Do you often wake up in the middle of the night? The German doctor explains the reasons and gives advice on how to fall asleep again

 Waking up at night and not being able to fall asleep is painful and nervous. Sleep expert Michael Feld from Germany explains why and what techniques and herbal supplements help.

Very often it is personal and professional stress, stress and anxiety when a person does not sleep or does not sleep at night. Thoughts begin to spin. Everything that was bad during the day and could go bad tomorrow, what you have to do tomorrow, but probably won't succeed, plus worries about money, about work, about children, about relationships.

Fears and anxiety keep us awake at night

All these fears make the brain work at full speed. At night, in the darkness, there is nothing to distract us from them, we can no longer suppress and cover them in the same way as during the day. At night the (un)clothes of the day are removed, perhaps giving us the (deceptive) security of status and image, at night we are emotionally exposed and exposed, feeling small and helpless, like children who are afraid of a bad person.

Because we unconsciously tense our muscles when we are afraid, they in turn support brain activity. And he just does what he does best: thinks, ponders, analyzes everything that we really don't want to look at. No wonder, even though we were dead tired, we woke up again due to the internal turmoil in our heads.

Typical symptoms:

internal tension or anxiety

strong heartbeat

feeling of pressure in the chest

sweating

nausea

abdominal pain

diarrhea

These complaints are often not recognized as signs of mental health problems. Especially since you really don't want to know anything about your fears.

To dissolve this dynamic, behavioral therapy invented a "paradoxical intervention": for example, the therapist instructs the patient to stay awake or directly "allows" to stay awake and think. Since the internal resistance does not lead to anything, the situation can noticeably relax.

Or someone even consciously interprets being awake positively: “it's really cool that I don't need to sleep. Now, when it's so quiet and nobody bothers me, I can behave well and do something good for myself."

Tips for falling asleep

Practice autogenic training or another form of relaxation.

Write down all the thoughts that bother you to let them go for the night

Don't look at what time it is. It's stress.

Sometimes it is better to get out of bed and do something like ironing or cleaning for a while - something not too active, but rather simple, slow, monotonous.