Waking up in the middle of the night can be made worse with one thing (Image: Getty)
People have been told that if they’ve been waking up in the middle of the night, they may be subconsciously doing a few things that ‘prolong the problem’ and ‘make it feel much worse’. Unless it is handled, people could feel « absolutely exhausted » during the day.
Ex-NHS worker Kathryn Pinkham is an insomnia specialist and founder of The Insomnia Clinic. She trained with the health service in cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia and has since expanded her own clinic to include trained therapists, an online course and corporate services.
Speaking on the Body Composition Coach podcast, she explained that ‘sleep maintenance insomnia’ is a fairly common issue that forces people to wake up in the middle of the night. Common causes include anxiety, chronic pain and hormonal shifts – but this can quickly start to have a knock-on effect on daily life.
Kathryn explained: « It’s a combination of not having enough momentum to sleep through the night, so we wake up at three o’clock in the morning. When we wake up at three, most people check the time, which triggers our minds to start wondering if we’ve had enough sleep and to panic about tomorrow.
« What happens is that, at three o’clock in the morning, if we become vigilant to the fact that we are awake, then our body will think this is a problem – and it will have to respond as though there is a problem, so that fight or flight is kicking in. »
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Kathryn claimed that the problem tends to leave people « absolutely exhausted, » yet unable to break the internal pattern their body has come to recognise as ‘normal’. The sleep specialist claimed our bodily systems are good at recognising and sticking to a pattern, but they cannot tell the difference between a good or a bad pattern – it just « knows the ones that we repeat ».
Issues that can lead to ‘middle-of-the-night’ insomnia include mental factors like anxiety, stress, and depression. Alternatively, the cause can be physical, such as dealing with chronic pain or sleep apnea.
People might be causing these early-hour issues with certain lifestyle choices, the expert says, such as taking caffeine or alcohol in the evening. Having an unpredictable sleep schedule can also trigger these issues.
What is isonomia?
According to the NHS website, insomnia is a « regular problem » with sleep instead of just a one-off ‘bad night’. Thankfully, the problem tends to improve without medication and boils down to changing your sleep habits.
You may have insomnia if you regularly:
- find it hard to go to sleep
- wake up several times during the night
- lie awake at night
- wake up early and cannot go back to sleep
- still feel tired after waking up
- find it hard to nap during the day even though you’re tired
- feel tired and irritable during the day
- find it difficult to concentrate during the day because you’re tired
What can fix it?
Kathryn claimed that the solution is to fix that set pattern rather than trying to eliminate the trigger itself, because it is often not that easy to work away something physical or mental. She added that identifying the pattern your body has set itself is key to re-training the body clock into a more appropriate rhythm that avoids unwanted 3am wake-ups.
She said: « You’ve set a pattern that’s not working… We’re changing that behaviour that is keeping that pattern going. Whatever starts the fire, which is the whatever triggers the insomnia problem, isn’t the thing that we’re focusing on because that’s not what is keeping it going. It’s how we behave around sleep and how we feel around sleep. »
According to the NHS website, patients will sometimes be offered cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) through face-to-face sessions with a therapist or through an online self-help programme. This can help you change the thoughts and behaviours that keep you from sleeping.
GPs now rarely prescribe sleeping pills to treat insomnia. Sleeping pills can have serious side effects, and you can become dependent on them. Sleeping pills are only prescribed for a few days or weeks at the most if the insomnia is very bad and other treatments have not worked.
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