“I’m sorry I snapped at you, I was exhausted.”
We’ve all had those nights where we’ve tossed and turned for hours with no hope of getting a good night’s sleep. Whether stress from a nagging situation kept you up for hours or your partner’s snoring hit an all-time high, quality shut-eye can be challenging to achieve sometimes.
Afterward, when it’s time to wake up, life seems like it’s against you — you’re late to work, you’ve spilled your coffee, and your child missed the bus. Experiencing a day like this every now and then because of poor sleep isn’t the end of the world. The problem is when days like this happen consistently, as it can lead to displaced frustration towards the people closest to us, like our loved ones.
Can sleep quality affect your relationships?
The short answer is yes.
How Lack of Sleep Affects Health and Relationships
By: Kelly Murray, Adult Sleep Coach, FDN-P
The physical effects of sleep deprivation can be profound. They range from mood swings to daytime fatigue to memory problems and much more. So, how do these symptoms affect your relationships?
Mood Swings
This one is pretty obvious. Lack of sleep has a tendency to make even the cheeriest of people wake up irritable, mainly due to improper brain functionality since the brain was unable to rest during sleep. This irritability can cause you to snap or not want to communicate at all, leading to strain in relationships.
Daytime Fatigue + Memory Problems
Daytime fatigue and memory problems can easily result in you forgetting an important event, like your partner’s work function or a sibling’s upcoming visit. Not only that, even if you do remember an event, fatigue can leave you feeling so depleted that you don’t even want to go anymore. This can contribute to further weakening connections with friends and loved ones.
3 Tips to Help You Turn It Around
1. Analyze Your Situation
Before you do anything, you first want to find the root cause of your sleep problems. Some of the causes are glaringly obvious, while others may not be (this is where lab testing can be extremely helpful in identifying hidden stressors that may be at play.) If your partner talks in their sleep and constantly wakes you up because of it, that’s a pretty easy issue to identify. However, things like thermoregulation and your sleep environment, eating certain foods before bed, or gut issues can play a huge role in getting a proper night’s rest.
One way to start tackling your sleep situation is by keeping a journal. In this journal, write down your nighttime routine — everything that you ate (even if hours before), room temperature, and anything affecting your bedroom environment are good to jot down. Doing this consistently will allow you to identify any differences in your routine while simultaneously making small changes to improve it. Also, jot down anything on your mind that is causing you stress so that you can get it out and onto paper. That way, it’s physically out of your system and you can take a look at your list with a fresh perspective in the morning instead of losing sleep all night worrying about it.
2. Adjust Accordingly
Once you have a firm grasp on what’s preventing you from getting proper shut-eye, you can now make adjustments. Some of these adjustments are harder than others. For example, if you sleep with a loud snorer, there are very few known ways to drown out the noise other than a sound machine and earplugs. Sleep problems stemming from trauma may also feel a little tougher to fix. There are solutions like support groups or online therapy to help begin the process, but healing may not begin immediately.
For more simple sleep problems, like eating certain foods or phone usage before bed, you can fix these things with a little dedication. Set a timer on your phone 1 hour before bedtime to let you know when it’s time to wind down and turn off the screens. This is a great way to minimize blue light exposure before going to sleep. (To learn more about how blue light impacts your sleep, read my blog post here.) If you love to eat late night snacks like chocolate before bed, try to find alternative foods that don’t contain caffeine or sugar in them so you can avoid cortisol spikes (which lead to night wakings). Go for a snack that has protein and complex carbohydrates, such as cheese and crackers or apple slices with nut butter.
3. Stay Consistent
It’s one thing to find out what's causing you to have poor sleep and implement changes. It’s another to stay consistent and make your adjustments a routine. You can’t stop having a nightcap before bed for a week and then pick the habit up again once you’re sleeping better. Or see a therapist once, deem yourself better, and decide to not go again without proper feedback. You have to keep up with your changes.
Turning your positive habits into a routine will allow you to follow them more easily. The longer you do them, the less they’ll feel like a chore. Once you’ve decided on some changes to make, talk to your friends and family, or someone you trust, about keeping you accountable. Continue journaling your habits to help you hold onto these adjustments.
It’s Not You, It’s My Sleep
As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, the first thing you should do if you’re experiencing symptoms of insomnia that are leading to faults in your relationships, is to identify the root cause. This is why I highly recommend functional lab testing to look at your hormones, gut health, thyroid, mineral deficiencies, and food sensitivities. We often have underlying hidden stressors that can’t be found no matter how much journaling and habit tracking we do. I incorporate lab testing into my adult sleep coaching program, so if this seems like something you want to look into, let’s talk. Give me a call and let’s get you sleeping again →
Read more articles on improving your sleep in my sleep blog. I have a ton of great resources and information for you just about every sleep situation. And if you can’t find what you’re looking for, tap that button above to talk with me.
My mission is to help you get the rest you deserve to be your best.
Sweet Dreams
Kelly Murray is a certified sleep coach and an award-winning pediatric sleep consultant based in Chicago offering sleep coaching services nationwide.