Why Fall In Love….When You Can Fall Asleep?

I have always been a good sleeper, even in childhood.  It was my escape and maybe still is.  However, when I was in high school, I had trouble sleeping because my life was not good and it caused me a lot of stress and anxiety.  Starting with my freshmen year (9th grade), my dad fell off the roof of our house and had his leg amputated.  He lost his job and we had to move when I was a junior (11th grade) to a new town and a new high school for me.  Meanwhile, my sister got married and had two children.  Then her husband died and she moved in with us with her 3-year-old and 1-year-old.  My parents were back and forth to the hospital all the time for my dad and my sister had to work, so I had to quit high school for a few months to take care of my nieces.  My grandpa died from bone cancer during this time.  When my sister moved out with her kids, my mom lost her mind and kicked me out of the house.  I moved in with Memaw.  I was in my senior year of high school.

Needless to say, sleeping was pretty difficult for me at that time.  My Memaw, once again, helped me.  If you are having trouble sleeping, I will tell you Memaw’s secret but first, let’s understand what sleep is.

When you go to sleep, your brain and body travels through many different stages of sleep.  Some scientists say it is 3 stages, some say 4 but here are the stages in a nutshell.

First stage I call twilight.  This is when you first lay down, adjust your covers, pillow is just right, lights off, no electronics.  You shut your eyes and your mind relaxes.  Scientists say this is when you are most creative because you tend to let your mind wonder.  You are drifting to sleep and can easily be woken up.  Your brain waves are similar to if you were awake (alpha waves) but your body is slowing down–breathing, heart rate.  You may twitch during this time because your muscles are trying to relax (the way to relax a muscle is to tense it first, then relax–that’s why the twitching).  This stage is short–maybe 10-15 minutes.  It is a NREM stage, which means Non Rapid Eye Movement–you are not dreaming in this stage but there may be images.

If all goes well, then you slip into the second stage of sleep.  This is also a NREM stage (no dreaming) but now your brain and body are really slowing down.  Your body temperature drops and brain waves are now into theta waves.  Scientists believe this is when your brain is sorting through all the stimuli it received throughout the day.  Some information it keeps and puts into memory; most of the information is tossed (what color shirt did your friend wear today; how many cars did you pass while driving to work, etc.).  You get millions of pieces of information all day but your mind can’t store most of it.  This stage allows your brain to sort and toss.  This stage lasts about 20 minutes.

The third stage is your deep sleep.  Your body is in a coma-like state.  Your bodily functions are minimal–just enough to keep you alive.  Your brain waves are very slow and long–delta waves.  This is an important stage because this is when your body and brain can repair and restore itself.  This is when cell growth happens, hair growth, replenishing all the chemicals you used during the day to be active.  For example, you use chemicals in your eyes to see color during the day.  These chemicals need to be replenished.  Hormones are regulated, the immune system is strengthened, even our brain works to store our memories better.  Again, this stage is very important.  Because all of this is going on, it is very difficult to wake us in this stage (although this stage is not the most difficult).  If you have even woken up in this stage, you feel “heavy”, difficult to focus, and very tired.  It is because your body was kind of “shut down” and now it must go to consciousness in just a few minutes.  NOT a good stage to wake up in.  This stage is NREM (no dreaming) and lasts about 20 minutes…in the beginning.  I’ll explain this in just a minute.

That’s it.  No more stages.  But, wait?  When do we dream??  Do we dream every night?

I’ll talk more about dreams in another blog but here are the quick answers.  Yes, you dream every night.  In fact, you usually dream 4-5 times each night!!

Let’s get back to the stages.  Here is what we have so far:

Twilight Stage or Stage 1 (NREM)

Stage 2  (NREM)

Stage 3–deep sleep  (NREM)

When we fall asleep, we go through stage 1, stage 2, stage 3.  THEN we go back through in reverse order–stage 3, stage 2, stage 1.  This cycle takes about 90 minutes to complete.  So, do we wake up in stage 1 again?  Nope.  We dream.

In our first cycle, we do stage 1–twilight (about 15 minutes), stage 2 (20 minutes), stage 3 (20 minutes), stage 2 (20 minutes), and when we go back to stage 1.  This is no longer the twilight stage.  This becomes our REM stage (Rapid Eye Movement–dreaming).  Our brain waves are like we are awake (alpha waves) but we are not awake–we are dreaming.  This stage lasts about 15 minutes in the first cycle.  This is the stage where it is the most difficult to wake us–BECAUSE OUR BRAINS THINK WE ARE ALREADY AWAKE!  

Yup, that’s right.  When we dream, our brains think it is real and happening.  Because of this, when someone (or something like your alarm) tries to wake you during this stage, our brain says “Wait!  I’m already awake because this dream is real.  I’ll just incorporate the alarm going off into the dream!”  Eventually, your body does respond and you wake up.

So, you just went through your first cycle of sleep and had one dream.  This entire cycle took about 90 minutes.  After that first dream, you go through the cycle again (Stage 1–dreaming, stage 2, stage 3, stage 2, stage 1–second dream).  However, this time, stage 3 is shorter (your body needs less time to repair) and stage 1–your dream–becomes longer.  Again, this second cycle takes about 90 minutes and you just had your second dream.  

You go through about 4-5 cycles per night; hence, 4-5 dreams.  Your last cycle before you generally wake up in the morning is still 90 minutes but that last dream is usually the longest.  We call it the finale and can be about 40-45 minutes long.  This is the dream you usually remember because it is so long and your alarm wakes you up in the dream.  Here is a secret and we will talk more about this in another 

blog–you generally only remember your dreams if you wake up during the dream.  This is why some people don’t believe they dreamed during the night because they didn’t remember any of their dreams.  The reason is because they didn’t wake up during a dream.

There you go.  This is what happens during 1/3 of your life while you are sleeping.  Generally, this happens to most people.  However, there are exceptions and that is why we have sleep scientists and sleep institutes to study people while they sleep.  They may have an issue, like sleep apnea, going on.  This needs to be diagnosed and treated.

However, some of us have issues sleeping but maybe not major enough to involve professionals.  What do we do if we have occasional insomnia?

Insomnia comes in many forms.  You may have a difficult time falling asleep.  You may wake up many times in the middle of the night and can’t fall back asleep.  Or you may wake up after a few hours of sleep and stay awake.  All of this is common if it occurs occasionally.

How much sleep should you get every night?  Well, it is based on your age and averages.  For most of us, we need an average of 7-9 hours of sleep each night.  On average means that you add up all the hours of sleep you had in a week and divide it by 7 nights.  That’s the average.  Why not just 7-9 hours each night, no matter what?  Because life gets in the way.  Sometimes we do get that much sleep; sometimes, we only get 6 hours because we are nervous for a presentation the next morning; sometimes we get 10 hours because we slept in on a Sunday morning.  On average, try for 7-9 hours each night in a week.

What if I get less than that?  Then you need to make some changes.  Hopefully, you see from the sleep stages, that sleep is so important to your body and your brain.  There are many reasons why you are getting less.  Here are some solutions that may help.

First, your room needs to be dark and cool.  No lights or just a small nightlight.  Cool–you sleep better in a cool room than hot or cold.  Maybe you need white noise–a noise machine or a fan.  You need to have a comfortable bed, covers, and pillow.  Turn your phone upside down so you don’t see the light when there are notifications.  Better yet, charge your phone across your room.  Then you can’t see it and when the alarm goes off, you have to cross the room to turn it off and now you are up.  

Go to bed at a decent hour–not too early or too late.  Subtract when you have to get up from 8 hours–that is the time to go to bed.  If you get up at 7 am, go to bed around 11 pm.  If you generally go to bed at 2 am and get up at 7 am, then that is not enough sleep.  Gradually move your bed time to 11 pm, maybe a half hour at a time.  It may take a few nights but eventually you start going to bed at 11 pm.

What if you can’t go to sleep or you wake up and can’t go back to sleep?  Usually, this happens to people who are worried or anxious about something.  I call this Dementor Time.  This is the time that the dementors come out (dementors from the Harry Potter stories).  A time when all your worst fears and anxieties are at their highest.  

When I lived with Memaw, this is what happened to me.  I had a lot of stress and anxiety and had a hard time falling asleep.  This still happens to me from time to time.  Memaw introduced me to the Worry Dolls.  Memaw made me 5 Worry Dolls (see picture with this blog).  When I couldn’t sleep and was worried about something, I would hold one doll and “give” that doll my problem.  Maybe I was worried about a test in school the next day.  I would tell that doll my worry and that doll would “hold” that worry for me until morning.  I physically could do nothing about that worry in the middle of the night, so psychologically “giving” that worry to the doll made me understand that I didn’t need to hold that problem at that time.  I could get it back in the morning and deal with it then.  The funny thing is that by morning, that worry didn’t seem so big anymore.  

I had 5 dolls to give 5 worries.  Now, this sounds like hocus pocus but at night, you are not thinking rationally (hence, the dementors).  To symbolically give that doll that problem you are anxious about, knowing you can “get it back” in the morning to deal with, really helps with your mental health.  And it helps you sleep.  You may laugh and think “That is just too weird and silly” but look it up.  There is a lot of research into these Worry Dolls or whatever they call it.  Once again, Memaw had wisdom beyond her years!

You can actually buy these Worry Dolls now, make your own, or just play make-believe.  I don’t have dolls now, but when the anxiety comes, I give that worry to any object that is on my night stand–the alarm clock, the box of Kleenex, my Gold Bond lotion:)  It doesn’t matter.  As long as the worry has cleared my mind, I can sleep.

Hopefully, you now see why sleep is so important to your mind and your body.  You need your sleep.  Make your environment very comfortable for that sleep and give your worries to others so you can sleep.  You can solve your problems in the morning.

Maybe you can fall asleep and fall in love….either way, 

Happy Valentine’s Day!