Why Does Anxiety Keep You Up?
The most interesting thing about anxiety is how it affects the brain. Anxiety activates the limbic system, the part of the brain that regulates our emotions and fight or flight response. Heightened limbic system activity causes a surge in the stress hormone cortisol, which can keep you awake all night.
Although there are multiple facets to anxiety/sleeplessness, the link between anxiety, the limbic system, and cortisol is well-established.
Here’s what happens: anxiety activates your brain’s limbic system, which reacts by producing the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol reduces the production of the sleep hormone melatonin, accompanied by the release of adrenaline and noradrenaline, which increases energy, heart rate, and body temperature.
This is why you feel restless and like you are climbing the walls when you are anxious in bed – you have a surge of energy and stress running through you.
High levels of cortisol and another hormone called serotonin (a mood regulator) keep you from sleeping. The trouble is that reduced sleep also increases stress hormones, so you can fall into a trap where sleepless nights become frequent.
If you have frequent sleepless nights, this is insomnia, a generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) symptom, where you worry about all the small things. It’s worth speaking to a doctor about GAD if you don’t have a diagnosis yet.
Anxiety and sleeplessness – the deep link
The effect of anxiety on sleep quality is well-studied. This meta-analysis of studies found that sleep disturbances may be a pivotal pathology to anxiety-related disorders, meaning that if you don’t sleep, you can develop an anxiety disorder.
This also works both ways – anxiety disorders trigger sleeplessness. In this study, mild to moderate sleep disturbance is linked to GAD.
There’s also a connection between anxiety and the body’s circadian rhythm, the internal body clock. It’s thought that circadian rhythms play a role in controlling mood, so sleeplessness can make you more anxious.
It’s also essential to consider depression, with depressed people ten times more likely to have insomnia and sleeping problems.
Racing thoughts, restlessness, and cortisol
Suppose you lie awake at night restless with racing thoughts, worrying about little things, and making up and replaying scenarios in your head. In that case, you are unwittingly triggering a cortisol stress hormone release, keeping you awake.
As we discussed in our introduction, cortisol suppresses the release of the sleep hormone melatonin. Melatonin regulates your sleep-wake cycle, making you feel tired when it’s dark outside. When melatonin is suppressed, your body doesn’t have a cue to feel tired, with cortisol taking over and making you feel alert.
However, the biggest problem with cortisol release when trying to sleep is the release of adrenaline and noradrenaline. These elevate your blood pressure and body temperature, making you feel uncomfortable in your skin.
Cortisol also triggers the release of glucose (sugar) into your blood, increasing energy levels as part of your fight-or-flight response.
The net result is restlessness and feeling hot and clammy – anxiety makes you toss and turn, and you can struggle to get comfortable in your bed.
Clever tricks to sleep better with anxiety
Because anxiety increases your body temperature, you need ways to cool down. The best investment you can make is a breathable mattress like the Mlily Bamboo Superb or a cooling gel mattress like the Sleepeezee Pocket Gel Poise.
It would help if you also had a pillow and duvet that regulates your temperature – hollow fibre filling is the best for breathability.
When you have anxiety, breathing techniques will help you calm down. We get good results with the 4 7 8 breathing technique, based on pranayama, an ancient yoga practice.
Here’s how to do it:
- Inhale through your nose for four seconds
- Hold your breath for seven seconds
- Exhale through your mouth for eight seconds
- Repeat three times