You plop your head down on the pillow. Like most nights after a hard day’s work, you unassumingly doze off, not really expecting much aside from the blissful, tranquil, nullifying void of rest. It’s largely that for the first four, five, or six hours; relatively uneventful and undisturbed … until about 3 a.m. All that lies before you now is a horrifying attachment to the present, your mind cogently awake and your body stiff as a board as a shadowy apparition lurches in the periphery of your bedroom. The form moves closer and closer, looming larger and larger, leaving you feeling absolutely helpless. Then as quickly as it came, the shadowy mass disappears. You feel relief as your muscles reappear. Birdsong echoes through the window as sunlight leaks through the blinds. You’re not so much harmed and haunted as you are confused.
What Happens During Sleep Paralysis?
If you’ve ever experienced anything remotely similar to the scenario above, you were probably left scratching your head at whatever just transpired. Contrary to what superstition may have you believe, the answer lies not in the sinister power of a demonic or alien entity, but in science, a mind-body disconnection formally known as sleep paralysis. As the name implies, sleep paralysis refers to the state in which you are unable to move or speak before falling asleep or waking up. The name, though self-explanatory, only encapsulates the superficial, surface-level features of the phenomena.
It’s perfectly normal to experience at least one or two sleep paralysis episodes in your lifetime, or even a few times a month. When you sleep, your muscles always naturally relax to the point of near-paralysis, a calming phase known as atonia that is often spurned by an increase in neurotransmitter activity – namely, as research shows, in GABA and glycine. Both neurotransmitters are considered inhibitory mechanisms, decreasing nervous system activity and blocking (or slowing down) signals in the brain. This muscle inhibition is crucial to prevent injury in deep REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, where dreamers risk acting out their dreams as they would if they were awake.
REM sleep provides a crucial spin-cycle for your psyche, promoting learning, memory, and physical and mental health benefits, among other things. Conversely, lack of sufficient REM sleep has been shown to correlate with greater risk of anxiety, depression, migraines, and an overall lack of adequate emotional regulation. The entire reasoning behind how and why REM paralysis and sleep paralysis happens is not fully understood, but there are a few conditions that are known to be associated with them, including preexisting anxiety, sleep disorders such as narcolepsy, or a family history of sleep paralysis. Even something as seemingly trivial as sleeping on your back could exacerbate the risk of having one of these waking nightmares.
Should You Be Concerned?
Sleep paralysis is perfectly normal. In essence, people experience sleep paralysis every night they fall asleep, and studies estimate more than half of the global population will experience it at least once in their lives. Where that sleep paralysis becomes problematic, however, is when it occurs while you’re “awake” or in a state of perceived wakefulness, and when that abrupt wakeful paralysis occurs with regularity.
Not only does it present a terrifying hallucinatory delusion of helplessness, but waking sleep paralysis is also an annoying and unpleasant nuisance in general, disrupting your sleep cycle, ease, and overall peace of mind. Physically, sleep deprivation can exacerbate weight gain, perhaps due to its impact on the body’s supply of leptin, a hormone that regulates hunger and appetite. It can also be a fairly tricky, frustrating, chicken-or-egg conundrum on the mental health front; is the anxiety and depression fueling your chronic sleep paralysis episodes or are the chronic sleep paralysis episodes fueling your worsening anxiety and depression? Either way, it’s a lose-lose quagmire, and at its worst, chronic sleep paralysis and sleep disturbances have been shown to correlate with worsened suicidal ideation.
More often than not, sleep paralysis episodes are typically isolated incidents. If you notice these episodes occurring with ongoing regularity, if you experience sudden sleepy spells that feel like narcolepsy, or if you feel worsened anxiety around nighttime, consult your general health care practitioner for guidance on treatment options for a better night’s sleep. If you are experiencing any significantly low moods or mental distress in general, we strongly recommend that you seek help, whether via avenues such as the Crisis Text Line (741-741), the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (800-273-8255), support groups for those dealing with similar struggles, or a trusted therapeutic professional.
How Can You Deal With Sleep Paralysis?
When you see a demonic abstraction across the room and you are unable to defend yourself from its haunts – minute after minute, night after night – it’s understandable why you would feel your fair share of helplessness. But you don’t need an exorcist to combat this menace. You can implement a myriad of strategies to mitigate the risk of having another bad sleep paralysis episode.
First and foremost, if you frequently sleep on your back, you’ll want to consider changing positions to favor one side. If that doesn’t make much of a difference, try to take initiative in changing the room around you into a more comfortable sleeping setup. Light, especially the blue light that often emanates from electronic screens, is a particularly strong promoter of insomnia, confusing one’s natural circadian rhythm that is supposed to regulate the timing of sleep. Limit electronic device usage in the bedroom when possible.
Promote good, comfortable airflow: Not too hot, nor too cold. Avoid eating or drinking anything close to bedtime that could interfere with your digestive system, but especially go out of your way to avoid caffeinated or alcoholic beverages, which are notorious for disturbing the circadian rhythm in high quantities. Frequent exercise has also been scientifically shown to be a healthy, natural promoter of sleep. There is a mixed consensus regarding whether or not working out directly before bed interferes with sleep activity, but experts caution those who suffer from chronic sleep disorders to avoid doing so.
If you don’t experience much success with any of the above strategies, we strongly advise consulting a health care professional who can offer expert clinical or pharmaceutical treatments tailored to your personal needs. Sleep paralysis episodes can be scary, but don’t let them diminish your quality of life.