What Causes Restless Sleep and How to Deal with it

When was the last time you had a restful sleep? When you have a troubled sleep, you’ll probably struggle to go about your routine during the next day. Tiredness, fatigue, brain fog, and perhaps even headaches are sure to disrupt your productivity at work. Sleep is essential. However, some have trouble getting enough of it and restless sleep is a potential issue. This could ultimately contribute to health problems. This article sheds light on the possible reasons why you’re not getting restful sleep and the strategies on how to deal with it.

Importance of Sleep for the Human Body

Before we focus on restless sleep, let’s first understand why sleep is important. Sleep is a natural process. Not getting enough restful sleep will raise your risk of disorders and other diseases. Restful sleep is also essential for memory consolidation and body recovery and repair.

When you’re asleep, memories are stored, your brain pushes out toxins build-up and reorganizes your nerve cells. Your body also goes through processes where it repairs damaged cells and even gets your energy levels up for the next day. Plus, there are some proteins and hormones that get released during sleep. Each of these plays a really important role in helping you live a healthy life, and ensuring your cells work like they’re supposed to.

What is Restless Sleep?

Restless sleep refers to nights when you experience restlessness that interferes with your ability to sleep properly. In many cases, it leads to you tossing and turning all night long. This consistent restlessness can make you wake up through the night, and then your body has to start the sleep cycle over again. In turn, your restlessness makes it difficult for you to stay long in sleep phases such as deep sleep.

What Does Restless Sleep Look or Feel Like?

Knowing what restless sleep looks like can help you determine if you, or perhaps your partner, is experiencing this problem. That’s an important first step in recognizing why you feel tired all the time, and once you recognize this issue, you can start working on it.

1. Experiencing Restless Sleep

You may find that you wake up frequently at night. Some people wake up with their sheets in weird positions as a result of tossing and turning at night. This could be a sign that you are having restless sleep. Feeling tired, fatigued, and irritated during the day could also be signs of this problem.

2. Observing Restless Sleep

If your partner struggles with restless sleep, it can keep you up at night too. The startling movement in bed could disrupt your rest and keep you awake.

How is Restless Sleep Different From Insomnia?

Some might think insomnia and restless sleep are the same, but it’s not. You see, insomnia refers to a disorder where you have trouble sleeping. However, insomnia can lead to restless sleep. Restless sleep may be a manifestation of insomnia.

Causes of Restless Sleep

Understanding what causes restless sleep is an important step to address the problem. Several things can contribute to why you’re having such restlessness in your sleep. Below are some of the most common causes:

• Stress: Both stress and anxiety can have a major impact on your ability to calm down and relax. Being and staying calm is a prerequisite to quality and peaceful sleep. If you’re constantly stressed with all the worries in your thoughts, your mind may stay aroused and active. While you might eventually fall asleep, the fact that you’re not calm can make you feel restless even in your sleep.

• Health conditions: Sometimes, restless sleep is linked to health conditions. For example, if you have sleep apnea, it may cause discomfort for you during the night. Restless leg syndrome is also something that contributes to this type of sleeping problem.

• Pain: Another thing to consider is pain which affects a lot of people. If you have chronic pain, there’s a good chance that it can lead to restless sleep.

What Are the Symptoms of Restless Sleep?

Consistent restlessness would be the primary symptom to watch out. However, if you live alone, it would be a challenge to determine whether or not you are having the symptoms. There are a couple of daytime symptoms to note if you suspect that you are having restless sleep.

Feeling excessively tired, groggy, and irritated are often signs of poor sleep. You may also notice that you are not as productive as you should be. Brain fog is characterized by a lack of mental focus and clarity, confusion, and episodes of forgetfulness. If you are having these symptoms during the day, there is a high chance you are having restless sleep.

Your partner might also start complaining about you being restless and constantly moving around in bed. Even problems like sleep apnea are often first noticed by a partner due to the loud noises that occur. Thus, you should talk to your partner about your restless sleep especially if your sleep activity is already getting bothersome.

It’s also worth noting that there are links between nausea and sleep deprivation. Some people do experience nausea, headaches, and other symptoms when they have restless nights.

How is Restless Sleep Different in Age Groups?

Restless sleep doesn’t affect everyone the same way. The disparity among individuals may fall on age differences. Let’s explore how this sleep problem affects people by age group.

1. Restless Sleep in Teens

During your teenage years, your body goes through a lot of changes. You hit puberty and suddenly get a surge of sex hormones flooding through your body. Not to mention the stress that comes from school - homework, relationships, and other challenges. All of these lead to stress, anxious feelings, and restlessness which linger during bedtime.

Since the puberty stage is crucial in the overall development of teenagers, restless sleep can have a major impact on their health. Teenagers need to get enough sleep to stay healthy and to ensure they perform well at school and in their extra-curricular activities.

2. Restless Sleep in Adults

Stress is one of the most common reasons for sleepless or restless nights among adults. Though adults may have reached all the major aspects of development, getting enough rest and sleep remains essential for them to maintain optimum health. For instance, for the brain to function well, it must be put at rest during sleep to be able to retain new information, store memories, and go through repair and healing mode. Moreover, restless sleep could adversely affect the adults’ performance at work and could further lead to other health problems.

3. Restless Sleep in Seniors

Older individuals don’t require as much sleep as adults or teenagers. Several reasons such as medication side-effects could make sleep a struggle for seniors. This could aggravate their existing health conditions and or trigger more complications like insomnia.

How Do You Treat Restless Sleep?

Restless sleep could be a struggle for people who are suffering from it. Thus, finding the right strategies to address the problem is crucial. The goal is to reduce restlessness during the night and to improve your sleep quality.

At this point, how to increase deep sleep is as important. An uninterrupted sleep cycle changes the game. Interruptions in your sleep cycles might hinder you from reaching and staying in deep sleep.

It would always be great to identify the causes behind your sleep troubles. Find out if your restlessness at night is attributed to your stress factors, anxiety, or your health condition. Understanding your condition is the best way to resolve it.

Another way to resolve your sleep problems is to turn to a health regimen that promotes calmness and reduces restless feelings at night. One excellent option is the Somulin sleep aid supplement. This is a great addition to your health program as the relaxing and sleep-inducing ingredients are beneficial especially if you’re having trouble falling and staying asleep.

If depression and anxiety are the causes of your restless nights. You need to tackle them right at the core. Some products can increase relaxation and promote a happy mood and positive vibe.

FAQs

How do I stop restless sleep?

The discussions above should help you understand why you’re not having restful sleep. A lot of factors could cause your restless sleep and situation and an environment check should be one of your priorities. Do you feel stressed? Are you struggling with anxiety? Do you have any known medical conditions? Once you get the answer, you can target the root cause of restless sleep.

What causes restless sleep?

Many things can contribute to restless sleep. Stress and anxiety are commonly associated with this problem. It can also be related to a medical condition like sleep apnea.

How many hours of restless sleep is normal?

Restless sleep, in general, shouldn’t be considered a normal part of your sleep cycle. Instead, find ways to achieve better quality sleep. This is crucial if you want to improve and or maintain excellent health condition.

Takeaway

Restless sleep is unpleasant and can interfere with your health. When you don’t get quality sleep, you may feel tired, irritated, and even experience fatigue during the day. Over time, it can contribute to health conditions like sleep disorders, obesity, diabetes, and even heart disease. Putting yourself ahead of this condition should foster a good night’s sleep and a refreshed and rejuvenated feeling as you start your day.

References

1] https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/sleep/why-sleep-important
2] https://www.sleepfoundation.org/physical-health/can-lack-of-sleep-cause-nausea
3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6301929/