, when stressed, it is useful to dedicate evening time favorite pastime that brings pleasure and peace. It can be communication with your beloved pet, reading your favorite book, or just a calm conversation with a loved one. main goal such a pastime will receive positive emotions and moral satisfaction.

Adequate exercise stress and pleasant relaxing treatments will take off emotional stress and set the body for a peaceful rest. Regular repetition of these actions will be the key healthy sleep.

If you still can’t fall asleep for a long time, then it’s better to get up and occupy yourself with some simple things. So the brain can switch from the very thought of insomnia, and without unnecessary worries, it will be easier for a person to fall asleep.

However, if you can’t cope with stress and insomnia on your own, if sleep disturbances last longer than a week then you need to consult a specialist. A sleep specialist deals with sleep problems, but what if the services of a doctor of this specialty are not available? In this case, a neurologist will be able to help and prescribe treatment.

When choosing a treatment regimen, the doctor evaluates general state the patient, his age, the severity of the neurosis and the causes that cause it. Depending on the results of the diagnostics obtained, it may be prescribed drug treatment and / or individual or group psychotherapy sessions designed to help the patient cope with difficult life situations and reduce the level of influence of psychotraumatic factors.

If it is necessary to take medications, the doctor may prescribe:

Accept medications without a doctor's prescription is strictly contraindicated! Even the lungs sedatives if they are not chosen correctly and taken on their own, they will not only not help solve the problem, but they can also aggravate the situation.

As a rule, the treatment of neurosis and the insomnia that accompanies it takes quite a long time and includes complex therapy.

Right choice course of treatment and confidence in a positive result will surely bear fruit in the form of sound healthy sleep and wellness.

Our sleep problems are often caused by a slight malaise, chronic fatigue, thoughts about tomorrow, sometimes - simply the inability to take a comfortable position. However, these factors are not always paramount. The tired expression “all diseases are from nerves” implies a very deep meaning. After all, it is precisely experiences - for mere trifles or completely serious occasions- usually worsen our well-being and mood. fall asleep with bad thoughts and frustrated feelings, you see, it is very difficult. And if our experiences reach the level of stress, then in this case, a special approach is needed to organize sleep.

Both explainable and fact

What does stress mean? The meaning of this word, so often used by us in everyday life, is not as unambiguous and simple as it seems. Daily fuss, hassle at work, health problems, the financial crisis do not give rest to us or our nervous system in particular. Unable to separate the important from the secondary, to quickly cope with minor troubles, we give ourselves to the power of stress. However, is this process unambiguously bad and inevitable?

Since school times, everyone knows that a person is a being not only and not so much biological as social. The whirlwind and frantic rhythm of modern life, like uninvited guests, invade our personal space. The peace and order that we daily try to create around us can collapse at any moment. And our body is forced to obey the prevailing circumstances, to adapt both physiologically and psychologically. That is why a person has the ability to experience stress. Having gone through stress, we change, mobilize our internal resources, becoming even stronger and more resilient. Thus, stress helps us to get involved in new conditions of life, in a new environment. We need it just like breathing, eating, sleeping...

Closing the circle

By the way, about sleep... This is where frequent problems arise, because of which we are forced to deal with stress. After all, sleep is another way to put your body in order, and most importantly, to relax. In a dream, we get the opportunity to escape from everyday affairs, restore strength and good spirits, forget about pressing problems and unresolved conflicts. What if you can't sleep? If for the umpteenth time we continue to think about everyday issues and constantly toss and turn in bed from side to side? So we deprive ourselves of a vital rest.

It is sleep that allows our body to properly tune in to new mode, adapt to the new conditions of life, and most importantly, it helps to normalize our nervous system, which suffers most from drastic changes and life troubles. During sleep, all nervous processes are inhibited, the brain tries to rest and “process” information about events that disturb us. No wonder Academician I.P. Pavlov called sleep the “rescue” of the nervous system. In turn, stress excites the nervous system, forcing it to react sharply and immediately to any impact. environment. redundant brain activity interferes with restful and healthy sleep. Moreover, it disrupts the passage of important "deep" phases of sleep, which are essential for recovery. physical strength. If you fall asleep and succeed, then the dream passes in a "nervous", intermittent mode.

This creates a kind of vicious circle: experiencing constant stress, we cannot sleep normally, and the lack of a healthy night's rest provokes a new stage of stress. Naturally, in order not to aggravate this process, we need not the fight against insomnia, but the ability to overcome stressful situations or use them to our advantage.

Signs of stress: know the enemy by sight!

It is difficult to insure yourself from stress: the world without demand invades our lives, violating plans and not justifying hopes. Situations that make us nervous can be different, but in general, there are several main ones. Among them are the loss of a job, serious disease, serious financial problems, death loved one, failures in love sphere(divorce, lack of reciprocity, parting), as well as the collapse of hopes or unfulfilled expectations.

Of course, in addition to these cases, other unpleasant events happen in our life. However, not all of them turn into stress. It is necessary to distinguish small household troubles from serious ones. life dramas. The first we can overcome by an effort of will and faith in a brighter future; do not elevate them to the rank of tragedies and make an elephant out of a fly. The latter are also amenable to human forces, but more effort needs to be made here.

In order to start work on overcoming the problems that have piled up in time and not start the mechanism constant lack of sleep You need to be aware of the signs of stress. These can be attributed constant desire taking a nap during the day, the onset of a prolonged or severe headache, back pain, or cervical region, increased sweating(especially in the area of ​​​​the palms). The threat of stress is also indicated by sudden attacks of dizziness (sometimes loss of consciousness), increased heart rate, a growing sense of anxiety, a feeling of trembling throughout the body. If you have noticed at least a few first “swallows” of stress in your regimen, we advise you to be on the alert!

Stress, distress and eustress: a difficult trinity

I wonder what naming strong feelings word "stress", we are not entirely accurate in the wording. After all, the degree of environmental impact on a person can be different. If changes in the rhythm of life and disturbing events completely put us out of action, “knock down” all mental and physiological resources, then distress arises. This is what we mean when we talk about stress in our lives. The same states that we experience to rebuild the body and restore the nervous system are associated with eustress and have only a positive connotation. But for convenience and simplicity, such an unusual concept of "distress" is replaced by in simple words"stress".

Only truly serious reasons can lead to distress. Fortunately, there are not many of them. We refer to them as follows:

• severe injuries, illnesses, body injuries, persistent pain;
• too strong and long negative emotions (anger, rage, fear);
• violation of the main physiological processes(acute lack of water, air, extreme cold);
• change in natural necessary conditions life (excessive air pollution, drinking water);
• the occurrence of a threat to life (attack).

The effects of stress

The occurrence of stress (distress) in any case should not be left to chance. The option “maybe it will pass by itself” is not appropriate here. First, it won't go away on its own; only with some effort, you can defeat this uninvited guest. And secondly, if you start the process of distress, its effect on the body can damage your health.

Few people know about the existence of post-traumatic stress disorder. Such a state arises if, unfortunately, too difficult and difficult things happen in our life. terrible events(death of a loved one, serious accident, manifestation of crime). If something extremely scares you, keeps you in constant fear, and you can not control yourself, this is a reason for urgent appeal to the doctor!

An interesting and indisputable fact is that stress has a negative effect on weight loss. Together with insomnia, constant nervous excitement does not make it possible to control body weight, indirectly leads to weight gain.

Thus, in order to avoid the listed consequences of stress, you need to overcome even serious life troubles and try to normalize night sleep.

Defeat stress and overcome insomnia!

Before you try to overcome your lack of sleep and excessive “nervousness”, you need to understand at what level stress affects us. Does our soul participate in its formation? Thinking? Intelligence? Or is it purely a physiological process?

Even though stress does affect physiological mechanisms our body, mind and soul do not remain indifferent. After all, we ourselves give impetus to the development and aggravation stressful condition when we unnecessarily “develop” into the events that have occurred, mentally return to the same problem, “talk” and mourn with rivers of tears that which does not deserve such suffering. In a state of stress, we cannot sleep at night, because we give free rein to our thoughts and feelings, and they will elevate a small nuisance in our eyes to a life catastrophe.

But during stress, the connection of the body, soul and mind (consciousness) manifests itself in another way. Sometimes we force ourselves (in other words, our body, body) to do what we don’t want (more precisely, our soul doesn’t want). Or we (the body) are forced to do what is not worth doing (so our mind tells us).

Such a collision of body, soul and mind can lead to serious violations psyche, and those - in turn - will entail diseases at the somatic level. Only by living in complete harmony with yourself, you can avoid stress.

If you decide to start working on overcoming stress and restoring healthy sleep, try to first determine the degree of your anxiety. Perhaps you are so upset that you cannot cope on your own and you need the help of a specialist.

Try asking yourself just a few questions that can reflect your condition:

• Are you experiencing difficulty falling asleep?
• Do you often wake up during the night?
• Do you find it difficult to fall asleep again after a sudden nighttime awakening?
• Do you find it difficult to wake up in the morning?
• Do you feel rested and alert after a night's sleep?
• Do you feel trembling, restless legs when you try to sleep?
• Do you wake up too early in the morning?
• Are you worried about the lack of healthy sleep?
• Have you ever taken sleeping pills, sedatives, alcohol before bed?

If the answers to most of the above questions indicate excessive fatigue, lack of sleep, and this condition lasts more than 3 weeks, you should immediately consult a doctor!

In the event of a still looming threat of stress, you should take immediate action yourself.

To overcome excessive stress, anxiety, there are quite simple, but effective techniques. Some of them help us relax by acting on emotional level, others normalize physiological processes.

For example, the ability to breathe properly can be of great help. We are accustomed to inhaling and exhaling, actively straining only chest. In fact, breathing, which is naturally suitable for our body, is done through raising and expanding the diaphragm. Only this diaphragmatic breathing allows for full lung function. The ability to breathe correctly allows a person to relax, concentrate and balance the nervous system.

Do not stand aside and sports that directly affect the good spirits. Naturally, it is not always possible, and even the desire to do full complex tonic exercises. Here, light and pleasant stretch elements can come to the rescue. It is enough to stand up and stretch up, to the best of your ability and strength, first with one hand, then with the other, then with both hands together. Stretching, you need to try to linger for a few seconds in this position, and then repeat the approach again. Alternatively, you can stretch your arms not up, but forward, maintaining the same sequence. Try to reach up and just the top of your head.

Do not forget about the possibilities of acupressure. By applying light pressure on the nerve endings in temporal region, you will bring yourself to your senses and return the lost peace of mind.

You can also use massage tactics. In our article, we have already talked about possible appearance pain in the cervical region during stress. To avoid their aggravation and flow into muscle "clips", try to massage the "frozen" areas of the body, restore strength and performance to "stiff" muscles. To relax the muscles of the face, it is enough to relax the mouth and make several movements with the jaws to the right and left. Before going to bed, try to get some fresh air, take a shower, do not watch TV and do not overeat.

Do not reject the opportunity during times of stress to simply talk with loved ones, tell relatives about painful things, do not withdraw into yourself. Moral support and mutual assistance can work wonders.

And most importantly - in order to avoid stress and the accompanying insomnia, try to live in harmony with yourself! Do not give the right to "black" thoughts to put pressure on your mind, spoil your mood and deprive you of the joys of life. If you can’t immediately change the situation and solve the problem, try to change your attitude towards it, calm down, relax ... and fall asleep healthy!