Breaking the stress-sleep cycle

A good night’s sleep is one of the best ways to manage stress.¹ But there’s often a catch, as it can be difficult to drift off to sleep when you’re stressed.

When you’re in a state of stress, your hormones and ‘fight-or-flight’ response can take over. These impulses are designed to keep you alert and awake in response to threats or danger.

If you want to relieve that stress and have a good-night’s sleep, you need to convince your nervous system that you’re not in a life-or-death situation. But how, exactly, can you do this?

To overcome stress, you need to soothe your body before you soothe your brain.

Running a bath or meditating are great ideas, but if your mind is still racing during those activities, they might not provide you with the intended restful effects. In fact, if your body isn’t prepared first, they might even add to your stress.

Because your physical body holds the energy of stress, you need to use body-focused (somatic) techniques that convince your body to drop its guard and relax into sleep. These techniques may include:

• shaking your body to release tension or trauma
• humming
• sighing
• belly breaths
• gentle walking
• swaying
• body brushing.

You can also try ‘EFT tapping’, a process similar to acupuncture where you tap specific acupoints in your body while focusing on the problem you want to treat.

These techniques aim to communicate a message to your body that you’re safe and you can relax. Once you do feel more relaxed, baths or meditation plus other techniques like journaling, listening to music or lighting incense can then help you sleep.

Stress is your body's natural response to pressure. The triggers are different for everyone, and can include work, relationships, financial pressures or illness.

Small amounts of stress can be healthy, but if your body’s fight-or-flight response is triggered too easily, or too often, it can be damaging to your health.²

Getting enough sleep is one way to help your body handle stress better. A good night’s sleep not only makes you feel more rested and present, it can also improve your ability to encode and recall memories and learn new skills.³

Regular, good-quality sleep can also:

• help you think clearly
• improve your reflexes and focus
• balance your mood and energy
• help your body’s cells repair
• reduce your risk of obesity, heart disease and infection.⁴

Quality sleep can also improve your proprioceptive skills, which is the way your body feels in the space around it. Likewise, sleep can help sharpen your interoception skills, which tell you what’s happening inside your body (tired, hungry, cold, thirsty, etc) and may even help you tune in to your body and regulate your emotions.⁵

Together, managing your stress and sleep can help you establish a positive pattern where one reinforces the other, so that you get the greatest benefits for your health and wellbeing.