Sleep is meant to be restful and restorative. We spend a third of our lives sleeping in hopes that we can be well-rested and ready to take on the other two-thirds we spend awake.
But sleep paralysis can interrupt the serenity of slumber, freezing you in an alarmingly half-awake, half-asleep state. While we’re used to being unable to control what we do in our dreams, we expect to be in control of our bodies when our conscious mind is awake. However, sleep paralysis can temporarily trap you in a scary state of suspension where your brain is cognizant yet your body doesn’t respond.
If you’ve experienced sleep paralysis, you’re likely wondering what in the world is actually happening to your body, what it means, and how you can prevent it from happening again. It’s a fairly common condition, so if you’re looking for answers, you’re not alone.
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What is sleep paralysis?
As it turns out, sleep paralysis is a normal part of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which is the fourth stage of sleep during which brain activity increases and dreaming occurs. Sleep paralysis is only considered to be a disorder when it happens outside of REM sleep, i.e., when your brain is aware of what’s happening.
Typically, sleep paralysis happens while you are falling asleep, shortly after you’ve fallen asleep, or while you’re waking up --- in the times when you’re in the twilight zone between sleep and wakefulness.
Sleep paralysis symptoms
Most commonly, sleep paralysis presents as an inability to move or speak even though you’re conscious. It tends to last anywhere between a few seconds to a few minutes, and longer episodes can be especially frightening or stressful. These are other possible symptoms of sleep paralysis:
- Vivid hallucinations that feel like they’re part of a dream
- Feeling like you’re being pushed down
- Thinking someone or something is in the room with you
- Feelings of fear or paranoia
- Trouble breathing
- Sweating
- Headaches and muscle aches
Sleep paralysis can feel like a panic attack that happens while you’re asleep due to symptoms like breathing trouble, sweating, intense fear or paranoia, chest or bodily pressure, etc. If you’re having these symptoms in the nighttime, it could actually be sleep paralysis. The reason why it can feel like a panic attack is due to the activity of REM sleep: increased heart rate, blood pressure, and irregular or rapid breathing.
While sleep paralysis can present in various ways, it’s generally categorized as any sleeping experience in which you are temporarily unable to move your muscles while feeling awake and aware of your paralysis. Episodes usually end on their own or when another person moves or touches the person experiencing sleep paralysis. You may or may not remember events of sleep paralysis or any hallucinations you might have had.
Sleep paralysis can occur in people of any age, but the first instances often happen between childhood and young adulthood. As mentioned earlier, it’s fairly common, affecting around 7.6% of people. But it can still be a very frightening or even physically uncomfortable experience, and this fear and discomfort doesn’t necessarily diminish for people who experience sleep paralysis episodes more than once.
Despite the fact that sleep paralysis can make you feel like you’re going to die, it actually isn’t dangerous or life-threatening. It usually doesn’t happen regularly enough to cause significant health problems. However, frequent experiences can lead to feelings of anxiety, especially surrounding bed and sleeping. This can make it harder to fall or stay asleep, which can then lead to health problems associated with sleep deprivation.
Why is your body immobilized during REM sleep?
The reason why your body becomes paralyzed in REM sleep is so that you don’t physically act out your dreams --- as that would basically defeat the purpose of sleeping. So this paralysis is actually a good thing, as long as you aren’t awake for it.
During normal REM sleep, nerve pathways in the brain prevent your muscles from moving via a process called atonia so that you don’t flail your arms and legs in response to whatever is happening while you dream. This paralysis is a good thing: it helps you stay asleep and stay safely in bed no matter what wacky things happen in your dreams.
If this muscle atonia fails to happen during REM sleep, the sleeper is then able to move and act out their dreams, which can be dangerous both to the person dreaming and any sleeping partners. This condition is called REM Behavior Disorder (RBD). The resulting bodily movements from RBD can be very minor, like leg twitches, but they can also be potentially disruptive or even dangerous, like kicking, flailing, sitting up, or leaving bed.
What causes sleep paralysis?
Studies on the causes of sleep paralysis have returned mixed results, and it’s a condition that can occur in otherwise normal, healthy sleepers. Experiences of sleep paralysis don’t necessarily indicate any underlying health conditions, sleep-related or otherwise, despite the fact that the experiences themselves can be scary.
While there isn’t a clear cause, research indicates a few factors that are associated with this condition:
- Anxiety disorders and excessive stress
- Depression and bipolar disorder
- Poor sleep quality and sleep deprivation
- Jet lag and other sleep disruptions
- Sleep disorders like narcolepsy, sleep apnea, and insomnia
- Sleeping on your back
- Alcohol and caffeine consumption
- Trauma and PTSD
- Genetics and family history
From this list, narcolepsy has the strongest correlation with sleep paralysis. Frequent or recurring instances of sleep paralysis could indicate narcolepsy, but this can also potentially occur for anyone experiencing chronic or severe sleep deprivation --- which includes a lot of people in the modern era, like doctors, shift workers, etc.
Can melatonin cause sleep paralysis?
Currently, there aren’t any studies demonstrating a link between melatonin supplementation and sleep paralysis. That said, taking melatonin can lead to more intense dreams due to its connection with REM sleep, the stage at which dreaming happens. However, remembering vivid dreams when you awaken doesn’t mean you’ve experienced sleep paralysis hallucinations.
Because studies demonstrate that melatonin can increase REM sleep, you might expect that more melatonin could lead to more opportunities for sleep paralysis, but there’s no explicit proof of this. On the contrary: melatonin may provide some relief from sleep disorders like insomnia, narcolepsy, and sleep apneas --- which means that melatonin supplementation may actually mitigate some of the major causes of sleep paralysis.
How to stop sleep paralysis
The good news is that the symptoms of sleep paralysis usually wear off within seconds to minutes, leaving no lasting physical effects. However, that doesn’t mean the event itself isn’t frightening. Even though it may feel very distressing in the moment, you can take solace in the fact that an isolated incident isn’t cause for alarm.
But if you’re experiencing recurring sleep paralysis and you’re concerned that you might have narcolepsy, you should talk to a medical professional, especially if your symptoms are interfering with your life. Certain medications like selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and stimulants can help you manage narcolepsy symptoms and stay awake.
Otherwise, engaging in healthy sleep practices, reducing stress, taking an antidepressant (if you have anxiety or depression), seeking therapy or trauma counseling, and sleeping on your side rather than your back may help prevent sleep paralysis --- and are otherwise good for you anyways.
How to improve the quality of your sleep
Good sleeping habits and healthy sleep hygiene are important factors in avoiding sleep paralysis, and they’re also important for overall health. There are many simple changes you can make that will contribute to higher-quality sleep: avoiding blue light and screens before bed; avoiding exercise, alcohol, or caffeine before bedtime; maintaining comfortable temperatures and dark or dim conditions in your bedroom; maintaining a regular sleep schedule; etc.
We all have a general idea of what healthy sleep patterns look like, but putting them into practice is another story.
But even if you do enact these changes in your life --- and even if you follow them to a tee --- they likely won’t be enough if you have underlying health issues like hormone or vitamin deficiencies. And this is frustrating to no end: making changes to your daily habits in hopes of feeling better but seeing no or minimal improvements.
That’s where the sleep testing offered by Base comes in: it can give you answers about what’s going on at an internal level, then offer you personalized suggestions for adjustments that can actually lead to feeling better.
Sleep paralysis is scary, and if you’ve had it happen once, you’re likely looking for ways to prevent it from happening again. Base can help you uncover the underlying causes of your sleep disturbances, and it can also help you track your health over time as your situation, lifestyle, or body chemistry changes, all from your own home.
It’s always a good idea to listen to what your body is telling you, and if you’re having sleep disturbances, Base offers an easy way to gain insights and make useful changes.
Struggling with sleep paralysis?
Take our quiz to build a bespoke testing plan that will help you improve your sleep and reduce sleep paralysis.
