5 Weird Things That Happen With Insomnia (that are totally normal)
Clients report to me all the time weird or strange things that they experience with insomnia. I also experienced some of these things when I had insomnia years ago.
Today I highlight 5 weird things that people experience with insomnia that are common:
Weird Thing #1: Daytime Alertness Despite No Sleep
Weird Thing #2: Nighttime Alertness Despite Exhaustion
Weird Thing #3: Partner Sleeps Well While You Struggle
Weird Thing #4: Functioning Well Despite Little Sleep
Weird Thing #5: More Tired After a Good Night's Sleep
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WHAT I DO:
I help people overcome insomnia and get good sleep (without medication, drugs or supplements).
To Your Sleeping Better!
- Steve
RESOURCES
CBT-I Playlist
00:00 Introduction to Insomnia's Strange Effects
00:54 Weird Thing #1: Daytime Alertness Despite No Sleep
04:23 Weird Thing #2: Nighttime Alertness Despite Exhaustion
06:48 Weird Thing #3: Partner Sleeps Well While You Struggle
08:10 Weird Thing #4: Functioning Well Despite Little Sleep
11:12 Weird Thing #5: More Tired After a Good Night's Sleep
13:44 Conclusion and Next Steps
TRANSCRIPT
Introduction to Insomnia's Strange Effects
What I've noticed after working with insomnia for so many years is that there's a lot of weird things or strange things that happen when someone's going through insomnia. And I've heard so many different clients, say to me or ask me, they're having this strange experience that seems sort of perplexing or scary.
I've had that happen so many times and I also had it with myself when I was going through insomnia many years ago, I had some of these strange experiences.
So I thought today I'd make a video where I'd highlight five of those weird things that happen when people have insomnia. And mainly because sometimes these things cause people a lot of worry or concern because they seem sort of strange or weird or unexpected.
And that could raise people's anxiety, which just feeds into the cycle of insomnia. So I thought by listing some of these things out they might normalize the problem because these things are very common and they are normal when people are experiencing insomnia and it's not just you.
Weird Thing #1: Daytime Alertness Despite No Sleep
The first weird thing that happens is you're alert during the day, even though you didn't [00:01:00] sleep much. So this is a very common thing that happens with insomnia. So let's say you've had insomnia for a while. The previous night, you didn't sleep very well or you didn't sleep at all sometimes. And, but yet you wake up the next day and you find yourself alert during the day. You're awake, you're alert, you can function.
Now what's going on here is something called hyper arousal. Now hyper arousal is Something that happens with insomnia, and I think the reason why it happens is your body is compensating for not getting enough sleep. But it knows that you need to be awake.
And the main thing that triggers this is something called your circadian rhythm. And your circadian rhythm is these different functions of your body, sleep is one of them. Other things are like body temperature and there's different systems in your body that are regulated by the circadian rhythm. Circadian just means about a day. So every 24 hours your body has this internal clock where there's different physiological changes that happen at different times of the day and night that then change how you feel or change your state.
And one of [00:02:00] those is wakefulness. So when you wake up in the morning, even though you had a really poor night of sleep or you didn't sleep at all, there are certain things that happen as part of the circadian rhythm that wake you up. One of those things is sunlight, just getting some kind of light exposure, like lights coming through your window. And that's a trigger to your brain that, Oh, it's daytime. I need to wake up. Okay, so that's one thing that can kind of wake you up in the morning, even if you didn't sleep well.
Another one is, eating. Eating is timed to certain times of the day. So if you have breakfast in the morning at a certain time every day, or you have coffee in the morning at a certain time, when you're smelling that food or you're eating that food, that's a signal to your brain, Oh, we're, we're awake now, we're not sleeping. This is daytime. And it wakes you up and it actually will create physiological changes in your body to do that.
Okay, another one is just your routine. So people have daily routines. You wake up, you do a certain thing, you make breakfast for the kids, you walk the dog, you go to work, whatever.
But those things are associated with wakefulness and [00:03:00] daytime and being awake. And again, those things can trigger the brain to wake you up. And then physiologically, one thing that happens with the circadian rhythm is body temperature changes. So your body temperature doesn't stay the same all the time, right?
By American measurement, 98. 6 is what's considered a normal temperature or somewhere around 98. 6. But your body temperature, your internal body temperature actually changes through the day. And that is actually one thing that regulates sleep.
So what happens in the afternoon at around 4 or 5 o'clock is your body temperature is at its highest place. It's at the highest body temperature. And then from that point on, your body starts releasing melatonin. The, when the sun starts going down, that's a trigger for your brain for the body temperature to start to go down. And it keeps going down and it actually gets to its lowest point sometime in the early morning. And that is one thing that actually helps you sleep is your core body temperature reduces.
So, all these physiological changes are happening as part of the circadian [00:04:00] rhythm, and that is why you could have a terrible night of sleep and still be able to wake up.
In addition to that, the hyperarousal, which is part of insomnia, whether it's daytime or nighttime, is your body's system that's overcompensating for the lack of sleep which then to keep you awake will release adrenaline and other physiological changes to kind of keep you alert even though you might be exhausted.
Weird Thing #2: Nighttime Alertness Despite Exhaustion
The second weird thing that happens with insomnia is you're exhausted when you get into bed at night. So you've had insomnia, you haven't been sleeping well, you're exhausted, you know, you've been doing stuff that day and you get into bed that night and you're like, man, I'm, I can't wait to sleep.
You get into bed and all of a sudden you get alert. Your head hits the pillow and all of a sudden you're, you're just in this intense wakefulness state. You may not even be anxious. You're just awake. And it's a very strange feeling because you know you're exhausted. You could even feel that exhaustion and yet you're lying there, your eyes are open and your body just doesn't want to go to sleep.
Again, this is part of that hyper arousal that happens even at [00:05:00] night when you get into bed.
Now, why does it happen when you get into bed? Because the bed is associated with the insomnia. It's associated with the difficulty sleeping.
So what happens is our brain makes associations with certain things that then trigger certain memories or certain physiological changes or certain states in our body that have been continually associated with that thing.
So one example of this is the smell of buttered popcorn in a movie theater. So if you go to movie theater, there's almost always that smell of buttered popcorn. That smell for many people is associated with a movie theater.
Or there might be a certain smell you smelled in your house growing up, or your grandparent's house because they cooked a certain food, it instantly makes you think of your grandmother's house and how you felt during that time.
Well, this is something that happens. with the bed and insomnia is that if you've spent a lot of nights in the bed, having difficulty sleeping, lying awake in bed, awake and alert, that starts getting associated with the bed, because your brain is starting to get [00:06:00] confused.
You used to be able to sleep. When you were in bed, you used to sleep in the bed and your brain was like, okay, when you get into bed, then we're gonna, we're gonna go to sleep. What happens with insomnia is now you've spent more nights awake, more hours of the night awake and your brain is starting to get confused. Well, are we sleeping or are we awake?
And so it creates that association that now when you get into the bed, sometimes you become alert because the brain actually thinks you want to be awake, even though you don't want to be awake, but it's confused about that.
So this is one thing that you have to counteract to overcome insomnia is to get rid of that hyper arousal state.
The problem at that point is not that you're not exhausted, it's that you're not relaxed enough. And the reason why you're not relaxed enough is because of that hyper arousal, that automatic response that's been associated with the brain when you get into the bed.
Weird Thing #3: Partner Sleeps Well While You Struggle
Weird thing number three that happens with insomnia is quite often, now this isn't true for everybody, but quite often when you have insomnia, your partner is a great sleeper.
And I can't tell you how many [00:07:00] times I've had clients come to me and they're telling me about how horrible their insomnia is, and yet their partner, their husband, their wife, their boyfriend, their girlfriend, sleeps like a baby. They're one of those people that just get into bed, their head hits the pillow, they're out, it doesn't matter. You know, they just had a, an espresso before they got into bed, they sleep.
And I find this is very common. I don't know if this is there's some association with insomnia with this, but it's a very common thing. And I, and I'm sure this doesn't apply to everybody. I've seen people who their partner also was a difficult sleeper, but it does happen quite often, and I thought it would be worth noting here.
Sometimes this emphasizes to people, Oh, there's something wrong with me. You know, my partner can get into bed, not do any of this, you know, all these things that I'm doing to try to sleep and they're out. And it doesn't matter what's going on in the environment, they can sleep.
Whereas, I get into bed and I'm lying there awake and it feels like there's something wrong with you because your partner can sleep just fine in the same environment under the same conditions and you can't.
This is very common that happens and there's nothing wrong with you as I've talked about on [00:08:00] this channel It's just simply a shift that you've made in your behavior and in your thinking that's actually created the insomnia. And you're stuck in this pattern and it's a pattern that you can get out of as well
Weird Thing #4: Functioning Well Despite Little Sleep
Weird thing number four that happens with insomnia is you can actually function the next day despite little or sometimes even no sleep
Now I'm not saying you're functioning at an optimal level. I'm not saying that you feel great when you don't have a good night of sleep or when you have insomnia. But surprisingly, many people, even when they have insomnia during the day, they're very alert and they can function. And again, the alertness is what I talked about in number one with the circadian rhythm and that hyper arousal.
But also, you're able to function, meaning you can go and do your job. You can take care of your kids. You can do the chores. You find that you're still able to do things even though you didn't sleep and sometimes that surprises people. They're like what I barely slept last night and yet I'm able to work and do things and function.
And in addition to the circadian rhythm, the other reason for this is something called core [00:09:00] sleep. Now core sleep is a concept which means that you got around five and a half hours of sleep. Okay, five and a half hours for some people with insomnia may sound like a dream. Some people are getting a lot less than that.
Some people might be getting more, but it's probably around the average of what people get when they have insomnia. And when you get five and a half hours of sleep, which is not optimal, most people should be getting at least seven hours, maybe somewhere between seven and eight hours. So five and a half is not optimal.
But when you get five and a half hours, you're getting 100 percent of your deep sleep and you're getting 50 percent or half of your REM sleep, which is your dream sleep. So you're getting quite a bit. of sleep and very important sleep and in addition to a lot of light sleep, which is also important Just by getting to around five and a half hours, give or take Of sleep and that sleep can be even broken up through the night It doesn't have to be a straight five hours.
You could sleep a few hours wake up for a while go back to sleep It's the total amount of time that you sleep The reason for that is you get your deep sleep in the [00:10:00] first You Half of the night, or around the first five or so hours of the night.
Our sleep goes in cycles and we have several cycles of sleep each night. And each cycle has different stages that you go through and each stage is different. And earlier on in the night, the stages are filled more with the deep sleep. And light sleep and less of REM sleep.
And then as the night goes on into the morning or the last part of your sleep, you're getting more REM sleep or dream sleep, which is why some people remember their dreams when they wake up.
But if you get that five and a half hours, you're going to get a hundred percent of your deep sleep and half or around half of your REM or your dream sleep and some of your light sleep. And that's why you can function because you still got a pretty good amount of recovery. And so that allows you to be able to function the next day.
And even if you got less than that, let's say you got three hours or four hours. You still got some deep sleep or a good amount of deep sleep and probably some REM sleep and some light sleep. So it's not like you didn't sleep at all and that's why you can still function.
Now, what if you didn't [00:11:00] sleep at all? Why can you still function when that's going to be more because of the circadian rhythm and that those systems in your body counteracting the tiredness that allow you to still be able to function even though you didn't sleep at all.
Weird Thing #5: More Tired After a Good Night's Sleep
And the fifth weird thing that happens with people that have insomnia is that you're more tired during the day after a good night of sleep.
Okay. So this is kind of a strange thing that I've seen happen with many people is when they don't sleep well, or they don't sleep at all, they have that hyperarousal I was already describing.
But sometimes, when they finally start getting a good night of sleep, and I usually see this with people who are going through my program, because now they've been implementing the skills, and they've been making changes to their sleep. And now, every once in a while, as they're going through that process, they're getting a really good night of sleep. They're getting like a deeper night of sleep or they're sleeping longer than they have in a long time, which feels wonderful, but then the next day they feel more tired than they normally do when they didn't sleep.
And this seems strange. And this is very [00:12:00] paradoxical and sleep is a very paradoxical thing.
So what happens there is Your body starts to relax and the more your body starts to relax as you start to break that hyper arousal, as you're getting over insomnia, when you're going through this process, which I've talked about a lot, CBTI, which is the process I use in my program. As your sleep starts to improve, And you start to get more relaxed and break that hyper arousal state, you start to get deeper sleep, you start to get better quality sleep, you're more relaxed when you're sleeping.
And what happens then is during the day you feel your tiredness more. You start to feel all that tiredness and fatigue that's been built up over months or years. from the insomnia that now you're able to feel.
It's kind of like a metaphor I use is you're defrosting. Okay. Before there was all this frost and ice that was sort of getting in the way of you feeling how tired you actually were or how fatigued you were because your body has adjusted in some respect to not getting very much sleep. It's adapted to it. Okay, because your body is [00:13:00] built to adapt, even if it's in an suboptimal or unhealthy situation, it'll adapt.
But as you start to actually sleep better, get more relaxed, and break that hyperarousal state, you start to feel your tiredness and that fatigue more.
Now, that can actually not feel so great, like when you're tired during the day. But that's a really good sign of that you're getting better, that you're breaking the insomnia and that hyper arousal. And that becomes more and more consistent. And suddenly you start to, you know, reduce that fatigue and you start feeling better during the day. And that's usually a really good sign that you're actually improving with the insomnia.
But it is a very common thing that happens when people start to improve and start getting over insomnia and start breaking out of that pattern.
Conclusion and Next Steps
So these are five weird things. Now I have a bunch more. When I sat down to do this, I wrote down and I found that there was like a list of a lot of other things that people have reported to me or that I experienced myself when I had insomnia that were just kind of weird or strange or paradoxical that you wouldn't [00:14:00] expect.
And I'm going to probably do some other videos where I highlight more of these strange things, but because I think it helps to normalize the problem. These are all very common things that people experience when they have insomnia. It's just part of the experience and just kind of knowing that maybe can help you calm down a little bit and not worry so much when you find that these things are happening.
So if this video was helpful for you, just press the like button and also you can subscribe to the channel. I do two of these videos every week. And if you have any comments or questions, post those below the video. I do Q& A videos every couple of weeks, when people post questions about this video or other things that I've posted and I'll make a video to answer your question.
All right, have a good rest of your day and I will see you next time.