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Up at Night?

Your inner cavewoman may be keeping you awake

by Donna Barker

When I was a kid I was quite jealous of my mom. She was narcoleptic and could fall asleep anywhere and at any time (although not always by choice!). Myself, I fall asleep easily enough (OK, as long as the room is perfectly dark and dead quiet), but I rarely sleep through till morning, waking up at between 2 and 3 am most nights. I don’t really consider this a problem, since my partner has a similar sleep pattern. He’s good company at 2 am.

Dr. Jonathan Fleming, the co-director of the Sleep Program at UBC Hospital, says that insomnia, whose definition includes waking up in the middle of the night and having trouble falling asleep again, is a common problem in our culture.

“Thirty per cent of the population complains about their sleep process in any given year. Of that 30 per cent, half, or 15 per cent of the population, will have significant difficulty with impairment caused by insomnia.”

The most common sleep disturbance, Fleming says, is something we all experience to some degree: stress.

Hmm… perhaps I wake up because I am a stressed-out working mom.

But Anna Haltrecht, an authorized teacher of the Sounder Sleep System, a series of movements and breathing techniques designed to help us snooze, offers a different explanation. She says that wakefulness during the night might be related to the two distinct sleep periods of our prehistoric ancestors; as we age, we tend to revert to our ancestral patterns.

“They were very tuned into dark and light, going to sleep as darkness fell, then awakening hours later to check on the fire, check on the babies, and make babies,” she explains. “And then they returned to sleep for a second period.”

Yet another perspective on why people wake in the middle of the night comes from Penny Povey, a medical herbalist at Pure Pharmacy in White Rock, who explains how our organs are active at different times of the day and night.

“Between 1 and 3 am, your liver is very busy, making vitamins and hormones, eliminating toxins, and generally cleansing your body. If you’re under a lot of stress, your body releases a lot of cortisol, and for some people this has a stimulating effect as the liver detoxifies.”

As much as I love the cavewoman element of my 2 am wakings (at least on the nights my partner is also up), it would be nice to have a little more control over my sleep pattern. Povey has several suggestions to help me help my liver do its job without stimulating me to wakefulness, starting with the obvious: reduce my reliance on caffeine and alcohol.

“Initially, it’s best to use a kit to detoxify your liver. And then, if you start to eat foods that are cooling for the liver, you should expect to see improvements in your sleep.”

Cooling foods include bitter herbs like dandelion root, rosemary, thyme, and turmeric, and vegetables such as radicchio, romaine lettuce, and artichokes. For meat, fish is the best bet; lamb, however, will almost definitely cause you to wake up hot in the night, Povey says.

Anna Haltrecht also shares some suggestions to help me get back to sleep on those nights when I’m the only one awake in the wee hours.

“Light wakes us up and darkness puts us to sleep, so make sure your sleep cycle relates to the natural daylight cycle. If you engage in vigorous exercise, do this earlier in the day. In the evening, keep your consumption of excitatory foods, such as red meat and sweets, to a minimum, and eat inhibitory foods: milk, cheese, chicken soup, bananas, and turkey, for example.”

And if all else fails, Haltrecht offers a Sounder Sleep System exercise to use when sleep is evasive. It’s called “breath surfing.”

“Hold your hands thumb to thumb, index finger to index finger, and lay them lightly on your belly. Let your thumbs separate and rise slightly on the inhale and return on the exhale. Focus your attention on the movement of your hands rising and falling, surfing on your belly. Do this for six or eight breaths and then rest.”

Two or three repetitions of breath surfing is usually enough to settle me back to sleep. And on the nights it doesn’t work? Don’t tell my partner, but sometimes I roll around just enough to wake him, so we can celebrate our caveman roots.

By her own admission, Donna Barker may have an unhealthy relationship with her 1,500 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets and pillow cases.