It is quite common to have different sleeping problems. Sometimes these problems consist of not being able to fall asleep, or waking up in the middle of the night several times, getting up too early without being able to go back to sleep, or sleeping for too many hours.
Lack of sleep also generates a lot of stress, makes it difficult to concentrate, causes you to perform less at work, makes you irritable, and can even increase your appetite. That is why it is so important to look for the causes that cause us not to have a good rest in order to see what we can do.
Next in Psychology-Online we will see why despite being sleepy you can’t sleep or it takes you a long time to get it and what to do to fall asleep quickly and have quality sleep.
Why am I sleepy but I can’t sleep?
If you try to sleep but can’t, and you are tired but can’t fall asleep, you may have insomnia. Insomnia is one of the sleep-wake disorders in the Diagnostic Manual of Mental Illnesses (DSM-5). To be diagnosed with this, there must be constant dissatisfaction with the quality or quantity of sleep due to:
- Difficulty initiating sleep
- Difficulty maintaining sleep
- Wake up early in the morning
This must occur at least 3 nights a week and must affect the work, social or family environment so that the diagnosis can be fulfilled. These sleeping problems last for at least three months and, furthermore, occur even if the environment and the room are favorable for sleep.
Causes of insomnia
Why do I want to sleep but I can’t? There are various causes for you to suffer from insomnia or for some nights, without meeting the requirements, to have poor quality or quantity of sleep. Below we will explain some of the causes so that you can reflect on whether any of them would fit you. This way, it will be easier to know how to act. The reasons why you cannot sleep even if you are sleepy may be these:
- Excessive caffeine consumption: one of the most common. Caffeine is a stimulant so it does not allow the body to relax and rest.
- Naps too long that prevent you from getting sleepy at night.
- Use of screens before sleep. It has been proven that watching television in bed or on your cell phone stimulates the brain, which is why it has a similar effect to caffeine when going to sleep.
- Do physical exercise shortly before bed. The problem is the same: stimulating the body before sleeping.
- heavy dinners that cause the body to work excessively when it should be resting.
- Thought. Thinking about situations that worry us or that motivate us too much or thinking about not being able to sleep.
In addition, there may be some organic cause, however, we have decided to focus on those that can be solved from our home. In this article we talk more about the topic and respond to .
How to sleep faster
How to sleep if you can’t? You may have heard of the sleep hygiene. This encompasses a series of habits to acquire to improve the quality and quantity of sleep. The most important sleep hygiene guidelines are:
- Reducing or eliminating caffeine consumption
- Reducing or eliminating naps
- Eat early and light dinner
- Avoid doing physical exercise late in the day
- Avoid technology one hour before bed
In a way, they may seem like quite logical habits, however, many times we insist on looking for other types of reasons why we are not sleeping instead of trying the simplest thing first.
Things to do when you can’t sleep
Another reason for not sleeping, as we already mentioned, is to be “thinking in your head”, either because we are thinking about something that worries us, because we are thinking that we have fewer and fewer hours left to sleep because we have to get up early. or because we are planning the next day before going to sleep.
This represents a high stimulation at the brain level and prepares all our alert systems in the body. For this reason, our body and mind do not want to allow us to sleep since they want to be prepared to react to what we are thinking. The solution would therefore be stop thinking about what activates usbut how to do it?
There are multiple ways to achieve this, and whether to use one or the other will depend on the person. It is quite common to use relaxation techniques for this, like the one we leave in the following video. These techniques work because they consist of focus attention on a stimulus that does not activate us. Some of them consist of focusing our attention on our breathing and others on our body and concentrating on how it “gets heavier and heavier.” There are multiple relaxation audios on the internet and mobile applications that have this purpose.
Another technique that can be useful in the event that it is difficult for you to focus your attention on what we have mentioned, is to try to think of something specific that is pleasant but that does not generate excitement in you to do it (if you have a certain plan, the Friday that you are very excited about would not be appropriate since this can also activate your mind). For this we can use Nice memories: the day of our wedding, some day when we make a plan with friends… or even think about a movie. The idea is that it is not an unpleasant thought nor an expectant one.
Try using these techniques and write in the comments if they have worked for you and if you use any others that we have not discussed here. Together we can help each other sleep better.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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Bibliography
- American Psychiatric Association (2014). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). Madrid: Panamericana Medical Editorial. ISBN 978-8-4983-5810-0.