Anyone who keeps waking up at night and then staring frustratedly at the illuminated numbers on the alarm clock asks themselves: How do I get back to sleep? A sleep doctor on the dos and don’ts.
It is completely normal that we wake up several times during the night. This happens about every 90 minutes, as sleep doctor Prof. Kneginja Richter says. Our sleep consists of different phases: If we switch from one to the next, there are short awake phases.
“The good sleeper doesn’t notice this, he turns over and goes back to sleep,” says Richter, who is the chief physician at the CuraMed day clinic in Nuremberg and a professor at the Nuremberg University of Technology. But what should you do if you tend to lie awake and stare at the ceiling in exasperation?
Biggest mistake: looking at the clock
There is one mistake you should definitely avoid when you wake up at night: looking at the clock. “Then you quickly become wide awake,” says Richter. And bang, the worry carousel starts moving – including thoughts like: “Shit, if I don’t fall asleep again right away, I won’t be able to cope with the stressful day tomorrow.” The result: We put so much pressure on ourselves that we don’t even fall asleep again.
Sleep experts like Kneginja Richter therefore advise: If you are lying in bed and just can’t get back to sleep, you should get up. “Tossing and turning awake in bed for hours even though you can’t sleep is counterproductive.”
But what do you do when you’re up at night? A good distraction is monotonous activities: listening to quiet music or a relaxing audio book, folding laundry, knitting a few rows, solving a puzzle. Only when your eyes close again on their own do you go back to bed – and then, in the best case scenario, slip into sleep.
Lock stressful thoughts out of the bedroom
There are also techniques you can use to ensure that stressful thoughts don’t ruin your night’s sleep. Kneginja Richter advises: “You can write down your worries and negative thoughts every evening two hours before going to bed. You can then put the notebook in a drawer outside the bedroom.”
When professional help makes sense
But what if the difficulty sleeping through the night not only causes bad nights, but also bad days? Insomnia requiring treatment occurs when a person experiences sleep disturbances more than three times a week for a period of more than three months. Those affected feel exhausted during the day and are less productive.
Then it makes sense to seek professional help. The first point of contact can be your family doctor’s office. “The family doctor can, for example, refer you to a psychiatrist or a sleep doctor, i.e. to someone who can examine and treat sleep disorders,” says Kneginja Richter.
When it comes to treating insomnia, the so-called CBT-I (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia) is the first choice. “The therapy lasts four to six sessions of 50 minutes each – and it is usually successful,” says Richter, who also carries out these therapies in her day clinic. Part of the therapy includes, among other things, relaxation techniques and the imparting of knowledge about sleep and sleep disorders.
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