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11 March 2009HOW TO SLEEP: DESTROY THE MYTH OF INSOMNIA

The most important hurdle is to identify why you cannot sleep. Is it stress? Is it situational insomnia? Is it pseudo-insomnia? Knowing the cause of your insomnia is half the battle. From my experience, over 50 per cent of the general population who are taking sleeping pills are in fact suffering from pseudo-insomnia. Pseudo-insomnia is explained in chapter 13 on Insomnia. ‘Pseudo’ means imposter. These people are healthy and normal in all other aspects; they have just lost the confidence to sleep. They may have some false belief of what is normal good sleep, and for some reason have become dependent on drugs to help themselves sleep. We all have a natural in-built mechanism in our brain that controls our sleep. Pseudo-insomniacs are unable to operate the natural in-built mechanism inside their brains and so cannot switch off at night and fall asleep. It was said that Elvis Presley had pills to make him sleep and pills to wake him up.

How much sleep?

A statistical survey showed that most people sleep 7.5 hours each night. This survey covered a large group of people, some sleeping 9 hours and some 5 hours. The average was 7.5 hours. It does not mean that everyone sleeps 7.5 hours every night. Also, the older we are the less sleep we need. Hence do not be alarmed if you are 60 years old and sleep less than 5 hours each night, as this is normal for you and is certainly not insomnia.

More sleep does not equal better health

Not sleeping does not normally damage your health. We can function reasonably well with very little sleep. Hence if we are not sleeping well for one or two nights, it does not make us an insomniac. Many people think that to be healthy they must sleep at least eight hours or more. But this is not true. The amount of sleep you have is not proportional to your degree of health. In fact studies indicate that long sleepers (more than ten hours a night) have death rates nearly double those who sleep seven to eight hours a night.

One-quarter of sleep time is normally spent in dreams

Some of us believe that a good sleep means no dreams and no awakenings throughout the night. This has been proven incorrect by research conducted in sleep laboratories. We have at least four or five periods of REM sleep each night, during which we dream, although most of us forget our dreams the next morning. Work in sleep laboratories confirms that dreams are an essential part of healthy sleep. REM sleep occupies about 25 per cent of the time spent in sleep and this percentage stays relatively constant throughout life.

Brief awakenings indicate good sleep

Another observation made in the sleep laboratory is that a few brief awakenings occur during a normal good night’s sleep. Most of these awakenings last a few seconds to a minute only, and we fall back into sleep immediately after and never remember them in the morning. As we grow older, the number of awakenings increases. Hence we should be prepared for these awakenings in the middle of the night, since they are perfectly healthy and normal. With this in mind, if you wake up in the middle of the night, do not panic, just lie back and relax, be confident, and you will always fall back into sleep.

How to stop taking sleeping pills (beware of rebound insomnia)

The myth of sleeping pills needs to be destroyed here. Sleeping pills are useful for two weeks only; after that the body develops a tolerance to the pills and they become less and less effective in inducing sleep. The reason why most people continue to take them beyond two weeks is to avoid rebound insomnia. Rebound insomnia is a withdrawal symptom experienced after sleeping pills are stopped. Rebound insomnia should be distinguished from true insomnia. When the sleeping pills are stopped, rebound insomnia follows immediately, and one must be prepared for not sleeping well for the next few nights. Natural sleep should commence after the rebound insomnia passes. Hence it is most important to stop taking the sleeping pills gradually. The tragedy is that most people stop taking the sleeping pills suddenly, and consequently they cannot sleep because they experience rebound insomnia. They then believe they have lost the innate ability to sleep, and they immediately start taking the sleeping pills again.

*45/23/5*