How to support your mood #3: waking up refreshed & ready for the day ahead.

For the purposes of this post, I’m going to assume that you are getting off to sleep easily and not waking up until you want to (if not, see my last two posts). The problem now is that:

-        You have difficulty getting out of bed,

-        You must use an alarm and repeatedly press snooze,

-        You wake up with a dry mouth,

-        You wake up with a headache, and/or

-        You are excessively sleepy in the daytime.

There is so much to unpick here, so what I am going to do is highlight a couple of important starting points. All questions are welcome, post below.

1.      Sometimes daytime fatigue can be so bad that you just drop off to sleep in a meeting, in the car, at your desk. If this applies to you, fill out the Epworth Sleepiness Scale. This scale is a simple, validated questionnaire which is designed to measure the tendency for daytime sleepiness. If you score 11 or above, consult your GP who may refer you to a specialist sleep centre for further investigation.

2.      One reason for a high score on the Epworth Sleepiness Scale can be sleep apnoea, when your breathing stops and starts while you are sleeping. As well as feeling incredibly tired during the day, you might be told that you make gasping, snorting or choking noises when you are asleep. If this applies to you, again please see your GP for further investigation.

Mouth breathing (as opposed to breathing through your nose) can also have a detrimental impact on the quality of your life.

Breathing through your nose at night is crucial for optimal quality sleep. Insufficient REM sleep is associated with:

- decreased positive reactions to positive events,

- and what is called significantly increased “negative emotional reactivity” in the research.

Simply put, if you don’t get enough REM sleep, your brain’s ability to regulate your emotions, to gait your emotions when needed, may be hampered, perhaps severely so.

Research suggests that mouth taping can markedly increase REM sleep. Investing in some mouth tape is definitely worth considering.

Finally, if you don’t think any of this applies to you, consider this:

-        Do you have an appetite in the morning?

-        Do you crave sugar in the morning?

-        Are you anxious or irritable in the morning?

If you have no appetite for anything apart from sugar or starch and feel anxious & irritable in the morning, your Cortisol Awakening Response may need some support. The starting point here is to harness the power of the daylight or to use a sunrise alarm clock to help your brain re-set it’s circadian rhythm and to know when you should be ready to get up & go. Take a cup of tea outside and spend a few minutes in the daylight to open your day. Then as bedtime approaches, dim the lights and sleep in a completely dark room to close your day.

It may take some work to get to the bottom of why you are so sluggish, dragging yourself through the day, longing for bedtime. But imagine a life in which you get up in the morning feeling ready, willing and able for everything. What would that feel like? What would that mean to you? How great would that be?

I’m here if you’d like some help, don’t hesitate to book a free Zoom call and we can work it out together.

Sources:

Vandekerckhove, M. and Wang, Y. (2018) “Emotion, emotion regulation and sleep: an intimate relationship”, AIMS Neuroscience, 5(1): 1-17.

Teschler, H. et. al. (1999) “Effect of mouth leak on effectiveness of nasal bilevel ventilatory assistance and sleep architecture”, European Respiratory Journal, 14: 1251-1257.