Why can't I sleep, even if I close my eyes and imagine things for a really long time?
As Mike Huff has mentioned, thinking is stimulating. Perhaps you have had too much caffeine close to bed time?Or perhaps you hadn't had enough sun light exposure during the daytime? Not enough blue light exposure from the sun may cause irregularities in your circadian rhythm, or sleep cycle.Alternatively, you could have been exposed to bluelight from electronics at night. This blue light tells you it's your body it's daytime, therefore time to wake up. Many people use their phones, TVs, Computers, and other electronics before they go to sleep.
Is closing your eyes and resting as effective as sleep in reducing tiredness? If not, why do we feel so inclined to do it?
LOL…ok…so you feel like closing your eyes because that is a precursor to sleep.Tiredness is due to ATP (energy) being used up in the body and turned into adenosine which as it accumulates, makes you feel tired (hence the need to close your eyes).There are 4 stages of sleep, called the ‘sleep cycle’. You have to cycle through them multiple times at night. Each time, stage 4 (rem sleep) lasts longer. During REM sleep, you metabolize adenosine with the hope that it’s all used up before you wake up. IF it’s all gone, then you feel refreshed. If not, then sleep won’t refresh you.Caffeine is an adenosine blocker which is why you don’t feel your fatigue when on enough coffee.Obviously, just closing your eyes does not allow stage 4 adenosine processing to happen, so no it’s not a sleep replacement. Neither is interrupted sleep that doesn’t allow for Stage 4 of the cycle to happen often enough.The ‘moral’ of the story is, if you stay up late multiple nights (gaming, partying) and don’t metabolize your adenosine continuously (keep on top of it) eventually you may not be able to feel energetic in the mornings anymore because of the backlog of unprocessed adenosine. Be smart with your sleep habits.How do I know all this? I am currently studying to be a Sleep Science Coach. Pretty cool, eh? I want to be able to offer sleep coaching practices and acupuncture to support people who suffer from insomnia.
If you are resting with your eyes closed, but not fully "sleeping," what benefits of sleep do you get?
As others have mentioned, we don't have any proven health benefits to dozing with a very active mind. We do have studies on meditation, which would be better defined as a mind focused on relaxation while your eyes are closed. Usually for my insomniacs I recommend meditation, not dozing. A randomized controlled trial of mindfulness meditation for chronic insomnia.The question is really why you are dozing rather than sleeping. Napping certainly has health benefits. The Sweet Science of Dozing But the benefits can be offset depending on what you want to do once you wake up. For those who need to be vigilant immediately upon waking, meditation may be a better choice than a nap. Meditation acutely improves psychomotor vigilance, and may decrease sleep need. (Meditation does not replace a night's sleep and losing a night slows response times). If you are looking for insight, dozing may be detrimental. Researchers have found that: "Both non-rapid eye movement (NREM) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep have been implicated with offline re-activation and reorganization of memories supporting explicit knowledge generation...individual ability of explicit knowledge generation was strongly associated with increased rate of transitions between NREM and REM sleep stages and between light sleep stages and slow wave sleep. However, the rate of NREM-REM transitions specifically predicted the amount of explicit knowledge after sleep" Labile sleep promotes awareness of abstract knowledge in a serial reaction time task. In layman's terms, sleep is when your brain reboots and upgrades your software (wetware). Dozing is like having your screensaver on. It's helpful only if you are running a background program like practicing focused breathing as part of a meditation exercise.
Can I still get some rest by lying down & closing my eyes even if I don't fall asleep?
It won’t be near as restful as sleep but it’s better than nothing. Who knows maybe you’ll be able to doze off a bit while laying there and get more benefit from it. Have you tried anything to help you sleep like making use of lavendar, valerian, melatonin, white noise, herbal teas (sleepytime extra, chamomile is soothing), warm milk?As for positive changes good for you for making the decision to make them!!!!! It’s hard at first but don’t give up………..something I found that helped me a lot with my depression thanks to my therapist was writing a list of Positive Affirmations and reading it everyday and adding to it. Mine is in my phone so I always have it, for awhile I had it written on my bathroom mirror……..they helped me with my self esteem issues and wake up feeling positive about the day rather than depressed on not wanting to leave my bed. Perhaps something like that can help you deal with some of the pessimism. I don’t know how to help with the sensitivity except to say that it’s not always a bad thing….you might very well be an empath and just need to learn to deal with it…..there’s a website with articles about it called Learning Mind that might help you. Good luck with your journey and I hope you’re able to get some rest
Strange Dreams every Second I close my eyes?
So the whole night I have been suffering from unexplainable dreams. I mean, I they don't make any sense. The most shocking one was when I closed my eyes and had a 2 Minute dream about something related to an ancient temple and strange beings. Something happen in the dream that caused me to immediately wake up. I woke up looking at my hands in terror like they were something else. I felt a cold chil and once I realized it was my hand I was still in shock. This has been happening to me since the night before. I hear that consuming sugar can cause Nightmares to be triggered within the mind. I had a Big Red, 30 Minutes before I went to bed on both nights. Every time I close my eyes, I wake up to Strange Sounds, Whispering, and Banging Sounds. These sounds arent real. I am imagining them. Can someone help me out?
Can't fall asleep because I'm thinking too much?
i read a book about this.. im kind of a insomniac myself.... ok well i can't remember everything it said but it did say things like don't go to sleep until your tired ... there's no sense in just laying in bed and struggling to go to sleep and another tip about the thinking too much is that if meditating is not your style then lay in bed and slowly start to count back from 300 by 3's ... and unless your a math genius this should keep your mind distracted and if your normal math is just boring as hell and should knock you out b4 you get to 200....
When im about to sleep i hear voices and when i close my eyes i see face... can anybody help?
i kno this happens to many peoplebut that doesnt mean i dont want help! i dread the nighttime now [& i used to love it so much] bcuz when im about to go to sleep i hear ALOT of random diff voices.. it bothers me alot! so i close my eyes but then i see alot of different faces ive nevr seen b4 in my life.. it scares me shitless!! its really hard to understand them too & its really spontaneous i only remeber a little bit. it used to be so bad that when they said sumthing each time.. my back would arch up and i couldnt control it.. sumtimes it even happens in church & i would hear them there too. sumtimes it sounded liek my frends or family members telling me really mean things.. but they only said mean things when it was in thier voices =[ but yea sumtimes they jus randomly SCREAM! like "AHH!" or jus children laffing and playing. i hear a wierd noise too thats like 'EEEEEEEEEEE' and it nvr leaves me alone im sick of it .. maybe i jus have supersonic hearing! well either way.. HELP!
Do people feel refreshed after general anesthesia like after deep sleep?
As an anesthetist having experienced my first general anesthetic a couple of weeks ago, I can give you my totally subjective answer. I experienced no sensation of the passing of time. I woke up feeling a little drowsy, with a small amount of pain. My CRNA, who I had worked with years earlier, gave me a little more than I might normally give, probably based upon my tolerance (I drink a glass of red wine every night) -- I felt no ill effects.I can't say it felt like a good night's sleep, I simply felt a little drowsy. I have had _many_ patients tell me after a sedation (still breathing on own -- mostly -- like for a colonoscopy) anesthetic, and occasionally after a general (unconscious, sometimes breathing on own -- with a breathing device -- for more extensive surgery or because the patient won't tolerate surgery under sedation) anesthetic, that they felt like they just had the best sleep they'd ever had. I attribute this to their positive mental attitude, a lack of pain, and my skill as a anesthetist. 8)