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Smoking and Your Sleep

If you want to get eight straight hours of sleep, smoking is a major interference. Nicotine, like caffeine, is a stimulant, and it will keep you from relaxing and falling asleep at night. Scientists are currently working on nighttime nicotine replacements, but there are already things that you can do to help limit the effect of smoking on your sleep.

Kicking the Habit: Smoking and Sleep Disorders

Most smokers know that smoking can lead to emphysema, lung cancer, and a host of other breathing-related diseases, as well as bad body odor and halitosis. Now that laws have banned smoking in many public spaces, bars and restaurants, it’s even harder to smoke in peace.

Now, a series of findings by leading scientists show that smoking contributes to sleep deprivation and other sleep disturbances, as well as depression and narcolepsy. Sleep is divided into early light sleep and deep or REM Sleep. Smokers stay longer in the first stage, which is non-regenerative, and less time in the second, regenerative period of sleep. They also have a harder time falling asleep in the first place, since nicotine is a stimulant. As reported in Science Daily by Dr. Naresh Punjabi, nicotine can contribute to severe sleep disorders: “Smokers commonly experience difficulty falling asleep due to the stimulating effects of nicotine.” Punjabi also notes that as the night goes on, withdrawal from nicotine may further disrupt your sleep. Spectral EEG analysis confirms that nicotine can severely interrupt regular sleep patterns. In fact, cigarette smokers are four times as likely as nonsmokers to report not feeling rested after a night’s sleep.

These impaired sleeping habits may in turn contribute to the difficulty that many smokers experience when they try to quit. In order to kick a habit such as smoking, which is often long-standing and part of a person’s everyday life, it helps to be well-rested and as anxiety-free as possible. If you are sleep-deprived and can’t think straight, quitting cigarette smoking may much more difficult.

So what can be done to make things better? Scientists are in the process of working on nicotine replacement devices, so that people with smoking habits will not feel the need to light up before going to bed. Until then, the obvious answer is to quit smoking. But there are a few things that any smoker can do to get a better night’s rest.

Avoid smoking right before bedtime.Plan to have your last cigarette at least 4 hours before you go to sleep. Try to cut down on the number of cigarettes that you smoke, even if you can’t stop altogether. As the effects of the nicotine leave your body, you will be able to fall asleep quicker and experience longer, regenerative sleep.

Pay attention to your lifestyle and sleep environment.Make sure that your mattress and pillows are comfortable and are not too soft or too hard. A bad mattress or pillow may in fact contribute to your being unable to fall asleep at night. A healthy diet is also important, and staying well-hydrated will help fight the pernicious effects of nicotine and will help you to get a good night’s sleep.

Finally, try relaxation techniques, such as massage, progressive relaxation, guided imagery, toe tensing or deep breathing. Try drinking a sleep-inducing herbal tea such as chamomile before going to bed, or have a cup of warm milk with honey instead: the tryptophan in the milk will help to counteract the stimulating effects of the nicotine you’ve ingested.

The moral of the story is clear: if you’re a smoker, taking care of your sleep habits may well both make you feel better and make it easier for you to stop smoking.

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