I'm dating someone new, but I get insomnia whenever we share a bed. What's wrong with me?
- Sharing a bed with your partner isn't a biological need, but a cultural norm, so it makes sense that you're having trouble adjusting.
- Neuroscience professor Roxanne Prichard said new environmental factors like noises, smells, and lighting in your partner's bedroom could be keeping your body awake.
- It also takes time for a person's body to adjust to sharing a bed, since our brains first perceive the presence of another human while sleeping as a threat of sorts.
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I recently started dating a guy. I like him, but when we share a bed at night I can't sleep, even when we're not cuddling and on separate sides of a queen-sized bed. I have no problem sleeping alone. I've been described as a great sleeper.
I'm 99% sure it's anxiety, which is something I definitely have. I'm not fixating on something specific while lying there, but I feel self conscious about how I look, how I sound, or if I'm disturbing him.
I know he wouldn't care if I moved around or slept weird, but realizing that hasn't helped me fall asleep when we're together.
I tried taking sleeping pills as a last resort, and even that hasn't worked. What do I do?
- New York
Dear New York,
It can feel as if everyone is meant to sleep in bed with their partner so when you have trouble, something is wrong with you.
In reality, couples started sharing beds out of economic necessity, not biological need, and the queen- and king-sized beds couples tend to share today were only created 80 years ago.
According to Roxanne Prichard, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of St. Thomas, it's normal that you have difficulty sharing a bed, and it likely stems from the novelty of the experience.
If you're sleeping at your partner's house, you're likely not used to the sounds, smells, and amount of light in their bedroom, Prichard told me, and that can make it more difficult for your body to get into sleep mode..
"Something about your sleep environment is off. It's not dark, cold, or quiet enough," she said.
Your sleep schedule could also be playing a role. If you start to feel sleepier earlier than your partner, but hold out going to bed until they do, you're forcing your body to miss its optimal bedtime window, according to Prichard.
"If you don't get in that window, you're kind of screwed for an hour to 90 minutes until your next sleepiness window comes. So if [your partner is] like, 'Oh, I'm going to bed at 10 o'clock' and your body isn't ready for sleep, that just makes you kind of sit in bed, being resentful that you're not sleeping," she said.
Though sleeping pills may sound like a good solution to this problem, they tend not to work, just like the experience you had with them. According to Prichard, that's because insomnia isn't a biological problem that a medication can fix. Rather, it's tied to your thoughts and emotions.
It takes time to adjust to a shared-bed sleeping arrangement
The anxiety you mentioned could definitely be playing a role in your insomnia, and contributing to the environmental factors Prichard brought up.
Even though you know your partner isn't judging you for how you sleep, your brain might not be getting that memo. Instead, it could be perceiving your partner's presence, which is fairly new, as a threat of sorts.
"Whenever your brain suspects physical danger (so whenever you experience any stress) it will de-prioritize sleep," Dr. Els van der Helm, the founder of sleep-coaching business Shleep, told Bustle. "Instead, it wants you to be physically safe. Therefore, it'll keep you awake or prevent you from getting into deep restorative sleep. Until your brain understands that it's a safe sleeping arrangement, it may be keeping you awake."
Unfortunately, that could mean continuing to share a bed and weather the sleepless nights until your brain starts to understand your partner isn't a threat. You could try a more low-stakes approach, like taking naps together, and see if that helps you adjust to co-sleeping at night.
But if you try these strategies and they don't seem to work, you should consider holding your ability to sleep, which can affect so many areas of your life, above sleeping-arrangement social norms.
There are plenty of couples who choose to sleep apart for their mental and physical health (30.9% of Americans want to do just that, according to a 2018 survey), and there's nothing wrong with that.
As Insider's resident sex and relationships reporter, Julia Naftulin is here to answer all of your questions about dating, love, and doing it — no question is too weird or taboo. Julia regularly consults a panel of health experts including relationship therapists, gynecologists, and urologists to get science-backed answers to your burning questions, with a personal twist.
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