Tuesday, July 17, 2007
A lot on your mind
I have a question about thinking while trying to fall asleep. There are times that I go to bed, and just can't fall asleep. Though I wasn't, at the time, thinking of anything, my dad said that there was a lot going through my mind which kept me from sleeping. After staying up for about 2 more hours, I eventually fall asleep from exhaustion, but in the morning, I spent time trying to think about what was bothering me that kept me from sleeping. What do you guys think? Sometimes, this still happens, and it really does get annoying to not be able to sleep and not figure out why.
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5 comments:
In previous discussions about sleep problems during psych classes, I've been reminded of the effects of conditioning and associative learning. If you tend to do a certain activity in a particular place, like reading in bed for example, then your mind learns to associate that action with that place. So, your mind becomes prepared to read when you get into bed rather than sleep.
If you have problems with falling asleep, it is generally a good idea to not get into bed until you are tired enough to fall asleep. Then if trouble persists, it is better to get out of bed and do something other than try to fall asleep. That way you avoid training yourself to assiciate being in bed with not sleeping.
If all else fails, I always turn to the childhood comfort of "sleepytime tea." :)
Even if it doesn't seem like you're thinking of anything, the more you try to focus on getting to sleep the harder it becomes! And as Raven said, conditioning also can affect getting to sleep.
A little bit along the lines of your post -- here's an article comparing the pre-sleep activity of insomniacs vs. good sleepers:
http://tinyurl.com/36ptrx
a lot of times what keeps me lying awake at night is a lot of vague anxeities about this or that. it gets especially bad when i'm in a new place or if someone unfamiliar is sleeping next to me (like a friend is over, not like some random dude in my bed...). maybe unnamed anxeities are getting at you that you don't recognize?
reading textbooks usually puts me to sleep, by the way.
Thats strange you mentioned that. I will stay in my bed for 2 hours sometimes and I feel like the longer I lie there the more awake I become
I definitely agree with Raven’s comment on conditioning affecting one’s ability to sleep. Back at UCLA, I live in a studio apartment where the bedroom, the living room and the kitchen are all connected without walls, so its basically one big bedroom. Therefore, the most comfortable place to study around midterms and finals is in my bed. After finals, when I am usually exhausted from many long nights and hard exams, I find myself becoming more awake when I get into bed. I agree with Raven’s contention that what has happened is that I have conditioned myself to associate the bed with studying. Touching on what Janice mentioned, from my perspective it is possible for anxieties that were already existing within your mind to come out when you are not keeping yourself busy throughout the day. A question to ask would be, when you are laying around with nothing to do for a long period of time in the middle of the day, do you have the same reaction? Night may be the one time that you don’t have the opportunity to unknowingly distract yourself from the anxiety that you may otherwise feel about, like you mentioned, being in a new place. But then again, if you are just sleeping place that’s creepy, than who wouldn’t be anxious?
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