By Dr. Ryan Neely, PhD
Most of us don’t need a scientific study to tell us that it can be difficult to sleep in stressful times. The data does support our experiences though - dealing with stress can decrease the time we spend in deep and REM sleep, as well as increase the number of nightly awakenings [1]. Unfortunately, quality sleep can often be an important tool for dealing with challenges and supporting mental health. Finding strategies to minimize the impact of stress on sleep can help us get through difficult moments in our lives. In this realm, science can give us some useful insights. Although we will always be impacted by stressful events, approaching them in particular ways can help us maintain some of our sleep quality, and in turn give us the resilience to face down some of life’s unpredictable challenges.
Many stressful situations arise due to factors beyond our control, meaning that there may be no way for us to directly change the course of events. In these kinds of situations, the only factors that we do have control over are our own strategies for coping with them. Although psychologists have identified numerous coping strategies, a helpful generalization is to group them into four general categories:
Problem-focused coping: This approach involves addressing the problem head-on. This may mean seeking solutions to address the problem, or, developing an action plan to deal with the negative consequences caused by a stressful situation.
Meaning-focused coping: This form of coping draws on an individual’s own beliefs or values to manage how they appraise the meaning of a stressful situation in the context of their life, and sustain a sense of well-being.
Social Coping: A form of coping in which individuals seek support from their community, either in the form of emotional or instrumental support.
Avoidance Coping: As the name suggests, this strategy involves attempts to avoid thinking or feeling about the stressor.
As it turns out, the type of coping strategy used can impact the effect of stress on sleep quality. A study of 692 individuals during the COVID-19 lockdowns looked at how the use of these different strategies was associated with subjective sleep quality and duration [2]. The study’s authors found that, as expected, higher worry levels about the pandemic were associated with greater negative emotions and worse sleep quality. However, the study also revealed that problem-focused and meaning-focused coping strategies were associated with better sleep quality and duration, as well as more positive emotional affect. Social and avoidance coping mechanisms were found to negatively impact these variables. These results suggest that problem-focused and meaning-focused strategies might be the most effective methods for handling stressful situations and minimizing negative impacts on much-needed sleep.
Although this study highlights some ways to more effectively handle stress, it’s also important to remember that everyone experiences difficult situations in their own way. We can make generalizations about effective coping strategies, but at the end of the day everyone is unique and every situation creates unique challenges. Guidelines like these can offer helpful suggestions for managing stress, but it’s hard to predict how we will respond to difficult situations. Giving oneself the space to react to these situations and having patience with ourselves and others is also equally important. It’s ok to lose some sleep when times are hard. We all have the capacity to be resilient in our own way, and there are other opportunities to catch up on lost sleep.
References:
- Kim, E.J. and Dimsdale, J.E., 2007. The effect of psychosocial stress on sleep: a review of polysomnographic evidence. Behavioral sleep medicine, 5(4), pp.256-278.
- Saalwirth, C. and Leipold, B., 2021. Well‐being and sleep in stressful times of the COVID‐19 pandemic: Relations to worrying and different coping strategies. Stress and Health, 37(5), pp.973-985.