Study suggests daily aggravations keep insomniacs awake at night

The difference between good and bad sleepers is not the amount of stress in their lives but how they handle that stress.

A three-week Canadian study of people with insomnia and those who had no sleeping problems found that both groups experienced about the same amount of daily aggravations. However, those who had trouble going to sleep or who awoke in the middle of the night and tossed and turned were more likely to see their daily lives as stressful.

The stress and sleep of 27 good sleepers and 40 insomniacs were monitored for 21 days. Those who saw life’s ordinary troubles, such as an argument with a partner or a bad day at the office, as stressful were more likely to be in an aroused state before sleep, with racing minds and tensed muscles.

The researchers also noticed that poor sleepers tended to cope with stress by trying to get control over its emotional effect rather than by trying to resolve the underlying problems. They recommended that insomniacs learn better coping skills and adjust how they perceive stress rather than rely on stress-reduction techniques.

This study was published in the March/April issue of Psychosomatic Medicine.

*

Dianne Partie Lange