Did you sleep well last night? If you worked late, binge watched a favorite TV show, or recently had a baby, then probably not. Many of us struggle to get enough sleep or good quality sleep. Parents of young children can particularly relate. When you’re navigating trauma and recovery, you can struggle with poor sleep quality, too. However, getting good sleep and maintaining a sleep hygiene checklist are critical relapse prevention strategies for staying sober as you work through the phases of addiction recovery.
How Physical Conditions Affect Mental Health: Why Sleep Matters in Recovery
At The Blanchard Institute, we take a comprehensive approach to treating addiction and co-occurring mental health disorders at our treatment centers in Charlotte and Cornelius, North Carolina. That means we understand how physical conditions affect mental health and advocate for healthy self-care. After all, physical health often suffers during addiction, so part of recovering well involves rebuilding your physical health in order to reclaim your mental health from addiction’s grip.
Plus, when you’re physically healthy (eating well, exercising, and getting good sleep, for example), you’re often more motivated and energized to stay the course in your recovery. At the same time, you’re less likely to struggle with stress, relapse triggers, and other negative feelings. All of this puts you in a better mental space to live a happy, healthy, more connected and fulfilled life without addiction defining it.
In considering how physical conditions affect mental health, sleep is very much at the center of it all. As humans, we need sleep to survive. And when it comes to successfully navigating the phases of addiction recovery, sleeping well can easily get overlooked when you have so many other priorities on your mind. However, sleep is really important when you consider what can happen when you don’t get enough sleep during recovery.
Here are some ways poor sleep quality can negatively impact your recovery journey:
Poor Mental Health – According to Columbia University, sleep deprivation studies have shown that otherwise healthy people can experience increased anxiety and distress levels after poor sleep. At the same time, poor sleep can increase your susceptibility to mental health disorders like anxiety and depression. And if you’re already struggling with your mental health, not getting enough sleep can make symptoms worse.
Emotional Regulation Struggles – Poor sleep has been found to increase negative emotional responses to stressors and decrease positive ones, explains Columbia University. That’s because sleep is important for several brain and body functions such as processing daily experiences and regulating your emotions. So when you’re struggling with sleep, you’re less able to cope with even minor negative feelings you may encounter on your recovery journey.
Increased Relapse Risk – Sleep deprivation has been shown to hinder cognitive function and judgment, according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM), which makes it harder for you in recovery to fight against impulses like drinking or using drugs. That means, for example, when you’re struggling with fatigue after quitting drinking in recovery, you’re more likely to reach for the bottle as a way to cope. Consequently, poor sleep puts you at greater risk of entering the stages of relapse.
Common Sleep Disturbances in Early Recovery
When you’re overcoming an addiction — especially in the early phases of addiction recovery — you can face a number of hindrances to getting quality sleep. Because trauma is often the root cause of addiction, the lingering effects of your trauma could prevent you from sleeping well. Other issues unrelated to addiction can get in the way, too, such as family obligations. Yet for many, recovery from addiction can produce various sleep disturbances as your body adjusts to the absence of substances.
Some common sleep disturbances you may encounter include:
Insomnia – In today’s world, anxiety and insomnia are often interconnected. But recovery and insomnia are also very intertwined when you’re overcoming substance abuse. Insomnia can be a typical challenge in recovery, as abstaining from drugs or alcohol can alter your sleep rhythms. With insomnia, you often have difficulty falling or staying asleep, and sadly, this can lead many to relapse.
Nightmares – Nightmare disorder can be a real challenge when you’re working through trauma and recovery simultaneously. Associated with vivid or disturbing dreams, this disorder causes recurring dreams that cause both distress and poor sleep. You may even fear going to sleep in the first place. But why do we have nightmares so often in addiction recovery? When you stop using certain drugs such as alcohol and cocaine, you may experience nightmares as a withdrawal symptom. Other co-occurring mental health disorders — such as PTSD — can contribute to recurring nightmares as well.
Irregular Sleep Cycles – When sober, you typically have regular sleep cycles, which helps you get consistent rest. But when drugs or alcohol enter the picture, they can alter your sleep cycles from non-rapid eye movement sleep to rapid-eye movement sleep, according to Psychiatric Clinics of North America. But these irregular sleep cycles can continue once you’ve stopped using, too. Consequently, your irregular sleep can interfere with your daily functioning, leading to impaired alertness and daytime sleepiness.
The Science Behind Sleep: How It Helps You Heal
Though the impact of poor sleep on recovery may be clear, what about the impact of quality sleep? How does good sleep boost your health in the context of addiction recovery? For starters, sleeping well allows your brain to heal itself from any damages your addiction has caused due to sleep deprivation and toxins from substances. According to UCLA Health, during sleep, your brain releases hormones that restore and repair your blood cells. Your blood pressure and heart rate decrease as a result, and your body and brain flush out the toxins inside of you.
In addition to restoring brain health, better sleep can improve your emotional regulation skills. As you get quality sleep, you become more emotionally stable: your mood improves, irritability decreases, and any anxiety or depression symptoms become more manageable. Sleep also naturally reduces stress and stress hormones in your body, which helps you better cope with future stressors and negative emotions during recovery. And with better emotional regulation comes an improved overall well-being, putting you in an ideal position to keep up with your sobriety goals.
Your Sleep Hygiene Checklist: Practical Sleep Hygiene Tips
In our Recovery Management program at The Blanchard Institute, we’re all about empowering you to sustain your sobriety journey beyond treatment. That means taking proactive steps to improve your sleep patterns and promote more restful sleep in recovery, also known as sleep hygiene. So, what are some sleep hygiene tips you can follow on your own?
Our Sleep Hygiene Checklist will get you started:
Establish a Bedtime Routine – When you’re sleeping unpredictably from one night to the next, it’s hard for your body to transition easily into sleep. To combat this in recovery (and in life), it’s best to establish a bedtime routine and stick with it. Think about things that can help get your mind and body for ready sleep, such as reading a book, taking a shower, or journaling. With your routine, it also helps to go to bed and get up at the same time each day.
Quit Screen Time Late at Night – Maybe you have a habit of watching TV, working late on your laptop, or scrolling through your phone before going to bed. If so, your screen time may be throwing off your sleep patterns. According to the National Sleep Foundation, blue light exposure within two hours of bedtime can disrupt your sleep cycle. Instead, turn off the screens a few hours before bed and choose other activities to help you wind down.
Practice Mindfulness Techniques – To combat a wandering, stressed mind in recovery, practicing mindfulness techniques before you go to bed can help relax your mind and prepare you for sleep. Practices like meditation or focusing on your body’s sensations can help you stay present and prevent your mind from racing about the past or future.
Avoid Caffeine and Certain Foods Before Bedtime – Did you know that your food and drink choices impact your sleep? While you may be aware of the effects of caffeine, it’s always a good idea to avoid coffee or other caffeinated beverages starting in the early afternoon. At the same time, it’s best not to eat fatty, spicy, fried, or other heavy foods late at night, as they’re harder to digest and may disrupt sleep.
Exercise Earlier in the Day – Exercise is an excellent form of self-care and a healthy coping mechanism for stress or negative emotions, so you should definitely exercise on a regular basis. However, it’s better to exercise in the morning or early afternoon at the latest, as a nighttime exercise routine has been found to interfere with quality sleep for some.
Empowering You to Change Your Narrative
Quality sleep is just one of the many tools available to help you achieve lasting recovery from addiction or mental health disorders. At The Blanchard Institute, our community-based rehabs in North Carolina take a family-centered approach to treatment, empowering not just the individual but their entire sphere of influence with the addiction education and knowledge needed to see lasting change. From our PHP Day and Outpatient programs to our extensive Alumni programming and more, we’re here for you throughout the recovery journey. To learn more, contact us today.