8 Tricks Sleep Experts Use When 2020 Anxiety Keeps Them Awake
The urge to check (and recheck) the never-ending stream of news is stronger than usual these days and our brains are constantly running overtime. Anxiety and stress dredged up by the election, racial injustice and the coronaviruspandemic can lead to poor sleep ― especially for those with diagnosed or suspected mental health issues.
“We’re both too connected to the outside world and constantly knowing what’s happening, but also feeling really isolated from the parts of the outside world we actually need to help with our stress, like friends and family, and have less pleasurable activities during the day to help us relax and experience joy. And this affects our sleep,” said Jade Wu, a licensed clinical psychologist and sleep researcher in Durham, North Carolina.
All these changes in routine and normalcy undermine our nightly zzz’s, according to Wu. Between the upending of our daily routines and the constant fretting about the future, many of us are in a stress-sleep cycle that’s hard to break.
And that can have damaging consequences: The physical effects of poor sleep are far-reaching, from a weakened immune response to cardiovascular problems. While asleep, our brain completes functions that it only can at rest ― making room to absorb new information and skills, building creative capacity, and solidifying beneficial memories. Plus, being deprived of sleep can exacerbate anxiety and make it trickier to regulate our emotions during waking hours, further adding to the stress we may already carry from this particularly hellish year.
So, how can we reclaim our sleep when our minds are in chronic overdrive? We asked sleep experts to share their personal strategies for getting some shut-eye this year.
First, recognize that interrupted sleep is a normal response to 2020.
Sarah Silverman, a sleep psychologist in Tampa, Florida, said it helps to remember that waking up during the night is a normal response to stress. So it makes sense that...
