How to Manage Insomnia when you’re planning a Wedding- (blog extract) for Metro.co.uk by Eleanor

(image: Irish Wedding Blog)

Last month, my fiancé proposed to me at the Shard with a beautiful London sunset as the backdrop. We had been dating for 18 months and had talked about marriage and future plans, so it wasn’t a huge surprise. But it was still very exciting when he went down on one knee. As I accepted his proposal, we both felt huge excitement as we started this new chapter.

We were buzzing to share the news with our nearest and dearest. In the days following, I had so much adrenaline that I found it hard to sleep. I was regularly lying awake at 4am reading messages or trying to absorb the occasion. I found it hard to switch off. I wondered whether others had gone through something similar following their engagement, and how best to deal with the stress.

Alison Gardner, a psychologist and sleep expert at Sleep Station, which provides cognitive behavioural therapy and has been commissioned and approved by the NHS, tells Metro.co.uk: ‘Insomnia varies in how long it lasts and how often. It can be short-term (acute insomnia) or can last a long time (chronic insomnia). Acute insomnia can last from one night to a few weeks.’

Insomnia is defined as chronic when a person has trouble sleeping at least three nights a week, for a month or longer. For many people, a stressful event could be the trigger that stops them sleeping. This is normal, until insomnia becomes chronic.

Mental health problems and insomnia often come together. It’s been estimated that 60% of people who meet the criteria for major depressive disorders complain of insomnia. But life events, such as the stress of an engagement and planning a wedding, can lead to missed or poor sleep.

Cat Phillips, a blogger and writer, says: ‘I had sleep issues when planning my wedding. I had months of bad anxiety dreams about everything going wrong, and a reccurring dream where I needed to go to the church but one drama after another kept stopping me.

Cat says she was keen to make sure everything was thoroughly planned and set up so that the day would run smoothly. The stress was heightened by a recent addition to the family.

‘I also had a newborn baby while organising the wedding, so I desperately needed sleep all the time,’ she explains. Starting a fitness routine proved to be a positive step. An exercise plan can help to ease the stress of wedding planning.

Exercise really helped with my baby blues, it was great for relieving depression. Most important to remember, for me, was that its not about the wedding, but about the marriage.’

Read the rest of the article : https://metro.co.uk/2018/06/30/i-had-months-of-anxiety-dreams-how-to-manage-insomnia-when-youre-planning-a-wedding-7587582/?ito=cbshare

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