How’s everybody holding up? As we head into Winter, life can feel like a bit of a slog. The mornings are darker. The days are shorter. And as you scroll the news headlines from under the shelter of your duvet, it can really feel like there are more reasons to stay in bed than there are to get up, get out, and face the world.
Scientists and psychologists have mapped out three basic types of stress: acute stress (sparked, for example, by a near-miss in traffic), episodic acute stress (triggered by constant crises), and chronic stress (long-term, grinding stress that never goes away).
In this journal entry, I want to focus on chronic stress – the unrelenting, slow-burn type. It’s the most harmful flavour of stress because your mind and body never get the reset they need to recover. Chronic stress reshapes sleep, mood, immunity, and even your decision-making. It quietly erodes your wellbeing over time.
And I suspect many of us are experiencing chronic stress at some level. In my hometown, Cape Town, alone, the past few years have brought drought, loadshedding, a pandemic, lockdown, more loadshedding, an economic crisis, the far-reaching effects of conflicts overseas, and now fuel shortages… You get the idea.
It’s a lot to live with.
Stress and worry are two of the most common disruptors of healthy sleep, and they tend to work in a loop. The more stressed you feel, the harder it is to fall asleep; the less you sleep, the more reactive your body becomes to stress.
While your mind is busy catastrophising outcomes or scanning for threats, your nervous system shifts into a state of high alert. Your heart rate rises, your cortisol levels stay elevated, and your brain struggles to transition into the slower, calmer rhythms it needs for deep, restorative rest.
Even if you do fall asleep, stress can fragment your sleep cycles. This leads to more awakenings, lighter sleep, and that familiar “wired-but-tired” feeling the next morning.
Worry also changes the way your brain processes nighttime cues. Over time, your brain can even start to associate your bed with thinking rather than resting. Instead of interpreting darkness and quiet as signals to wind down, an anxious mind will treat them as space for rumination. For overthinking. For replaying conflicts and rehearsing hard conversations. For sleepless nights.
What’s the solution? Improving sleep under stress is less about forcing yourself to “switch off”, and more about creating conditions that make it easier for your body to settle. A consistent wind‑down routine helps to retrain your nervous system: dimming the lights, reducing mental stimulation, and doing something predictably calming (reading, stretching, or slow breathing) signals to your brain that it’s safe to shift gears.
Keeping a notebook or journal next to your bed can also help to offload your worries so they don’t swirl in your mind. And while it sounds simple, maintaining regular sleep and wake times stabilises your internal clock, making it easier to fall asleep even when life feels chaotic.
Your physical environment plays a surprisingly powerful role too. We say it a lot at Lifson Linen, but research continues to show it’s true: high‑quality bedding isn’t just a luxury; it’s part of the physiology of good sleep.
Breathable fabrics help regulate temperature, which is essential because your body needs to cool slightly to enter deep sleep. Supportive pillows and a comfortable mattress reduce micro‑arousals – those tiny awakenings that you don’t remember, but that fragment your sleep cycles.
When your bed feels inviting, consistent, and comfortable, it becomes a cue for safety and rest rather than another source of tension.
Ultimately, improving sleep during periods of stress is about a lot of little things. Calm your mind, support your body, and shape a sleeping environment that makes rest feel natural again.
Over time, these habits help break the stress‑sleep cycle and restore the kind of deep, unhurried rest that makes everything else feel more manageable. And boy, oh boy… there’s a lot to manage these days!
