I don't know if this helps but I thought it was comforting. And I'm not sure who wrote it, I believe Dreamer got it from the internet for us last year sometime.
Insomnia, or waking up ill in the middle of the night, Jolting awake, Bad or crazy dreams?
The sensations:
You may feel fine and be able to quickly fall asleep but then wake up a short time later. Once up, you can't easily fall back to sleep because your mind is racing or you are too ill. Or, you may have a hard time initially falling asleep and when you do, you wake often and again have a hard time going back to sleep.
Just as you are dozing off to sleep, you feel like you hear a lot bang, buzz or shot, and that jolts you fully awake. Or, as you are dozing off, you feel like you are falling and that frightens you fully awake. Or, you are just dozing off and your body radically twitches awake.
You may wake up in a panic and recall the dream you just had as being bizarre and totally crazy. This usually has you spending some time trying to figure out what caused the bad dream and what the bad dream is trying to tell you.
The reason:
Stress is one of the main factors associated with sleep disorders. When the body is stressed, natural sleep patterns become disrupted. While there are many types of sleep problems, the ones mentioned are common for those experiencing anxiety disorder.
Because sleep is controlled by a functioning of the brain, an over stimulated nervous system will interfere with the brain?s normal functioning, thusly, producing erratic and odd responses when we want to fall or stay asleep. Similar to ingesting caffeine, high stress biology will keep you awake, and it can do so in a number of ways.
Examples include:
Immediately falling asleep only to wake a few hours later all revved up and ready to go. You then have difficulty falling back to sleep, even though you may also feel exhausted. Your mind may race and you may experience a number of anxious thoughts that continue to disrupt your sleep.
You have difficulty falling asleep and when you finally do, you wake a short time later and can?t go back to sleep.
As you are dozing off, you are suddenly jolted awake by a sound, twitch, a bang in your head, etc. This makes falling back to sleep difficult.
You may have a bad or crazy dream that jolts you away, and sometimes in a full panic
You wake up regularly and continually have to go to the bathroom.
You may be chilled even though you are well blanketed. Or, you may be sweating profusely even though the room is cool.
There are many other types of disruptions, however, they are all related to an over stimulated nervous system. These symptoms may also vary from one type to another type, and so on. They will also come and go, and sometimes persist.
The best remedy for these symptoms is rest. When you are experiencing regular sleep problems, it?s important to get as much rest as you can. That means taking time out of you schedule to do so if you have to. When my sleep became problematic, I made sure to get to bed earlier than normal and to do so for a number of nights until my sleep patterns returned to normal.
You may have noticed that the more sleep difficulty you experience, the worse you feel and the more difficulty you continue to have. This can become a vicious circle if not deliberately stopped. Rest is the only thing that will do this.
