My Lack of Sleep Is Affecting My Daily Life: Can You Help?

Sleep is essential for maintaining good health and well-being from when you’re a baby till the time you reach old age. While you sleep, your body completes important tasks, including supporting healthy brain function, encoding memories, and maintaining your physical health.

For kids and teens, sleep supports their growth and development. And for all age groups, failure to get enough sleep over time raises your risk for chronic health problems. It can also impact your ability to think, learn, work, react, and get along with others.

At Primecare Family Practice, board-certified family practitioners Maryline Ongangi, APRN, FNP-C and Lewis Nyantika, APRN, FNP-C, understand how important sleep is to normal functioning, which is why we encourage patients at our Arlington, Texas, office to make sleep a priority. Here’s what you can do to ensure you get enough.

Reasons for lack of sleep and what you can do about them

There are a number of issues that can disrupt your ability to get a good night’s sleep, which is generally viewed as 7-9 hours a night. Lack of sufficient sleep is referred to as insomnia, the inability to fall asleep and/or stay asleep, or waking up too early but being unable to go back to sleep.

By interfering with much-needed rest, insomnia drains your energy level and affects your mood. It also can affect your health, work performance, and quality of life.

Common causes of long-term (chronic) insomnia include:

Stress

Whether you’re concerned about work, school, health, money, or family, your mind can become very busy when your head hits the pillow, making it hard to sleep. Stressful life events, too, such as illness, death, or divorce, may lead to insomnia.

Try relaxation techniques like deep breathing, meditation, yoga, or tai chi to de-stress your life. Less stress equals deeper and more restful sleep.

Poor sleep habits

Going to bed and waking up at different times each day, taking naps in the afternoon, being too active before bedtime, and having a sleep area that’s not comfortable all contribute to poor sleep.

You’re also ripe for wakefulness if you work, eat, or watch TV while you’re in bed. Your bed should be reserved only for sleep, not for any other activity.

Using devices like computers, smartphones, or video games too close to bedtime messes with your internal clock, disrupting your sleep cycle and leaving you drained the next day. Stay away from devices for at least two hours before bedtime.

Eating too much late in the evening

If you have a light snack before bed, you should be fine, but eating too much or foods that are too heavy before you turn in may leave you feeling uncomfortable while lying down. Many people also get heartburn from late-night eating, as the acid in your stomach can flow back up the esophagus when you’re prone. It’s hard to sleep when your chest is burning.

Sleep-related disorders

Obstructive sleep apnea causes you to periodically stop breathing throughout the night, ensuring that you don’t get restful sleep. This is a serious condition and should be addressed by a sleep specialist.

Restless legs syndrome causes a strong, uncontrollable urge to move your legs (or other body parts) as soon as you lie down to sleep. This is also best addressed by a sleep specialist, who can treat the underlying cause of your problem.

Caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol

Coffee, tea, soda, and many other drinks contain caffeine, which is a stimulant. Drinking them less than four hours before heading to bed can ensure you won’t get good sleep during the night.

The nicotine in tobacco products is another stimulant, and it’s also bad for just about every aspect of your health. Quitting smoking can not only give you better sleep, but it can improve your overall quality of life as well.

And while alcohol may help you fall asleep, it interferes with your ability to reach the deeper stages of sleep, where healing occurs. It can also wake you up in the middle of the night and be unable to go back to sleep.

Want more tips on how to get better sleep to improve your daily life? Primecare Family Practice can help. To schedule an evaluation, call our office at 817-873-3710, or book online with us today.