How Your Nervous System Affects Your Sleep

Sleep affects almost every type of tissue and system in your body, from the heart, lungs and brain to disease resistance and metabolism. Even your nervous system benefits from a good night’s sleep.

When you sleep, your sympathetic nervous system, which controls your body’s fight or flight response, finally gets a chance to relax. But if you’re deprived of sleep, activity in your sympathetic nervous system activity rises, causing an increase in blood pressure and a greater risk of heart disease over the longer term. Not good.

Clearly, there’s a very close link between your nervous system and your sleep, but what can you do to nudge things in your favour? Let’s take a look.

Sleep and the nervous system

Although we know that everyone needs sleep, its biological purpose remains a mystery. What we do know is that sleep is regulated by the circadian rhythm (our internal body clock), which takes its cues from the surrounding environment and light signals. The circadian rhythm is controlled by the hypothalamus, which sits directly above the brainstem at the base of your brain and triggers the release of certain neurotransmitters that regulate sleep.

One of the most important neurotransmitters when it comes to our sleep is gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which helps to promote sleep. Serotonin, norepinephrine, histamine and orexin are less helpful, as they increase alertness and make it more difficult to sleep.

The impact of a lack of sleep on the nervous system

Sleep is beneficial for our nerve cells. It gives them the chance to repair themselves so they can function at their best. Certain nerve connections also turn on during sleep, which can strengthen our brains and improve our ability to think.

If you don’t get enough sleep, you’ll no doubt be familiar with the impact it can have on the nervous system, with your memory, performance and ability to think clearly all being impaired. If you get to the point where you’re severely sleep-deprived, you can even experience mood swings and hallucinations.

Hyperarousal and its effect on sleep

If you struggle to relax or often lie in bed at night while your brain is working on overdrive, you might suffer from something called hyperarousal. Hyperarousal is a condition that affects the nervous system and leads to the restlessness of the body and mind.

This can occur when your automatic nervous system (so-called because it functions without conscious control) is overactive. It responds to daily stressors by using the same branch of the nervous system that’s evolved to deal with life-threatening events - the fight or flight mechanism - leaving you stressed in bed and unable to sleep.

Improving your sleep by reducing hyperarousal

The good news is, if you’re lying awake obsessively worrying about the future, reliving some past event again and again, or so stressed about needing eight hours’ sleep that you can’t get drift off, there are a few things you can do about it.

Heart rate variability breathing (HRV)

HRV uses breathing techniques to improve the balance of your automatic nervous system. Once you find the right breathing rhythm and timing, HRV can help to guide you away from a stress response and into a more relaxed state.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is often hyped up to be something it’s not. At its core, mindfulness is simply paying attention to the present and allowing your body and mind to relax. This new level of awareness can stop you from being distracted by intrusive thoughts that could keep you awake.

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)

CBT is all about developing healthy habits around sleep so you can overcome intrusive thoughts and worries. CBT helps you identify the causes of irrational thought processes that hinder your sleep and teaches you techniques to address and change them.

Ready to improve your sleep?

Want to find out how to improve your sleep? Then learn more about my adult sleep consultancy and book your free, 30-minute sleep consultation. We can discuss how your nervous system is affecting your sleep or any other sleep problems you’re experiencing.

Let’s get you those Sweet Dreams,

Claudine x