Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Don't sleep too long

Four-five years ago there was a period where I struggled with depression. I don't now, it's way, way better, but events last week reminded me of a datum I learned back then, which was tremendously helpful to me: too much sleep with too much dreaming causes over-emotion ("arousal") which causes exhaustion, which causes too much sleep and more dreaming, etc etc.
It can be difficult to get up after a decent amount of sleep if you are truly exhausted, but it can be necessary to break this vicious cycle. Dreaming is very hard work (the body reacts as if it's real), and if you sleep an extra couple of hours, but dream intensely, it will not get you more rested, it will make you more exhausted.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

For me it is the other way around: I often fall into bed until the clock rings at morning to went on to work. No dreaming at all!

On the rare sundays I have nothing special to do and the rain is falling outside, I sometimes go to bed after breakfast for the second time. These are the moments I am dreaming. Afterwards I feel like I had been on a holidaytrip. Like the world has switched from grey to color. Amazing!

Miserere said...

From what I've read, we always dream, we just don't always remember it when we wake up.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

There seems to be some disagreements about that. Some say that in the deep sleep, where the body recharges and heals, we don't dream, and that we only dream in the light stages of sleep which are not very restful.

Dammy said...

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