10 Astonishing Reasons Why You Can’t Sleep
The importance of sleep cannot be overestimated, especially having a good quality night sleep. Sleep has a lot of roles to play in both our mental and physical health. It can be very annoying and frustrating when you find it difficult to sleep. In this article, we would outline 10 surprising reasons why you can’t sleep.
Before we see the reasons why you can’t sleep, let look briefly into some sub-topics:
What are Sleep Deprivation and Deficiency?
Sleep deprivation is a condition when you don’t get enough sleep. On the other hand, sleep deficiency consists of a variety of things:
- Consists of sleep deprivation (you are not getting enough sleep)
- You sleep at the wrong hours during the day
- You don’t get all the different types of sleep your body needs
- You have a sleeping disorder that reduces the quality of your sleep.
Sleep deficiency can interfere with work, school, driving, and social functioning. It becomes difficult for you to learn or focus and you react to situations slowly. Lack of sleep makes it difficult to decode people’s emotions and reactions. When we lack sleep, we get angry easily and become weird in social gatherings.
Why is Sleep Important?
For you to function optimally and remain healthy, sleep plays a very important role. How you behave or feel when you are awake depends on what goes on while you are asleep.
The problems sleep deprivation causes can occur in an instance (like a workplace accident or a car crash) or it can occur over a period of time (health issues).
- Sleep helps your brain work optimally. While sleeping, your brain refreshes and gets ready for the next day/series of tasks.
- Sleeping helps your emotional well-being: you handle difficult situations easily and get less irritated. Sleep also helps to reduce anxiety.
- Sleep help to heal muscles and blood vessels.
- sleep deficiency is linked to an increased risk of heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke.
- Research has also shown that the lack of sleep in teens is one of the leading causes of obesity.
- Getting enough quality sleep also improves your daytime performance and keeps you alert to ensure that you do not get into unsafe situations.
What is the Recommended Amount of Sleep?
| Age | Recommended Amount of Sleep |
|---|---|
| For Infants aged between 4-12 months | 12-16 hours a day (including naps) |
| For Children aged between 1-2 years | 11-14 hours a day (including naps) |
| For Children aged between 3-5 years | 10-13 hours a day (including naps) |
| For Children aged between 6-12 years | 9-12 hours a day |
| For Teens aged between 13-18 years | 8-10 hours a day |
| Adults aged 18 years or older | 7–8 hours a day |
Now that we have seen a brief review on sleep deprivation, lets see the reasons why you can’t sleep.
Reasons Why You Can’t Sleep
1. Suffering From Blue-light Insomnia
It is important that you turn off electronics like laptops and TV’s before you go to sleep. The screens of your TV, laptop and other digital devices emits a blue light. The blue light affects your sleep quality because it represses natural melatonin production. Melatonin helps to improve the quality of your sleep. It is advisable that you turn off these devices at least three hours before you get ready for bed. You can also buy glasses which function to reduce the effect of this blue light.
2. Your Mattress Is Pretty Old
You have to spare no cost to ensure that you have good quality sleep.
How long should you use a mattress? You should change your mattress at least every 10-15 years. When your mattress is not comfortable, you might find it very difficult to sleep. When your bed is to lumpy or hard, you would just continue to turn from one position to the other for the rest of the night. There are a variety of amazing beds available that would suit your specific needs and desires with a wide variety of price ranges. When your bed is soft and comfortable, you would find it easy to drift of to sleep.
3. You Drank Alcohol Before Bed Time
Contrary to popular opinion, alcohol can induce insomnia in majority of people. Alcohol can make it difficult for you to stay asleep. Alcohol causes you to sleep very lightly and causes a fragmented sleeping pattern. It is advisable that you stay away from alcohol at least 2-3 hours before bed time.
4. You Are On Prescription Medications
Taking drug prescriptions is one of the reason you find it difficult to sleep. For example, taking diuretics can increase the urge for you to stand up multiple times during the night to use the toilet. Antidepressants can give you a burst of energy that can keep you awake way past your bed time. For you to best make use of prescription, consult your doctor to explain how you can take the drugs that they won’t affect your sleeping pattern.
5. You Take a Lot of Naps
Taking short naps during the day can throw off your sleeping pattern. The time when we feel the urge to take a nap the most is during 2 to 3 pm. During this time, reduce the amount of physical activities that you engage in. When you feel too tired, you are most likely to nap.
6. You Took Caffeine Without Knowing
We all know that we should avoid caffeine before bedtime because it makes it difficult to sleep. What we don’t know is that caffeine isn’t found only in coffee and soda. There are other food items that contain caffeine that we might ingest unknowingly before bed time. Chocolate and ice tea contains some amount of caffeine. Try to check the content of the foods we eat and cut off anything that contains caffeine before bed time.
7. Going Through Menopause
When going through menopause, an astonishing amount of changes occurs in the body – both mental and physical changes. One of the symptoms of menopause is hot flashes. When this occurs at night, you would wake up feeling very hot and sweaty. It becomes difficult to go to bed after such an experience. To reduce the effects of this hot flashes; you can change your pillows to buckwheat’s, improve ventilation in your room and make use of bed sheets that do not conserve heat.
8. You Sleep In On Weekends
It feels good to sleep very late into the day during weekends, but it is also bad for your sleeping pattern. Sleeping in during weekends throws off your biological rhythm. When Sunday night reaches, you might find it difficult to sleep and it could affect your entire sleep schedule for the rest of the week. You should wake up the same time during the week. Set an alarm to keep you on track.
9. You Sleep With Pets
Animals are usually more active at night than during the day. Having your pets sleep in the same bed as you can affect your sleep because they might wake you up several times during the course of the night. You might be allergic or be very sensitive to pet dander.
10. Your Room Is Poorly Ventilated
Having a poorly ventilated room can really affect the quality of your sleep. This is one of the main reasons why you can’t sleep. When you sweat all through the night and your body temperature drops, you would feel very uncomfortable and would most likely wake up. Increase the ventilation, use a room cooler and turn off bright lamps to help you sleep better.
