Let's Improve Our Relationships With Better Sleep

If you want to give the best to those you love, you might want to cut off that House Hunters marathon a bit earlier.

It can’t be understated how critical quality sleep is to your overall health and wellness. But it can go deeper than that. A lack of quality sleep can have a profoundly negative impact on your relationships.

If you’re not at your best, you can't expect to give your best, and you need to make sleep a priority.

What Happens When You Get Poor Quality Sleep?

When you deprive yourself of quality sleep, your health suffers. Insufficient sleep causes a rise in stress hormones in your body. These stress hormones are not only damaging your health, they are affecting your mood, patience, and even your empathy.

Cortisol is the primary culprit here. A small amount of it is ok as hormones like this are responsible for your fight-or-flight response. This is helpful if you need to jump out of the way of a speeding Uber. But long-term stress caused by a lack of sleep is causing a myriad of problems in the body.

The problem is, your body doesn’t know if you’re not sleeping because of famine or attack — like it would thousands of years ago — or that you’ve just been up all night watching Tik Tok. All it knows is something serious must be happening if it’s keeping you from sleep. And this is where the chronic, long-term stress issues come from.

Here’s just a shortlist of the issues caused by stress:

Cardiovascular disease

Stroke

Heart attacks

Depression and anxiety

High blood pressure

Abnormal heart rate

Colds and infections

Digestion problems

So here’s the thing: a lack of sleep just compounds the issues. We can consider sleep a “force multiplier” meaning it accentuates any conditions. If you are getting fitter; sleep helps to enhance this. If you are getting rundown; a lack of sleep makes it even worse.

How Your Relationships Become Affected

When you’re stressed, and your body feels rundown, you probably have a short fuse with those you love. It’s important to remember: this isn’t your personality — it’s a chemical response in the body. The anger and outbursts caused by a lack of sleep are just going to push people away from you.

Your ability to focus and concentrate is also impacted by a lack of sleep. This makes it hard to give proper attention to those who need it most.

Your ability to be empathetic is also affected because of the stress hormones released from a lack of sleep. People will think you're being insensitive, but again, it’s a chemical response and not specifically you.

We should consider stress disorders a mental disorder, and it’s the most commonly occurring form of it. All of this stress contaminates us, and that can contaminate our relationships. You no doubt want to care and nurture for the ones you love, but a lack of sleep is preventing this.

Stress hormones from lack of sleep also impair your judgment. Your decision making becomes flawed and this can also have a serious impact on your relationships.

A lack of proper sleep — and the stress hormones associated — can make you depressed and anxious. Anxiety is another thing that negatively affects empathy. Anxiety may also be why you avoid your relationships, too.

Anxious people often appear to be shy and withdrawn, but they're simply avoiding stressful stimuli. This makes it difficult to deal with any relationship issues you may be going through, or start one in the first place.

These negative effects of a lack of sleep are compounding themselves and affecting your daily life and relationships.

How Do You Get Better Sleep?

The first thing to do is create a nightly wind-down routine and stick with it. The routine itself isn’t that important, but what is important is starting it at the same time each night, and staying consistent. The routine is the indicator to your body that sleep is coming, and it can transition to it quicker.

Avoid Blue Light 1–2 Hours Before Bed

The blue light from our electronics is damaging when it comes to sleep. This type of light can suppress melatonin production in the brain, which will make it difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep. Cut out the blue light a few hours before bed. If you have to use screens, put them into night shift mode, or use a program like f.lux, which takes out blue light, and gives screens a more natural reddish glow.

Keep Your Room Dark and Cool

When you sleep, your body temperature naturally drops. By keeping your room cooler, you can help your body transition to sleep quicker. A warm room may make you drowsy, but it’s not conducive to deeper sleep. The National Sleep Foundation says the ideal temperature for sleep is between 60 to 67 degrees.

Darkness is also important for sleep. Just as blue light prevents melatonin from being secreted; darkness stimulates it. Investing in blackout curtains can be a great way to keep your room as dark as possible.

Avoid Caffeine and Alcohol Later in the Day

Both of these can seriously affect your sleep. Alcohol may put you to sleep, but it won’t give you that restorative, deep sleep you need. Caffeine has a “half-life” which can extend its effects for hours after you think it’s worn off. You might have to experiment when you have your last coffee of the day. If you are going to sleep at10:30 to11 pm — and had caffeine at 4 or 5 pm — some may still be in your system affecting your sleep.

Final Thoughts

There has always been a “badge of honor” for the ability to burn the candle at both ends. You can see now that not only is depriving yourself of sleep damaging to your health: it’s damaging your relationships.

You can’t expect to love and care for others if you haven’t cared for yourself. This isn’t about being selfish, but putting yourself in the best state to improve your life and the lives around you.