Survivors experiencing post traumatic hypersomnia may feel fatigued, drowsy, low energy, and more. It's important to listen to your body and rest whenever possible. Excessive sleeping could also indicate other medical conditions, such as depression or sleep apnea.
It may be tempting to seek solace in slumber after a traumatic event, but a study from the October 2012 issue of Neuropsychopharmacology found that sleeping too soon after trauma might lead to increased post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms.
Sleep helps us to process memories. Scientists believe that sleep can aid in processing traumatic events, weakening emotions tied to the memory of the event and contextualizing the memory and storing it as information.
Because of the drain on your body due to the emotions involved, you will feel exhausted, and some will feel tired and emotionally drained because of the fight or flight response they seem to be going through so much of the time. It feels like PTSD can suck the life out of you if you let it.
It's normal to experience upsetting and confusing thoughts after a traumatic event, but in most people these improve naturally over a few weeks. You should visit your GP if you or your child are still having problems about 4 weeks after the traumatic experience, or the symptoms are particularly troublesome.
Trouble sleeping and nightmares are two symptoms of PTSD. You may find you are sleeping too little, or too much, or having nightmares. If these symptoms don't go away, get worse over time, or interfere with your daily life, it might be time to see a doctor.
According to an article in the Huffington Post, a “depression nap” is a way for those suffering from depression to avoid their feelings and use sleep as a coping mechanism.
Childhood trauma has been related to adverse behavioral, mental, and health outcomes later in life. Sleep may be a potential mechanism through which childhood trauma is related to adverse health.
Intrusive memories
Recurrent, unwanted distressing memories of the traumatic event. Reliving the traumatic event as if it were happening again (flashbacks) Upsetting dreams or nightmares about the traumatic event. Severe emotional distress or physical reactions to something that reminds you of the traumatic event.
Responses to trauma can last for weeks to months before people start to feel normal again. Most people report feeling better within three months after a traumatic event. If the problems become worse or last longer than one month after the event, the person may be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Initial reactions to trauma can include exhaustion, confusion, sadness, anxiety, agitation, numbness, dissociation, confusion, physical arousal, and blunted affect. Most responses are normal in that they affect most survivors and are socially acceptable, psychologically effective, and self-limited.
intrusive thoughts or images. nightmares. intense distress at real or symbolic reminders of the trauma. physical sensations such as pain, sweating, nausea or trembling.
Trauma often manifests physically as well as emotionally. Some common physical signs of trauma include paleness, lethargy, fatigue, poor concentration and a racing heartbeat. The victim may have anxiety or panic attacks and be unable to cope in certain circumstances.
Simply put, when a person experiences something traumatic, adrenalin and other neurochemicals rush to the brain and print a picture there. The traumatic memory loops in the emotional side of the brain, disconnecting from the part of the brain that conducts reasoning and cognitive processing.
Excessive drug or alcohol use.
Drug and alcohol use can be a slippery slope. Stimulants and depressants may help to numb feelings, pain and subside those negative thoughts that are actively being avoided, but excessive use can lead to severe health complications, addiction, overdose and death.
The lab experiments confirmed that people who experienced more deep sleep at night had the least anxiety the following day. The online survey confirmed that the amount and quality of sleep that people got reliably predicted their anxiety levels the following day.
A maladaptive coping mechanism may include avoiding a person or a situation which causes you stress, becoming defensive or harming yourself in some way. While adaptive coping mechanisms are healthy and positive, maladaptive ones are negative and could harm your health in the long run.
PTSD seems to disrupt sleep by increasing the duration of light sleep; decreasing the duration of deep, restorative sleep; and interfering with rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, the stage of sleep linked to dreaming and nightmares. This often results in insomnia—difficulty falling and staying asleep—and daytime fatigue.
A person with PTSD has four main types of difficulties: Re-living the traumatic event through unwanted and recurring memories, flashbacks or vivid nightmares. There may be intense emotional or physical reactions when reminded of the event including sweating, heart palpitations, anxiety or panic.
In conclusion, posttraumatic stress disorder after the intense stress is a risk of development enduring personality changes with serious individual and social consequences.
Feeling jittery, nervous or tense.
Women experiencing PTSD are more likely to exhibit the following symptoms: Become easily startled. Have more trouble feeling emotions, experience numbness. Avoid trauma reminders.
The freeze, flop, friend, fight or flight reactions are immediate, automatic and instinctive responses to fear. Understanding them a little might help you make sense of your experiences and feelings.