Do you know what ‘sleep drive’ is? Put simply it is how sleepy or not you are feeling. A high sleep drive means you feel very tired and want to sleep, whilst a low sleep drive means you would find it difficult to sleep, and should feel awake and alert instead.
In this blog, Dr Lindsay Browning explains more about what sleep drive is, what effects sleep drive and how to ensure sleep drive is high, at the times when you need to go to sleep.
Sleep drive explained
Your sleep drive works in a similar way to hunger. You will feel increasingly hungry as the time passes since you last ate. Then, once you eat, your hunger (or ‘drive for food’) will reduce.
If you eat a small snack, your hunger will be reduced a little, but not as much as if you had eaten a whole meal. The same thing happens with sleep. The longer it has been since you last slept, the higher your sleep drive. Usually, this means the easier it will be for you to fall asleep. Once you sleep, your sleep drive reduces. And, the longer you sleep for, the more it reduces.
If you sleep for a long time (like all night), you will greatly reduce your sleep drive. However, if you only sleep for a short time, like taking a nap, you will only partially reduce your sleep drive. As soon as you wake, your sleep drive will start increasing again.
Sleep drive and a bad night’s sleep
What you should do about your high sleep drive after not sleeping well
When people are struggling with their sleep, they will often try to grab some extra sleep wherever and whenever they can. They believe that any sleep is better than none and that it is the most important thing.
As an example, if you have a terrible night’s sleep or you are disturbed in the night and struggle to go back to sleep before your alarm, your sleep drive is likely to still be quite high in the morning. You may decide to stay in bed and get more sleep, rather than getting up at your usual time, to ‘catch up’. However, be warned, this can impact on your level of sleep drive when it comes to going to bed the next evening.
Instead, I suggest, if you get up at your usual time and power through the day on less sleep, which I appreciate can be difficult as your sleep drive will be quite high all day, it does mean you would find it easier to get to sleep that night.
You may want to take a nap, but depending on what time you take it, you may find it reduces your sleep drive to the point that you then find it harder to get to sleep at night. This then leads to another bad night. You can see how it can lead to a vicious circle.
To nap or not to nap? Take a read of my blog to help you decide:
It might seem paradoxical, but if you don’t allow yourself to compensate for a bad night’s sleep, then sleep the following night will be easier. You will have a really high sleep drive. This can help you to break an ongoing pattern of bad sleep.
High sleep drive and struggling to sleep
Whilst a high sleep drive can make going to sleep easier, it is not always that straightforward. There are other factors which can stop us from falling off to sleep, even though we ‘should’ have a high sleep drive and feel sleepy enough to no longer stay awake.
One of these factors may be our internal 24-hour clock, also known as our circadian rhythm. Our circadian rhythm is what helps us to feel alert and awake in the daytime and sleepy at night. It also dictates when the body produces hormones. One of these is melatonin, which tells your body that it is the right time to sleep. Sometimes, melatonin production and sleep drive can get out of sync.
A common example of sleep drive and the circadian rhythm being out of sync is ‘jet lag‘. You are likely to have a high sleep drive because you have been travelling, are in a different time zone and have been awake a long time. However, you can’t sleep, because you body clock is out of sync and has not produced the melatonin. This is because your body’s circadian rhythm thinks it is sill daytime. It means you still find it hard to sleep, despite a high sleep drive.
It is important that we try to keep our internal clock and sleep drive in sync to help with falling of to sleep easily.
Understanding with your sleep drive and circadian rhythm
Understanding the ‘science’ behind sleep is useful. It can help you to ensure you have a high sleep drive at times when you want to go to sleep. It also means that you can try to maintain a regular sleep pattern to help your circadian rhythm and ensure you are producing melatonin at the right time to help you fall off to sleep. These areas are all covered and explained in any easy-to-understand way in my book Navigating Sleeplessness.
If you feel you need more support, then do explore my Sleep services, which for adults, includes CBT-I treatment, specially for those with longer term sleep issues, including insomnia.